Week Eleven

Week Eleven. Exciting times. Things stop accelerating about here. In fact, someone’s jammed the brakes before you could even get to changing the gears. A few points of interest:

Today is a scary day. Very, very scary. It is potentially one of enormous disappointment. I suspect that it will be. Oh well, as Orwell wrote, somewhat out of context maybe, “…one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals.”

Or, in the words of the old Otis Rush song, “Hey hey, to make it you’ve got to try. That’s no lie.”

I’ve spent a good portion of my weekend fixing up a paper. I hope it turns out okay. Another box ticked in the road to the end of the semester, regardless.

There appears to be an inverse relationship between the amount of happiness that I experience and my football results. I’m conflicted.

I’ve been playing Torchlight. It’s certainly fun, if you like your Diablo. That said, I’ve been victim of a bug that gets my character stuck apparently randomly. What happens is that I’m happily left-clicking my way around when left-clicking suddenly becomes purely attack, even in the absence of enemies, and I’m left attacking thin air, unable to move. I thought it had to do with the inventory, because it tends to crop up after I open my inventory (and my cat’s). It might also have to do with the summoning, because this started once I began summoning things. But basically, since it first began I’ve discovered that it’s down to the Shift key getting stuck. I reloaded every time it happened initially, but now I just Alt-Tab my way out. Frustrating, but not exactly game-killing.

One week to Easter.

One week to the new Doctor Who.

My recent expenditure has left with scant little I can afford to spend on myself. Still, I have every intention to bolster my library with a number of books soon. Dickinson must come in soon; I’ve been without her work for too long. Rimbaud too. I’m also interested in the writing of Kawabata and Mishima. Recent writers of interest (that is, for me) include Javier Marías and Macedonio Fernandez. So, plenty of work to be done.

Although… I should really keep in mind that my waiting list has only been growing.

Oh, some new T-shirts arrived. One of them has a panda on it.

I’m supposed to get a haircut. Supposed. I don’t really think I need one yet. But I guess I’ll try to get one today.

Right. Have a good Monday everyone. Including all my working friends. Who will no doubt not have a good Monday, but it would be mean to hope otherwise.

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Sine Wave

Metre

No, I’m not out of the woods yet. I thought I would be soon enough, but yesterday proved otherwise.

Work

Thankfully, it doesn’t affect my work. It seems premature to suggest that there is light at the end of the tunnel for school work, but that really appears to be the case. I’m sure I’ll be changing tune soon enough, though.

My Sociology test came and went. I’m now wondering if I didn’t do what was expected of me. Well, only one way to find out.

Today we’re starting on King Lear.

As far as writing goes, everything is also going pretty well. I thought of it in three stages, and I’m probably going to finish the first phase within the month, optimistically. When Phase One is done, it will then simply be a matter of… well, figuring out Phase Two.

I’m making up a lot of things. Then again, in a sense, that’s what this job is, isn’t it?

In any case, I guess you could say that in some respect, everything is falling into place. That would be spot-on, and yet it also couldn’t be further from the truth.

Reading

Finished Slow Learner. Liked a couple of stories; didn’t like the others. Not sure what I’ll read next, though by the time you read this I should already have picked something.

Comedy

The Road: A Comedic Translation (Part 4). [via The Millions]

Fibre

They fixed up some new fibre optic network thing yesterday. I’m sure everyone tells you the same damn thing, but darn, when technology moves, it moves. The surreptitiousness with which hard disk sizes double and prices half still surprises me even now. And it wasn’t so long ago when I was proud to have my 56K line.

Sure, I sound like less of a nerd and more of an uncle at a kopitiam in saying that, but still, it’s magnificent to watch. With luck, maybe I’ll get to be Tron in my lifetime.

It also implies that I probably need to get to upgrading my desktop. Well, I don’t need to, but I sure would like to.

Erased

I never listened very much to Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. I’ve been rectifying that over the past few days, though. It’s a wonderful album, and is a snug fit with the sort of mood I’m in right now. Great music.

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Beckett On A Budget

Note: This was supposed to go up on 26 February. I don’t know why it didn’t but here it is now. Since then, I’ve received a new copy of Essays, but it’s still slightly damaged, though I suppose it’s something I can live with, and I can’t bring myself to trouble them again. I’ve also received The City And The City.

