Cloud Atlas

I seem to be on a run of David Mitchell at the moment, here's the trailer for the forthcoming Cloud Atlas movie:

.. to be released in October! (h/t bookriot and twitter's suzyklein)

Mutterings - 29th July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Alcohol :: Swab
2. Pocket :: Handkerchief
3. Squeeze:: Friendly
4. Football :: Goal
5. Fourth :: July
6. Snake :: Ladder
7. Reduced :: Bonus
8. Polka :: Dot
9. Intrepid :: Traveller
10. Paula :: Radcliffe (there's some Olympics consciousness there!)

Teaser Tuesday - 24th July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Late again! I hope things will get back to normal next week! Another teaser from a book read on holiday, I read this one on the boat on the way home..

Dad was telling Mum a funny story about how his boss Craig Salt'd let Dad's trainee Danny Lawlor drive Criag Salt's DeLorean sports car round a go-karting track on a team building weekend. So instead of sloping off upstairs I went into the living room to watch Tomorrow's World on TV.

As you may guess this is set in the 80s lots of loving period detail! David Mitchell's Black Swan Green I'm not sure whether you had to be there then to appreciate this book and its study of adolescence but I was and I did!

Mutterings - 22nd July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Missing :: in action
2. Crowded :: Room
3. Questions :: Answers
4. Flavored :: Sweets
5. Need you :: Role
6. Control :: Alt
7. Restaurant :: Menu
8. Scattered :: Ashes
9. Family :: Gathering
10. Regrets :: Sad

Teaser Tuesday - 17th July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

A little late but having just got back from holiday...

That is one of the many legacies left by your friend Dr. Eckman. I am sure there are more I have yet to come across. In the brief amout of time he was with us he managed to teach Easter the fundamentals of table manners as well as the alphabet, or most of the alphabet. I see the K is missing.

4 sentences I know! From Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. Here's Patchett talking about the book:I must read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I was thinking of JG Ballard - someone she doesn't mention in that interview - and his Illuminated Man. Pay close attention to the opera visit and the Orpheus myth! I much enjoyed her Bel Canto but I think this is better. Very much recommended, we were about to head out for dinner (on holiday) and I decided I just had time to read the last chapter, I wasn't quite prepared for all that happens in those last few pages!

Faculties included?

The Churchfitters, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

We spotted this poster in Bourg near Trégastel in Brittany. I see from their website they're originally a UK group which moved to Brittany in 1993

Mutterings - 8 July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Purple :: Robe (argh - Graham Kendrick ;-))
2. Staying power :: Determination
3. Human :: Kind
4. Garden :: Flowers
5. Missing :: Link
6. Sucked :: Blew
7. Next door :: Neighbour
8. Poker :: Dot.. bikini (yes I know it should be polka!)
9. Strategy :: Plan
10. Crushed :: Velvet

Teaser Tuesday - 3rd July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

We are suddenly awakening, much too late, to the fact that we have been gorging at Belteshazzar's table, that blind pursuit of greed has made us skeletons at the feast.
At some future point in time, tar balls from a warm-water spill -- if not from the Gulf of Mexico then from some other blow-out -- will show up in Alaska waters to mingle with the crud left from the Exxon Valdez

a mediation on the damage we are doing to our world also - as last week - from Maggie Ross's Writing the Icon of the Heart. She has spent much time over the years in the wilderness and silence of Alaska.
(blogger tells me this is my 2000th post on this weblog not as much appearing here as in the past)

Mutterings - 1st July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Cycle :: Tyre
2. Pimple :: Spot
3. Tailspin :: Aircraft
4. Contact :: First
5. Prepaid :: Bill
6. Tremors :: Earth
7. Disgusting :: Allergy
8. Instrumental :: Solo
9. Taken :: Tablet
10. Forward :: Roll

Summer evening from Rainow

Sunset - ii, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

We seem to be fortunate in our walks from Rainow. Last year we caught a lovely sunset from the Robin Hood pub in Rainow and this year again the evening was beautiful

Teaser Tuesday - 26th June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Within this space are silence, stillness and waiting. Discretion is what Aristotle referred to as the space where virtue is found.

from Maggie Ross's Writing the Icon of the Heart - In Silence Beholding some good thoughts on discretion in that chapter - I read it last night and there was a lot of pausing for reflection. I heard Maggie Ross at the Manchester Theological Society last month - was a bit heavy - though the Q&A afterwards were far more helpful! I intended to blog on it but seem to have forgotten...

