Boom-Di-DA-DA-Boom

Let's be positive! My downstairs neighbour is not a hypersensitive man who complains that I 'type too loudly'. He is not a schizophrenic albino who loves Celine Dion and talks to his absent father whilst hiding from the people in the walls. He is not a Norwegian couple who argue until 4am, then shag and who will eventually leave me with two desert rats called Legolas and Gimli. Let's face it, I survived all those people, so why should I be so grumpy about him being a hippie stoner who puts the same prog rock song on repeat until 2.30am.

I must be getting old. Well, I did take up crocheting the other week..

Now, to paraphrase the amazing Flight of the Conchords: it's Hospital Time.

The Scandal of the Season

I am currently reading Sophie Gee's "The Scandal of the Season" and it is a bewildering read.

The plot outline: 18th century Britain. Catholics and Protestants live side by side uneasily. The young poet Alexander Pope is heading to London to make his name. He encounters a situation he'll later immortalise in the wonderful mock epic The Rape of the Lock. So, by all accounts you get literary history in the making, the (in)famous flirt between Lord Petre and Arabella Fermor (as immortalised in the poem), religious troubles and a look at the early 18th century landscape. Ms Gee knows a helluva lot about the period and therein lies the real problem of this book.

I cannot enjoy it as fiction. The characters speak wonderfully witty early 18th century English but they all speak in the same manner. There is no distinct turn of phrase, no subtle nuances to their voices and after a few pages it begins to grate. The characters are not fleshed out, they never leap off the page and the plot drags. Furthermore, because Sophie Gee has her characters repartee so beautifully, the more modern phrases she occasionally employs spring out and annoy. As an expert writing on the literary and political landscape of early 18th century London, Gee convinces, though. I wish she had written a nice, witty treatise on that subject - she has apparently written academic articles on the matter - but it's not very likely that little book would have made it to my little secondhand bookstore.

I did find Read for Pleasure through googling for Sophie Gee, so not all's lost.

Knotted Brain Much?

The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art: "the world's largest collection of anatomically correct fabric brain art. Inspired by research from neuroscience, dissection and neuroeconomics, our current exhibition features three quilts with functional images from PET and fMRI scanning, a knitted brain, and two fabric pieces interpreting single neuron recording."

Their disclaimer amuses this soon-to-undergo-MRI-scan woman: "While our artists make every effort to insure accuracy, we cannot accept responsibility for the consequences of using fabric brain art as a guide for functional magnetic resonance imaging, trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, neurosurgery, or single-neuron recording."

Found via the scary, slightly incomprehensible Knitting For Nerds which also includes links to knitted nonorientable manifolds (no, I don't know either) and The Periodic Table sweater.

Oh, Copenhagen

Oh, Copenhagen. How I do not really miss thee but then again I do.

Recently I found Copenhagen Street Style - a Danish blog trying to capture all the hip young things gracing the streets of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is peculiar in the sense that you tend to see muted colours everywhere - black, beige, brown and the occasional daring navy - so I actually do applaud CSS's decision to feature people who dare break away from the safe colours.

It is just a shame that the featured fashion victims dare-devils haven't got a clue what they are doing. I get the idea of deconstructing fashion - actually, I also get how deconstructing fashion is circa 1998. I also get the idea of anti-fashion in the sense of reclaiming fashion and style from the hegemony of big bad cooperations and leading fashion editors. But anti-fashion is as much about knowing the semiotics of fashion as it is about rejecting tokenism. And, judging by the majority of the photos on CSS, these so-called fashionistas really do not have a clue. They are concerned about looking 'cool' (which in its own right is embracing the idea of fashion as the idea of 'cool' changes rapidly) and 'edgy'. Sadly they just end up looking like prats who are groping in the dark, to quote a well-known poet (or, in the case of the people pictured, like sad fans of the Reynolds Girls).

For your amusement (or horror, depending upon your sensibilities), I also would like to draw your attention to:

• when layering goes evil
• patterned mistakes
• the fashion version of burnt porridge
• the Danish ned
• the girl with no neck
• why skinny jeans should actually fit you
• someone likes a Flock of Seagulls (and should lose the bag and find a yellow belt that's not an homage to Karate Kid)
• pregnancy clothes r us if we lived in 1982 and in rural Denmark and only ate oatmeal
• and a random German guy in shorts
• yo! MTV raps but unfortunately on a skinny Dane
• words absolutely fail me except to say, 'poor girl'

I almost miss muted colours now.

The Clare McLean Shortlist

AL Kennedy, the recent winner of the Costa Book Award, has been nominated for the brand-new Scottish literary award, the Clare McLean Award. She is joined on the shortlist by Ali Smith and Alasdair Gray for "Girl Meets Boy" and "Old Men In Love" respectively.

(Oh, did I mention that I have a first edition of "Old Men in Love" signed personally by Gray "To Karie says Alasdair"..? I just thought I'd slip that one in.)

I'm a touch excited by this. I should also get around to reading Gray's latest novel - but I'm slightly anxious that I might defile my lovely copy somehow. Oh.

Me & QWERTY =

We went to the hospital today. I am going to have my brain-waves measured next week which is terribly exciting. I hope I do emit brain-waves and that they'll be interesting enough to result in a diagnosis. Right, let's move on to something a bit more interesting: + Fun Facts about the QWERTY Keyboard + The QWERTY keyboard and how it was adapted in Russia/The Soviet Union + Why the QWERTY keyboard got its layout + The QWERTY Myth