Items of interest

Before Gary Glitter turned out to be evil, at least The KLF loved him.

Meadbh takes some lovely pictures right here.

Between 8th and 9th of May I went to Stratford-upon-Avon and saw a fantastic “The Seagull” and “King Lear”. Both featured Ian McKellen who was very good in both. His talent is considerable (so to speak). I wasn’t sure he’d be that good, I’m no particular fan of his). The first half of the “The Seagull” and the second half of “King Lear” were both some of the best moments of theatre I have seen. Go see either of them if you can, although I think King Lear is fully sold out.

I recently finished this book. It is very good, beautiful even. Sad, funny, etc. It is about the life of one Valentino Achak Deng - a Sudanese ‘lost boy. It is a fantastic, strangely magical insight into that part of the world and the head of a child dealing with almost unimaginable (for myself at least) terrors. It never feels patronising. Nor does it feel like liberal hand-wringing. It is hard to know how it is done, but it has been written as a novel - even though it is essentially an auto-biography.

Anyone who thinks Dave Eggers is just about irony-clad smart-arsed literary showing-off* should give him another go.

I had to import it from the States via http://store.mcsweeneys.net/ - which also has lots of other interesting stuff in it. I’m not sure when it is out over here, but when it does come out, it will probably have a less fine cover. The US hardback version is gorgeous with a lovely print on the front.

Take a look at http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/whatisthewhat.html and http://www.valentinoachakdeng.com/ for more eloquent discussion.

* Something I never got. There was always a proper humanity to his work.

“Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!”

That’s the default line in a Wordpress install. So…

This website is not Work. It is not about a careful branding process. Getting overly concerned with design. Pixels will not align. Things won’t be pretty. Inelegant. It will be hard to read. It might be accessible though. This is not about worrying about whether the text is professional, well written or polite. This is a place where I can write, refer to, show, whatever I want. Books, politics, art, stuff and stuff.

It is mainly for me. I forget things - and this might be the best way to remember.

It is also, almost completely nude at the moment. I’ve set the text to be Helvetica, but that’s it for the time being. (Actually, I removed the Helvetica too - now it’s whatever your browser thinks it should be). This is what a website really looks like underneath its clothes.