Mutterings - 24th June

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Salon :: Hair
2. Tag :: HTML
3. Hawk :: Buckler (I think 'hawk and buckler' is a phrase from an Ivor Gurney song)
4. Continuous :: function
5. Sparkly :: Effect
6. Foam :: Kay-Metzeler - a company making foam products whose base I used to pass every day on the way to school.
7. Lovely :: Day
8. Jokes :: Humour
9. Shenanigans :: Dishonest
10. Bear :: Brown

Nat West!

The Nat West bank (in the UK ) has been having software problems and with apologies to the Pet Show Boys:

I do hope they don't get a take-down order! Lots of f-words in the above!
(h/t Jackschofield)

Greening the economy

Rowan Williams' message for the Rio+20 conference

If the world is a gift how to hand it on to future generations?

Teaser Tuesday - 19 June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

As a matter of fact I do know a man who might fit the bill, but I'm not sure if he's available. I'll find out and give you a call back.

More from Jeffrey Archer's Only Time Will Tell.

Mutterings - 17th June

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Deep end :: Off the
2. Complications :: Medical
3. Silver :: Badge
4. Bridge :: Club
5. Delete :: Key
6. Spying :: Covert
7. Ripped :: Silk
8. Tunnel :: Channel
9. Pillow fight :: Children
10. Useful :: Hint

Teaser Tuesday - 12th June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Should the pace prove to be too demanding, one or two of you may fall by the wayside,' he warned, staring down at the front three rows.' St Bede's is not a school for the faint heated. So be sure never to forget the words of the great Cecil Rhodes: If you are lucky enough to have been born an Englishman, you have won the first prize in the lottery of life.

A headmasters pep-talk for the new prep-school intake in Jeffrey Archer's Only Time will tell (by the international best selling author of that name) - I couldn't resist including that extra sentence! The latest BATS (book group) book - it has beenj an interesting transition moving from Emma Donoghue's The Room - told in the voice of a five year old to this through the eyes of a youngster and with also a pared down vocabulary - nothing to frighten the masses! Here's John Crace's digested read on the book. I went to a prep school where I boarded for a term...

The Church of England lies!

Or at least a committee drafting documents in its name does! From today's document about the same-sex marriage consultation:

We have supported various legal changes in recent years to remove unjustified discrimination and create greater legal rights for same sex couples and we welcome that fact that previous legal and material inequities between heterosexual and same-sex partnerships have now been satisfactorily
addressed.

So far and no further hey? But that statement is manifestly untrue - the majority of Bishops in the House of Lords voted against those changes - historical revisionism rules!
[Updated 13 June] The Church of England has now put up a document here giving the contributions made by the bishops in the Lords during the debates on the civil partnerships bill, it says:

The bishops, consistent with their place as independent and non-whipped members neither spoke nor voted as a bloc on these issues when they were before the House.

So some bishops spoke in favour and some opposed - that still means a line 'We have supported various legal changes..' is misleading - none of the bishops who voted 5-1 for the wrecking amendment eventually voted for the passing of the bill.

Mutterings - 10th June

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Stitches :: Hospital
2. Reckless :: Behaviour
3. Wealth :: Riches
4. Tenant :: Sitting
5. Recognize :: Features (as in face)
6. Hospital :: Medicine
7. Bangs :: Fireworks
8. Hello :: Goodbye
9. Folder :: Paper
10. Glamour :: Puss

Teaser Tuesday - 5th June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

My favorite bit of Outside is the window. It's different every time. A bird goes right by zoom, I don't know what it was. The shadows are all long again now, mine waves right across our room on the green wall. I watch God's face falling slow slow, even orangier and the clouds are all colors, then after there's streaks and dark coming up so bit-at-a-time I don't see it till it's done.

Last week I wrote that this was a very dark book, maybe here with another extract redressing the balance! From Emma Donoghue's Room I'm cheating here as I wanted to quote this passage and it is far more than 2 sentences - here we have Jack seeing the world outside and a sunset (God's face is the sun) before there was only a skylight and getting used to the Outside, to freedom.