Here is a randomly arranged list of books bought recently:

• Essays, by George Orwell

The book arrived on Wednesday. It’s the sumptuous Everyman’s edition. I ordered it from the Book Depository, but it arrived somewhat damaged, with a crumped and folded dust jacket. I contacted the representatives and they gave me a very prompt reply. And while I’m sure it wasn’t the simplest thing to arrange, they were certainly able to help. I’m definitely shopping there again.

• Endgame and Act Without Words, by Samuel Beckett

I bought this from the NUS Co-Op, which either sounds like special forces or a chicken habitat depending on how you read it. It was cheap because school prices can usually be a bit better if it’s being used as a textbook.

• More Pricks Than Kicks, by Samuel Beckett

Again I got this from the NUS Co-Op, at half off, in fact. They’re having some kind of clearance sale now. Who would’ve thought I’d be shopping there like it was Kinokuniya?

• Dream Of Fair To Middling Women, by Samuel Beckett

This was found among a mess of books in the MPH store at Raffles City. They’re undergoing renovations soon and have used it as an excuse to get rid of many old copies of books. Actually, now that I think of it, I believe renovations have already started. It’s not in the best condition, but it was cheap and I think minor things like these add character.

• The Tempest, by Billy McShakespeare

Pelican Shakespeare edition.

• Nazi Literature In The Americas, by Roberto Bolaño

I was using this to test if the Book Depository would work well for me, and it did!

• Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes

Replacement for my old copy, which I’m either giving off or have already given off. This book was part of a reading programme I had in secondary school. It was probably the only book I really enjoyed and it became one of my first true loves.

• The City And The City, by China Miéville

I haven’t read anything by him before. I thought I should try. It hasn’t arrived yet. Probably later today.

• Nocturnes, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Pre-ordered. It’s the tiny paperback edition, also known as the student-on-a-budget edition. It should be coming in under a month.

As you will have noticed, I have been completing the Beckett section of my library with a trio of cheap books. I wasn’t specifically looking for him. It just fell into place that way.

I’m also very happy with my experience with the Book Depository so far.

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Quietly we watch the gloaming.

TV

I was watching a bit of the Channel 5 lawyer show, The Pupil. I found it fairly interesting. Most curiously, it reminded me of Channel 8 dramas. That is, it’s like a strange blend of the very well-established local Chinese drama form and the seemingly new and teeming local English drama. The script flowed well, for the most part. At least in my view. Of course, it gets away with it mostly because it’s a bunch of lawyers. Nothing wrong with that. I use that trick too. That said, sometimes someone pops in and says something completely unnatural, and it irks you a little bit.

Extremely dramatic though. Like The Practice or something. I’m sure all my lawyer friends will tell me that it’s nothing like that. The only thing that seems remotely realistic is the fact that there’s a lot of photocopying to be done. Of course, I’m just guessing. Maybe it really is all that exciting in real life. Then, damn, I should’ve been a lawyer.

Although, I think, I should say that the realism bit isn’t actually a problem for me. I’m just pointing it out. Almost no television (except documentaries, of course) would work without throwing realism out of the window. Even reality TV, as you will no doubt tell me.

I’ll keep my eye on this. I’ve been mildly impressed by the recent English shows in some respects. Fighting Spiders, I think, caught my attention for a while (though it was really long with plot threads that I didn’t really enjoy). Red Thread too (until I realised it was really a soap marketed as a gripping drama). The water polo one was completely not to my tastes. The Pupil seems okay, if there’s something about its stock characters that disturbs me.

Trine

Trine is fun. It somehow reminds me of LittleBigPlanet. Except it’s single-player. And you get to smack things. For a 5-dollar game, it’s certainly turning out to be quite excellent.

Tekkonkinkreet

I hope to get to watch Tekkonkinkreet. I’m looking for it. In the meantime, can anyone tell me if it’s any good?

Three Percent

A review of the latest Kenzaburo Oe book to be translated by Grove Press, The Changeling. [via Three Percent]

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Assortment of things.

Sorry, Shakespeare

I was going to watch The Tempest. It’s in April. I was saving up for it. I even had a small fund established and had pretty much saved the money I needed for a good ticket. I think I’ll perish the thought, though. Firstly because almost no one around me will watch Shakespeare. Also, it does have a prohibitive price considering the fact that most of my friends are poor students. Finally, it is a little strange to ask random people out for Shakespeare.

