Spent the weekend up North, chilling with the parents. Went for a walk in the Lakes, ate a lot of good food, and broke the back of Iain M Banks’ Matter, which I’ve been struggling to get to grips with in tube journey sized chunks. It’s my first Culture novel in maybe… ten years? Nice to be reminded why I pray for Contact to show up each and every day. I started wanting to read it after enjoying the R4 adaptation of The State of the Art, in which the Culture consider assimilating the Earth but are driven off by the sheer awfulness of the 1970s. That bastard decade has a lot to answer for.
Not really warming to Psychoville. It feels very much like LoG-lite, and the fairly lifeless direction only serves to remind how important Steve Bendelack was to the success of the League. I also - God help me - watched Torchwood on the strength of various Twitterfolks’ ravings whilst it was on. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but all in all I think I much preferred it the first time round. I am, however, really enjoying the latest series of Mitchell & Webb, which has really come into its own this season.
Discovered Sarah Pinborough whilst roaming on Twitter. I actually met her at Fantasycon in… 2002? Had no idea she was a published writer though. JT and I were really quite drunk and talked to her and friends about Milton Keynes and other topics for what I remember as being quite some time before they politely excused themselves and went off to hear the no doubt more eloquent and inspiring Graham Joyce speak. Anyway, the following morning I awoke to find an answerphone message on my mobile from an unfamiliar female voice thanking me for a great time and asking when we could get together again. I was in a relationship at the time, and not really going out a lot, so naturally I not unreasonably assumed it must be the people I’d been talking to the previous evening. I remember being utterly horrified (and yet quietly intrigued and a little bit impressed) as to how I’d managed to chat someone up, give them my phone number and been so charming I’d merited an almost immediate follow-up call - and yet had no memory of it whatsover. As it turned out, it was an entirely unrelated practical joke by another mate’s girlfriend, who bizarrely chose the only evening that month I’d been talking to single women outside of a work situation to make her opening gambit. Who says the universe has no sense of humour. Anyway, that’s my (sort of) Sarah Pinborough story. Now I know she has five well-reviewed novels to her name, I have ordered one and will let you know how that works out for me in due course.
Otherwise, it’s turning out too be a quiet week in which I endeavor to not spend any cash. Have to decide whether or not to play football in the park this evening. It’s exercise - good - but it also means inevitable pubage afterwards, which is a considerably greyer area.
