Sombre reading

Yesterday...




Today...


If the police are now shooting people in fear, then the bombers have scratched their latest victory on the scoreboard.


(I picked on the express because I saw it's headline. It's not a newspaper I read, I find it a bit too right of centre for me, plus there's the whole issue of it being owned by porn tycoon Richard Desmond...)

Purple Hibiscus

Continuing the book review theme, I'd like to recommend anyone with an interest in Nigeria, or Africa read Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In fact even if you don't care about Nigeria, you should read it as it may open your mind to a different life.

Not being a "guy's" book, it's not something I'd normally read, but I borrowed a copy of it from a colleague of mine in Nigeria, when I'd run out of reading material.

The book follows the life of Kambili, a teenage girl coming of age in Enugu State, Nigeria at the time of a great political transition. The story fits in with circumstances that surrounded General Babangidas Coup d'état in 1985. Although real names aren't used, if you know a little of the history of that time then you can piece things together. (research Dele Giwa, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Alfred Rewane)

Kambili is the daughter of a wealthy, philanthropic, widely respected Man who's Fundamentalist Catholic views bring him to cause tremendous harm and abuse to his family. Living with the Dichotomy of pride and fear of her father drives the narative in the story, when Kambili and her brother Jaja visit their Fathers sister their eyes are opened to a more liberal way of life. Despite being a desperately poor widowed unemployed university lecturer, Their Aunt and her children lead seemingly happy lives and Kambili and JaJa start to realise that the world isn't what they thought it was.

I thought the book portrays a view on life that only a Nigerian could express. I've been in and out of Nigeria for nearly 5 years and only after reading this book did a lot of things 'click' into place in my mind. The style of writing is very westernised, which makes it all the more accessible to the likes of me, but I was pleased to see plenty of Igbo and Pidgin English dotted through the Narrative, always keeping you aware that this is Africa.

Sometimes it was hard to interpret what was meant by some of the phrases used, particularly the terms of endearment that are common throughout. I had the advantage of being able to ask a Nigerian the meaning of some of the phrases, and I expect readers without that advantage will have frustrations at not being able to grasp the full meaning but I'm sure you can get the gist of such phrases when looking at the context of the usage.

So Highly reccommended and worth the read!

See it at amazon

HP6

I finished Harry Potter 6 today. Just too easy to read. I gave myself a strict limit of 100 pages per day and managed to keep it up till this morning when I decided I wanted to finish it.

Overall, I'd say it was worth the wait. I can't complain that it was too easy to read, because it is supposed to be a kids book, but I found it a bit too formulaic. A tell tale sign of this I felt was that nearly every chapter was 23-25 pages long. Very handy for reading approx 100 pages a day!

All the old plot devices were there, Quidditch , Something happens at Christmas, Nightime outings with the invisibility cloak, A New teacher has a secret to be discovered, Hagrid gets upset, Hermione gets cross, Malfoy is utterly vile and Repugnant, Harry gets detention with Snape, etc, etc.

I hate to say it but it's almost as if JKR took the end of order of the phoenix. Wrote a very dramatic ending and then filled the rest with fluff. But yet, somehow readable fluff.

There is some new stuff in it, it's just very, very familiar.

Rather than bore you with more of my poor book review I'll leave you with this.

Dumbledore's death in the style of Spike Milligan

Friday July 15, 2005

Once, twice and thrice upon a time, there was a wizard named Harry Potter!

He had broken glasses, which were held together by a very tiny wee little man whose arms are getting tired!

"My arms are getting tired!" the very tiny wee little man would complain, but Harry Potter would say "Shuttius upus!" and cast a zip-mouth spell to get peace to do his homework!

Well, one day, Harry Potter was in the Hospital Wing with a very nasty casy of Hogwarts! And Madame Pomfrey was rubbing smelly stuff on his bits and pieces so they wouldn't fall off! "Pee-ew!" sayd Harry, holding his nose, which came off.

MEANWHILE! On the quidditch pitch, Ron Weasely was having an argument with Draco Malfoy, who was very bad and nasty and smelled of wee.

Fortunately! Ron Weasely was armed to the teeth! Ever seen teeth with arms? Not a pretty sight!