I suppose the money can be put to good use in other places. For instance, I also have an Audubon fund running; I hope to obtain Birds Of America this year. And there are camera plans too, of course.

Things We Like

I finished my first run of Mass Effect 2 yesterday. Lovely stuff. Certainly like it better than the first installment, but while the finale sets you up for the third very successfully, it also feels a little unsatisfying in terms of the stand-alone game.

I’m moving onto Empire: Total War, but I’ve also tried my hand at some Trine, and I really enjoyed my time with it. That is, the first twenty minutes or so. I really dig the presentation, although for some curious reason my movie files don’t manage to complete. They just stop halfway as if they’d finished. No biggie, but still a small irritation.

Books

I ordered five books online. A stand-alone copy of The Tempest, the Everyman’s edition of Orwell’s Essays, a new copy of Flowers For Algernon, a China Mieville’s The City and The City, and the forthcoming paperback edition of Ishiguro’s Nocturnes (preordered, that is). I suppose that will be all for my book expenditure for a while.

Work

Not exactly fantastic, but at least I’ve got stuff done here and there. Having been writing so much, I’d forgotten just how short a thousand words actually is, so when I tried to draft one of my essays yesterday, I had to sort of crimp it down to make it fit. It’s also been a long time since I did any such writing, so I’m sure that first draft is fraught with awkward expressions and ugly sentences.

But I have two others to deal with and a project, and a test. Or two. So that’ll have to wait.

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Past Lives and Dream Deaths

Girl

I was temporarily convinced that I was girl in my past life. Well, not exactly temporarily. I wrote a section of my work yesterday (from the perspective of a girl) and I realised that I wouldn’t have been able to do it in such and such a way if it had been from a guy’s. I just know how to approach it better like this, I think. Which makes no logical sense, but it’s good to know what I’m okay at and what I’m not quite okay at.

The Collector

I dreamt this dream where a relative of mine died. It wasn’t frightening at all. It was just quite sad, but I think I always knew that it was just a dream, so it didn’t quite have the effect that it might have been intending to have. The most interesting thing about it was the old man that came up to the front of my flat. He stood on the grass, at some distance, and pointed to my door. And as with so much of our dreams, this immediately made sense to me. He would point and stare at whichever household he had to make his announcement to. It was just a natural law.

He came up to the door next and we opened it and we talked. He came to collect something. He was a nameless old man in a blue suit, but I called him the Collector. It was a name I’d made up. I didn’t know what it was that he collected (nope, not the body), but he collected something. And then he did his job with his perfectly straight face and we were like friends. I didn’t blame him for anything. I didn’t see him as the harbinger of some mysterious doom. No, he was just a guy doing his job.

That’s not to say that the loss of a relative was nothing sad. I was sad. I remember crying in the dream, remembering all the stuff that we’d done together, a smile, a face, a joke, and some lost epiphanies. I was really upset. I didn’t wake up in tears or anything, which led to my belief that I must have known that it was a dream, at least on some level, and that I’d wake up and it would be okay.

Reading

I’m now reading Wena Poon’s The Proper Care Of Foxes. This comes after my second reading of Gatsby. I read that a long time ago. I read it again because it’s in my course. I realised as I did that that I had clean forgotten almost everything about it. Now I have to write an essay about it.

A Link Rojak

Hello. Here are some random things.

Turn Left

A number of Doctor Who scripts by Russell T. Davies are available for download here. [via The Writer's Tale]

Theatre, Not TV

Adrian Pang is leaving MediaCorp to focus on his efforts in theatre. [via The Straits Times] I suppose this means I should forget about that idea of writing a drama series with him as my lead.

The (Not-So-)Quick Brown Fox

Jumps over the (not-so-)lazy dog.

[via The Book Bench]

Unnamed

“There are two poles  — one says we’re just this machine, and the other says, what a piece of work is man. I did not want to come down on one side or the other. It’s possible that this poor guy, with enough research and enough time, could have solved his problem  — but essentially, the mystery at the heart of his entire being can never be solved.”

Joshua Ferris talks about his new book, The Unnamed. [via The Barnes & Noble Review]

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The Year Ahead

While busily locked in the throes of misery and attempting to extricate myself from complete depression, it was somewhat interesting to note that we are in fact at the end of a very unusual year, and that there are a few nice things to look forward to in the coming year.

There are, for instance, books that I’m meant to read next year, and with the likes of Banville’s The Infinities and Morrison’s A Mercy on my list, I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’m in for a good year.

