Hello, world.
Mar. 1st, 2006 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shark_hatOr really, hello sigmonster and anyone from the Diana Wynne Jones mailing list who's popped in to have a look round.
I'll try and get the place swept out and some curtains up soon. Fill in the interests properly, that sort of thing. I'll probably post mostly about food, books and comedy, because I don't really know much about singing, I just enjoy it; whereas I can go on for ages about stuff that makes me laugh or go "hmmm, that was good."
To prove it, here's the post for the DWJ list's member survey, complete with the bit about comedy that was really far too long for a book-oriented list. When I work out how to do a cut, I'll come back and edit this so it has one
Currently reading:
The Penguin Eliza Acton (1845 cookbook), Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Art of Genes by Enrico Coen
Favourite DWJs:
Very fond of Spellcoats, Deep Secret, Howl's Moving Castle, The Lives of Christopher Chant. The Merlin Conspiracy was excellent... Really depends on what day you ask me.
Some favourite scenes in DWJ books:
The ghost going through the drawers in Time of the Ghost, the washing-up spell in Magicians of Caprona, Sirius raging in Dogsbody, Hathaway's house in Archer's Goon, the funeral in Fire and Hemlock... Also depending on what day it is.
Some other favourite authors:
Robin McKinley, Douglas Adams, Martha Wells, Lois McMaster Bujold, Dorothy L. Sayers, Richard Dawkins, Margery Allingham, Richard Fortey, Sarah Caudwell, Terry Pratchett, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Elizabeth David, Michael Innes, the non-fiction of George Orwell, the non-fiction of Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Macleod, Staynes and Storey, Ursula Le Guin, Patricia Wrede, Georgettte Heyer, Sherwood Smith, Rosemary Kirstein, Sei Shonagan, Melissa Scott, Margaret Mahy, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Ken Macleod, Dave Barry...
Some favourite books or series:
Sabriel, Bridge of Birds, Diane Duane's Door Into... series, The Amulet of Samarkand, The Thief, Cyteen, The Oracle, Expecting Someone Taller, Sorcery and Cecilia, Remnant Population, Lord of the Rings, Point of Dreams, Kimono...
Some books I'm waiting for (either to be published at all, or to be in paperback to buy):
Scholar of Magics, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Temeraire, Melusine
Some favourite cartoonists:
Bill Watterson, Charles Addams, William Heath-Robinson, Gary Larson, Steve Bell, Posy Simmonds, Giles
Some favourite blogs:
Making Light, ajhall, mistful- if only she updated more often. Her reviews of the Harry Potter films are just wonderful.
Some favourite newsgroups:
alt.fan.pratchett, alt.books.tom-holt, uk.rec.sheds
Favourite film last year:
Wallace and Gromit- the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. (Howl's Moving Castle and Serenity tie for second place.)
Favourite TV last year:
Doctor Who. Strong placings by Casanova, QI and Mock The Week.
Also, new favourite TV comedy ever, OMG so funny, and silly, and brilliant characters, and surreal, and the songs! and the animations! and so funny! and just eeeee! about every aspect, and they're amazing live, too:
The Mighty Boosh (the BBC's site, their own site)
(Radio series available on CD, both TV series available on DVD [region 2], there are some clips and an interview on the BBC site, and there are downloadable bits here and there if you want to have a look round for them...)
Perennial TV comedy favourites:
Monty Python, Pete and Dud (but not Derek and Clive), The Goodies, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Red Dwarf, Fry and Laurie, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Fist of Fun, The Young Ones, Blackadder, Victoria Wood, Spaced, the Muppets, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Vic and Bob, The Fast Show, M*A*S*H, Father Ted, The Kids In The Hall
Radio, stand-up, stage- not TV, is what I'm saying here- comedy favourites:
The Right Size (Foley and McColl), the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Flanders and Swann, Tom Lehrer, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, the Goons, Prairie Home Companion, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Comedy Store Players, Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Dara O'Briain, Stewart Lee, Ross Noble
New TV comedy that I expected to like, but actually found boring:
Hyperdrive (The Office.... in space.)
New TV comedy that I expected to find boring, but actually liked:
The IT Crowd
Tie-in book from a comedy series from 10 years ago that now costs about £60 second-hand, available to download free:
Lee and Herring's Fist Of Fun
Looking at the comedy list, one might think that writer-performers are my main love. This is true, and it is because they are just better, so there. (Leave aside Red Dwarf and Blackadder from this generalisation, would you? Thanks.) I've vaguely mused about why so few of my favourites are American. Many of the authors, films, and non-comedy shows I love are from Over There, after all. (There are also several funny American things I like, but that aren't quite favourites- The Simpsons. Rich Hall. Probably others.) This is a bit less of a question that I thought at first, actually. There isn't much comedy at all on American radio, and Britain doesn't seem to import many American sketch shows or satire- I've hardly seen any of Saturday Night Live, for example- so I don't really have the chance for those to become favourites! I'm also more familiar with British and Irish stand-up comedy, of course.
