The Latest
Jan 4th, 2008 by abi
I appear to have been neglecting my blog yet again. The only excuse I can offer is not that I have nothing to say (that’ll be the day) but that I like to keep things to myself for a while to mull them over before I post. I’m also going through yet another ‘what’s this blog for’ crisis! I like posting reviews and you will see I managed to catch up on a bit of reading over Christmas. I am actually considering dropping this part of the site and just putting on reviews. I sometimes feel that is the part of my life I want to share online and that with everything else there’s a reluctance to say anything at all!
Also, I start the new job on Monday so I’ve been busy sorting things out for that as well as still trying to make up my mind as to which city I should live in. If anyone knows of a spare double room in Oxford available for rent please do let me know. I head down to London on Sunday and it’s likely I won’t be able to blog at all during that time. I might not even, gasp, be able to check my e-mail or go on Facebook. How shall I cope? It seems I will just have to content myself with wandering the parks and historical sites of London or curling up on my bed with a book. It’s a sad life 
Just a brief mention of Christmas telly as I feel I ought to say something on this point. The only things I really managed to see were ‘Doctor Who’ which was utterly stupid but great fun and did have some good one-liners. Thanks to Andrew for dangling before me the question of ‘ASTRID’ as an anagram. I hadn’t thought of that before. I am also slightly unnerved by the fact that I seem to have picked up on lots of film references in that episode that no-one else has noticed. Could it be I am now totally making things up?!
I also saw the first episode of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and thought it was fairly crap so I am not particularly regretting the fact that I won’t be able to see the rest of them while in London. It was alright I suppose but they really messed up in two ways. Firstly, Edward was made out to be a dashing and rather cocky young hero which is simply not right. Secondly, it suffered from the affliction of modern TV that it completely lacked subtlety and made everything really, really obvious. At one point Margaret had an outburst at the dinner table where she pretty much said to Fanny ‘I hate you!’. The fact that she hates Fanny and why she does so is perfectly obvious, there’s no need to make her shout it. The joy of Jane Austen is that everything is bubbling away beneath the surface and the contrast between the characters’ true feelings and what propriety demands they say is what gives it its humour and tension. I did think the actress playing Elinor was good though and Colonel Brandon seemed quite the part.
I also confess I watched ‘The History Boys’ for about the millionth time despite owning it on DVD. It’s just so good I couldn’t resist!