But there are a bunch of new books that I’m waiting to get a hold of as well. While I don’t keep up with the industry as much as I would like to, it’s easy to see a few translations at least popping up in the next year. Off the top of my head, I can think of one or two new Bolaño books and the Saramago book about the elephant. (I was going to say Murakami’s 1Q84 but I think that’s in 2011.) And there are still some books that have only just been released that I’ll be looking to get my hands on as well, including Saramago’s Small Memories and Vonnegut’s Look At The Birdie.

Then… games! Plenty of games to be looking forward to. It scares me a little that many of them are coming in the first quarter of the year, but we’ll see how it goes and… improvise.

I believe there’s a new Radiohead album coming. I remember reading it somewhere. It doesn’t feel like it’s been so long since In Rainbows was released, but that’s only because the queality of that album left me more than a little spoiled. Let’s hope that this turns out to be one of the highlights of the year.

I suppose there’s going to be a new Beatles release, but after the monumental Remasters releases, I don’t think there’s very much that’s going to top that, so it’s likely to be more low-key. I’m also curious to see what the Last Shadow Puppets come up with next.

There’s also new TV. Ashes To Ashes is on its final series, in particular, and I’m curious to find out how it ends. (I haven’t actually watched the first two series, just Life On Mars, because I think it hasn’t shown over here yet, but it’s still good to know that it’s coming in 2010.)

And finally, I’ve been trying to plan my camera upgrades for a long, long time. Word has it that a new D700-type FX model will be coming soon, which makes a lot of sense, and maybe then I can start to properly plan the large-scale changes in my kit.

So, it’s going to be a promising year, even if it isn’t going to be particularly happy. While still leaning closely on the edge of total despair, it’s nice to think that there are things to look forward to.

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Stuffing Stockers

2009 is practically over, but before it’s done with, we’ve got Christmas to take care of! I thought to list down some books and music that I’ve enjoyed in the past year just as a quick sort of summary, but also as a source of last-minute gift suggestions. Five each (plus bonuses), and I tried to keep them to recent releases, which is much easier for music than it is for books, considering my reading patterns.

This is also by no means a best-of list, especially considering how my tastes can sometimes be rather esoteric. It’s more of a review of things that I’ve enjoyed in the past year. I hope that you and yours can too.

So, if you’re running short of ideas and running short on time, consider giving these a shot. Alternatively, give yourself a little Christmas treat after a long year.

Books

2666
Roberto Bolaño

For a period of time after reading 2666, I couldn’t read anything else without feeling underwhelmed. Bolaño’s opus is a towering achievement, at turns absurdly funny and hopelessly dark, at once irreverent, unabashed, sprawling and intense. While it is true that one’s mileage may vary with regards to certain portions of the text, the quality of Bolaño’s prose never slips, which ought to be a remarkable achievement except for how it is overshadowed by the book’s immense ambition and spectacular beauty. It is works like these that inspire the very sort of hope that we should have in art, where imagination is vested with powers incomparable and the written word has the ability to intone, inspire, crush and create. It is works like these that remind you the importance of art, as well as its limitless nature.

[You can get this in a couple of humongous hardcover editions, a new one-volume paperback, or the box set that split it up into three books. I liked the one I have the best, which is the three-book edition.]

All-Star Superman
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely with Jamie Grant

Grant Morrison is my favourite comic book writer, and sometimes one of my favourite living writers. I say sometimes because in the multitude of his ambitions, he quite frequently (if I dare say) falls somewhat short. But on the good days, when it all comes together, Morrison is able to take the comic book medium to quite incredible heights. All-Star Superman sees Morrison in some of his best form, reimagining the Superman story in a manner both bold and brilliant. It all comes together (with Quitely’s art and Grant’s inks) in a package that makes you realise the things that all things are possible in the comic medium.

[You can get the collected edition in two volumes, which are available in hardcover and (I think) paperback. I'm not sure if you'll have too much luck hunting down the individual issues.]

Death At Intervals
José Saramago

Of Saramago’s many otherworldly talents, one of them appears to be the ability to make the most absurd plots function. In Death At Intervals, he tells the fable of a country in which everyone, one day, just stops dying. At the hands of a lesser writer, this would probably have drowned in some unspectacular, but Saramago somehow manages to pull it off. What emerges is (as one would expect from a Saramago novel) a bleak exploration of human nature. Every celebration is simply a secret waiting to reveal its cost.