So, sitcoms. Some of this is just personal taste; Seinfeld, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, My Name is Earl, have all had terrific reviews and good ratings over here, but they just don't grab me. I did wonder, though, squinting at American sitcoms until they sort of run together into an amorphous blob, and then doing the same at British ones, if my preferences might have something to do with how they tend to be written; the large teams of writers that typically work on American shows may tend to end up producing quite gag-based material and less of the wierder stuff that I really end up loving, as opposed to laughing at and forgetting. (I think this ties in with the liking for writer-performers, um, somehow, um, I had a train of thought earlier. "One or two funny guys doing something they're really involved in=good" may be as profound as it got, however.)
A slightly uncomfortable musing is how many more men than women are in those lists. Until recently female comics were like hens' teeth, of course, (how cool is *this*, by the way?) and there are still a lot more men. I've watched a few of the recent all-female sketch shows and they just haven't grabbed me, and I'm not sure why, but I've really liked many female comedians in mixed-sex groups. And I like a lot of woman stand-ups. So I think I can probably say that I'm not a total comedy chauvinist, but maybe I ought to give Tittybangbang another try, in case it's my own unconscious assumptions, created by a male-dominated comedy world, about what's funny that are at fault and not that they're totally dull after all.
I'll try and get the place swept out and some curtains up soon. Fill in the interests properly, that sort of thing. I'll probably post mostly about food, books and comedy, because I don't really know much about singing, I just enjoy it; whereas I can go on for ages about stuff that makes me laugh or go "hmmm, that was good."
To prove it, here's the post for the DWJ list's member survey, complete with the bit about comedy that was really far too long for a book-oriented list. When I work out how to do a cut, I'll come back and edit this so it has one
Currently reading:
The Penguin Eliza Acton (1845 cookbook), Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Art of Genes by Enrico Coen
Favourite DWJs:
Very fond of Spellcoats, Deep Secret, Howl's Moving Castle, The Lives of Christopher Chant. The Merlin Conspiracy was excellent... Really depends on what day you ask me.
Some favourite scenes in DWJ books:
The ghost going through the drawers in Time of the Ghost, the washing-up spell in Magicians of Caprona, Sirius raging in Dogsbody, Hathaway's house in Archer's Goon, the funeral in Fire and Hemlock... Also depending on what day it is.
Some other favourite authors:
Robin McKinley, Douglas Adams, Martha Wells, Lois McMaster Bujold, Dorothy L. Sayers, Richard Dawkins, Margery Allingham, Richard Fortey, Sarah Caudwell, Terry Pratchett, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Elizabeth David, Michael Innes, the non-fiction of George Orwell, the non-fiction of Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Macleod, Staynes and Storey, Ursula Le Guin, Patricia Wrede, Georgettte Heyer, Sherwood Smith, Rosemary Kirstein, Sei Shonagan, Melissa Scott, Margaret Mahy, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Ken Macleod, Dave Barry...
Some favourite books or series:
Sabriel, Bridge of Birds, Diane Duane's Door Into... series, The Amulet of Samarkand, The Thief, Cyteen, The Oracle, Expecting Someone Taller, Sorcery and Cecilia, Remnant Population, Lord of the Rings, Point of Dreams, Kimono...
Some books I'm waiting for (either to be published at all, or to be in paperback to buy):
Scholar of Magics, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Temeraire, Melusine
Some favourite cartoonists:
Bill Watterson, Charles Addams, William Heath-Robinson, Gary Larson, Steve Bell, Posy Simmonds, Giles
Some favourite blogs:
Making Light, ajhall, mistful- if only she updated more often. Her reviews of the Harry Potter films are just wonderful.
Some favourite newsgroups:
alt.fan.pratchett, alt.books.tom-holt, uk.rec.sheds
Favourite film last year:
Wallace and Gromit- the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. (Howl's Moving Castle and Serenity tie for second place.)
Favourite TV last year:
Doctor Who. Strong placings by Casanova, QI and Mock The Week.
Also, new favourite TV comedy ever, OMG so funny, and silly, and brilliant characters, and surreal, and the songs! and the animations! and so funny! and just eeeee! about every aspect, and they're amazing live, too:
The Mighty Boosh (the BBC's site, their own site)
(Radio series available on CD, both TV series available on DVD [region 2], there are some clips and an interview on the BBC site, and there are downloadable bits here and there if you want to have a look round for them...)