He had in his hand something that looked like a very big wand, because it was, and yelled "Grouchio Marxius!", a big green snotter flew out his wand, NYYYYYYYYYRRRRRRRKERSPLAT!, and made Draco's eyes turned into silly spects with a false nose and moustache attached!

Draco let out a roar of Defiance! "Defiant roar!" he roared (defiantly!), pointing his pointy nose at Ron because his wand was broke (which wasn't so bad because wands don't need money anyway).

Just then Severus Snape came up looking very cross, in fact even his eyes were crossed to prove it! "Oh no," said the arms on Ron's teeth, "He's going to sever us"(JOKE)"What is the meaning of this?" said Snape. "Nobody knows," said the author.

Then came Dumbledore looking all perturbled. "Whatever is the matter?" said Snape. "You're looking all perturbled!"

"He's coming" said Perturbledore.

"Who is?" said Ron. "You-Know-Who!" said Dumbledore, "No I don't," said Ron, "That's why I asked!"

Just then You-Know-Who swooped down on a very big broomstick, "Swoop!" he went, he was wearing a false Hitler moustache to make himself look really evil.

"Where's Potter when you need him?" Snape asked reluctantly, but reluctantly didn't know.

"In the Hospital Wing with the Hogwarts," said Dumbledore. "Sticking his wand where he shouldn't, I expect."

Suddenly! Lord Voldemort produced his wand and pointed it at Dumbledore!

"Expelliarmus!" cried Dumbledore, and the wand went WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE out of sight.

Suddenly! Lord Voldemort produced a rubber chicken and pointed it at Dumbledore.

"Expellichickenus!" cried Dumbledore, and the chicken went WHEEEEEEEEEEE out of sight.

Suddenly! Lord Voldemort unzipped his fly!

"Expelliwillius!" cried Dumbledore, and you don't want to know what went WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE out of sight!

With the Dark Lord weakened and weekdayed, Dumbeldore cut his head off with one mighty FLICK! of his whiplike beard!

HOOOORAY! VOLDEMORT IS DEFEATED!

Unfortunately, this victory like all victories came at a price! For whilst doing a celebration dance, Dumbledore tripped over his own beard and his brains fell out his nostrils!

So they all lived happily ever after with two notable exceptions.

Alastair McIver

My Neighbours Shed on Fire

My Neighbors Shed on Fire
Originally uploaded by ajbrowe.

I was looking forward to a relaxing evening after completing my assignment, but as I was downing a glass of wine watching tv, Dan notices a 'bonfire' in one of our neighbours gardens. It was a large fire and I thought 11:15pm was an unusual time to have a bonfire especially at this time of year so went out to have a look. A shed was on fire in our neighbours garden. Called fire brigade and went to see if I could raise the alarm at the house. The shed was in the garden of a house in the next street to mine, their gardens back onto our streets. As Dan and I turned onto the street one of the residents of that street had just come out of his front door having heard the 'Whoomf!' that bottles of things in sheds make when they burn. Nobody was in at the house so the neighbours next to the garden were alerted and were soon out with their garden hoses. After just a few minutes we could here sirens in the distance and I went to the bottom of my street so I could direct them into what I hoped was the closest place to reach the fire. It seemed to be ages before the fire was out so whatever the 'whoomf!' was was fuelling the fire quite nicely.

Another TMA done

Just submitted my 3rd Tutor Marked Assignment to OU for my T224 course. I think I've done well, not sure I'll get near 97% but I'm hoping for at least 80%.

Now this is complete I guess I can relax for a few days. I'm one of the many people expecting a delivery of 'Arry Pottah 6 tomorrow, so I thank Ms Rowling for timing things so well.

And thank you to everybody on the Radio and the News who have told me who is going to die in this book. That was rather irritating.

Time to build a "B Ark"

I think it's time we took a leaf out of the Golgafrinchams book and send the most useless and unwanted parts of our society off into deep space.

My vote is that we keep our telephone sanitisers and Marketing executives on stand by and send ANYBODY who thinks blowing people up is a solution to anything.

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Originally uploaded by ajbrowe.

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