What I didn’t expect, however, was just how humorous the whole thing was. In these pages, Saramago finds the perfect balance between the more piercing perspectives into human beahaviour and the somewhat irreverent and unexpected jokes. It’s a brilliant thing to see. (He wryly lampoons everything from the government, the mob, and even the editors.)

The second half of the novel takes an even more unexpected turn and I am well aware that this will probably not succeed as well as the first half of it. Within it, Saramago decides to personify death, and his characterisation of her is arguably less likely to be as convincing as the remarkable first half of the novel. Nevertheless, I liked it, because it surprised me how it had a certain type of sweetness that I wouldn’t have expected to see outside of the very best children’s fiction.

[This is available in paperback in a variety of covers. There was a black hardcover a while back, but if you ask me, the purple Vintage edition with the cute comic art cover is probably the best representation of its contents.]

Pandora In The Congo
Albert Sánchez Piñol

At the heart of Pandora In The Congo is a writer who writes the tale of a certain Marcus Garvey. It begins by caricaturising the adventure novel, and then bursts into one of its own in the tradition of Conrad and Rider Haggard.

Piñol seizes you from the get-go with his startling imagination and boundless energy, and leads you through a novel like the architect of a good rollercoaster ride. It has thrills, spills, blood, wit, candour, altruism, hearts of darkness, romance and discourses on human nature. It asks difficult questions! It enthralls and excites! It has murder! It has villains! It has ugly humans doing ugly things! It has frightening underground humanoids! It has romance in the trees! What’s not to like?

[I've only ever seen a paperback edition of this.]

The Way Through Doors
Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball’s book is in essence a variation of The Arabian Nights. It is a scheme of things that appeals to us, I think, because of our inherent desire to believe in the power of stories. In order to prevent Mora Klein from slipping into slumber (and thus causing her dreadful harm), Selah Morse, our wonderfully unreliable narrator, has to tell her stories. It is a celebration of the artform in a manner both earnest and sweet, albeit slightly challenging because of its charming oddness and unusual form.

This was a happy accident for me. I picked it up not knowing what I was getting into. I ended up delighted and rather mesmerised. There is a purity and beauty to this that reminds us that perhaps the best parts of our lives are reserved for those unafraid to dream.

[I got this on paperback. I don't know if it comes in any other form, but that Vintage edition was put together in the most lovely fashion.]

Bonus Mention

Your Inner Fish
Neil Shubin

Here’s one additional book I thought I ought to mention. Unlike the rest of the books here, it’s a non-fiction book that essentially deals with the theory that we’ve all evolved from fish. It’s written with great clarity and much enthusiasm, and I’m sure this will win Natural History more than a few new students.

Music

Abbey Road [2009 Remaster]
The Beatles

The Beatles return with their entire catalogue remastered, and I am of the opinion that they are quite remarkable. Nowhere is this more welcome (well, to me, anyway) than with Abbey Road. The differences between the remaster and the original will probably not be as pronounced on Abbey Road as compared to some of the other albums, but it’s these differences that reinvigorate the album and give it a new dimension. The percussion pulsates in She Came In Through The Bathroom Window. The bass drives The End forwards in a way I could never have dreamed. Like I said, it’s not that the differences are night and day, but what differences they are.

Funny feeling, this. It’s 2009, and the Beatles rock again.

[This is available as a single album release and, if it's a special someone who happens to be a Beatles nut, as part of The Beatles Stereo Box.]

The Hazards Of Love
The Decemberists

The Decemberists returned this year with a gigantic rock suite telling the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers, an evil child-killing fellow, a jealous mother, a forest and a river. I suppose if there was anything characteristically Decemberist, it would be something like this.

The band has probably not sounded better (so far), with top-notch production (just listen to the opener) and some of the best musicianship they’ve yet exhibited (all around, though Chris Funk’s electric guitar and Jenny Conlee’s organ will be the most immediately impressive). And really, who wouldn’t want to see the grand, operatic ambition of telling a story like that with excellent music? The album’s massive ambition is a thing to admire, although it sometimes does end up being the album’s greatest fault. It feels every now and then as if they haven’t got enough material to sustain the suite; and sometimes slips into a sort of Disney phase (the romantic sides of the album, in particular). Nevertheless, there’s plenty of good music here, and it’s a spectacle that you really shouldn’t miss.