Perennial TV comedy favourites:
Monty Python, Pete and Dud (but not Derek and Clive), The Goodies, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Red Dwarf, Fry and Laurie, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Fist of Fun, The Young Ones, Blackadder, Victoria Wood, Spaced, the Muppets, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Vic and Bob, The Fast Show, M*A*S*H, Father Ted, The Kids In The Hall
Radio, stand-up, stage- not TV, is what I'm saying here- comedy favourites:
The Right Size (Foley and McColl), the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Flanders and Swann, Tom Lehrer, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, the Goons, Prairie Home Companion, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Comedy Store Players, Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Dara O'Briain, Stewart Lee, Ross Noble
New TV comedy that I expected to like, but actually found boring:
Hyperdrive (The Office.... in space.)
New TV comedy that I expected to find boring, but actually liked:
The IT Crowd
Tie-in book from a comedy series from 10 years ago that now costs about £60 second-hand, available to download free:
Lee and Herring's Fist Of Fun
Looking at the comedy list, one might think that writer-performers are my main love. This is true, and it is because they are just better, so there. (Leave aside Red Dwarf and Blackadder from this generalisation, would you? Thanks.) I've vaguely mused about why so few of my favourites are American. Many of the authors, films, and non-comedy shows I love are from Over There, after all. (There are also several funny American things I like, but that aren't quite favourites- The Simpsons. Rich Hall. Probably others.) This is a bit less of a question that I thought at first, actually. There isn't much comedy at all on American radio, and Britain doesn't seem to import many American sketch shows or satire- I've hardly seen any of Saturday Night Live, for example- so I don't really have the chance for those to become favourites! I'm also more familiar with British and Irish stand-up comedy, of course.
So, sitcoms. Some of this is just personal taste; Seinfeld, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, My Name is Earl, have all had terrific reviews and good ratings over here, but they just don't grab me. I did wonder, though, squinting at American sitcoms until they sort of run together into an amorphous blob, and then doing the same at British ones, if my preferences might have something to do with how they tend to be written; the large teams of writers that typically work on American shows may tend to end up producing quite gag-based material and less of the wierder stuff that I really end up loving, as opposed to laughing at and forgetting. (I think this ties in with the liking for writer-performers, um, somehow, um, I had a train of thought earlier. "One or two funny guys doing something they're really involved in=good" may be as profound as it got, however.)
A slightly uncomfortable musing is how many more men than women are in those lists. Until recently female comics were like hens' teeth, of course, (how cool is *this*, by the way?) and there are still a lot more men. I've watched a few of the recent all-female sketch shows and they just haven't grabbed me, and I'm not sure why, but I've really liked many female comedians in mixed-sex groups. And I like a lot of woman stand-ups. So I think I can probably say that I'm not a total comedy chauvinist, but maybe I ought to give Tittybangbang another try, in case it's my own unconscious assumptions, created by a male-dominated comedy world, about what's funny that are at fault and not that they're totally dull after all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 01:06 am (UTC)Your Message Here
</lj-cut>
Have just arranged to possibly go to a late sitting of the House of Commons when there's an interesting debate: you feel like that's something you might like to do?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 10:57 am (UTC)Hmmm. I'm not sure; perhaps it's something one ought to see, but it seems like it might annoy me. You're not allowed to shout "Cobblers!", are you?
On the other hand, it was quite interesting to see Congress in inaction (unless it was the Senate, but I think it was Congress.)
On the gripping hand, Congress wasn't debating anything that would directly affect me.
Email me with when it is, I'll dither further.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-03 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 01:58 am (UTC)anyone who's a gerald durrell fan AND into red dwarf (among other things) is okay in my books...!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 06:22 pm (UTC)Hello! I did pop in from DWJ list, but in response to your June 2007 post ...
I'm also fond of:
DWJ: Deep Secret, The Lives of Christopher Chant, and The Merlin Conspiracy (but also Fire and Hemlock and Archer's Goon)
Other Authors: Robin McKinley, Martha Wells, Lois McMaster Bujold (fantasy only - her SF leaves me cold), Terry Pratchett, Ursula Le Guin, Patricia Wrede, and Dave Barry (and also Neil Gaiman, P.C. Hodgell, Dorothy Dunnett, C.J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, Peter Dickinson, Patricia McKillip, and Ellen Kushner)
Other Books: Sabriel and its siblings, Bridge of Birds, The Thief, Cyteen, Sorcery and Cecilia, and Lord of the Rings (but also Kill the Dead, American Gods, the Riddlemaster Trilogy, To Kill a Mockingbird, and numerous children's and YA fantasies and hostorical fiction novels).
But right now I am on a huge manga reading kick - I think their over-the-top passion about everything is appealing to me at the moment. I had been feeling very grown-up and cynical, and manga are helping with that considerably.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-20 05:04 pm (UTC)I like a lot of your others as well, but the favourites list was getting unwieldy enough as it was...
Manga is the new black.
(Actually, although I've enjoyed the odd manga or two, I've never gotten hooked on them- which I'm quite glad about, I spend enough on books as it is. It's a pretty cool medium tho'.)