[The album is available at the Decemberists store, among other places, but I wanted to note that if you get it there now, you will also get a DVD of the animated feature that they put together to accompany the album.]

Humbug
Arctic Monkeys

Humbug is a carnival with a dark twist, a biting poison and the occasional moment of sweetness. Unlike the first two endeavours of the Arctic Monkeys, it is a quite successful attempt at making an album as a cohesive whole. It definitely feels as if they don’t feel the need to impress so immediately anymore (most notably in the very controlled and cheekily vulgar opener, My Propeller), and that shows in the care that has been taken in crafting some of this music. There are fewer hooks, fewer catchy singles, fewer overt displays of showmanship, but definitely a marked maturity to their musicianship. It’s an excellent album by an excellent band that’s showing signs of moving in the right direction.

[All major record stores, and probably most minor ones too.]

Middle Cyclone
Neko Case

Nature and the need for love frame Neko Case’s latest album, and in this balance we find something pleasant, bittersweet, and ultimately sweeping. There is a cinematic quality to this album as it moves from country to noir to rock and even to the spiritual. The range of it alone is impressive, and is made even more impressive by her incredible voice. And while it is one of the very best voices in the business, demanding your attention at every turn, credit should go too to the band for managing to produce a Walden-esque aesthetic within the confines of the album.

Resembling a midsummer night’s dream of forests and fireflies, of rain on the fields and creaking cicadas in the dark nights, tinged with more than a hint of heartbreak, the album turns out to be a thoughtful endeavour that I found thoroughly enjoyable.

[It's really not anything like the cover.]

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix

Early Phoenix stuff has always somehow struck me as promising and yet lacking in some way. That wasn’t at all the case with this cleverly titled album. It’s an album that tries to deal with the grandiose themes of love and angst and disappointments and living in frame of their now-mature sense for pop-rock. In doing so, Phoenix abandons their sophisticated and excessive arrangements for something more urgent, something that breathes. It understands loneliness. It understands hurt. It asks that you pull your socks up. It asks that you step on the gas and ride into the sunset. By somehow drawing upon Mozart, Liszt, Brain Eno and Daft Punk, Phoenix has produced a work of youth and hope that burns as brighter than anything I’ve heard this year (and many others).

Bonus Mentions

It’s Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Together Through Life
Bob Dylan

Two more albums that I didn’t have space for. I wanted to say that even not being the biggest fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I really enjoyed It’s Blitz!. Together Through Life, on the other hand, sees Dylan put out music that’s perhaps more… ‘grounded’? I don’t know if that’s the word for it. I have a terrible vocabulary. It certainly has a far less epic feel than the preceding albums in his discography, and doesn’t carry the same sense of importance about it, but it features Dylan in a somewhat more relaxed mood, delivering some very clever lyrics and supported by impeccable performances. Excellent stuff.

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Things We Bought Today

Disappointing

I went a little late to collect my tickets for the Neil Gaiman events at the Singapore Writers Festival. I missed out by five people.

Buying Things

I bought many things after the disappointing morning excursion. For instance, I bought two T-shirts featuring the work of Tan Swie Hian from the museum shops. The first is this one with a poem that he wrote.

The other one has a giant Lu Xun on it.

Also from a museum shop, a bookmark with calligraphy by Pan Shou.

Then there’s these things from the museum shop too. Well, actually only the books is mine, and the hanger came along with it. Sam the Samsui Woman is there because she is cute, but I was helping my sister to get it.

The book is actually a book about a local wayang troupe. Has lots of photos. I suppose it’s something of a photography book. It comes in nice binding and is a limited edition of 500. It’s number 210.

Inside the book:

Apart from the museum shops, I also bought two second-hand George Eliot books. Silas Marner and The Mill On The Floss.

Next up… I didn’t buy these today, but they came in through the mail to complete my day. It’s the Mythical Creatures stamp set from the Royal Mail, with art by Dave McKean and text by Neil Gaiman. I have four of these, but I’m only keeping one. Again, I was helping people to get them too.

But the actual last stop of the day was BooksActually, where I got these.

The pencils are inscribed with the names of writers. I have two James Joyce ones because I’m going to use one.

And yes, those are retro bus tickets on the sketchbook cover. I’m so happy I got it.

Also, Hamlet

Hamlet featuring David Tennant will be released on DVD after Christmas. [via RSC Shop Online]

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