Well the snow did arrive. Just not enough.
And I’ve got to say that I’ve been a bit diasppointed by the sales this year. I think the best bargain I’ve had was picking up number 1 of Movie Musicals to get West Side Story for £2.99. And note that it is in full anamorphic widescreen rather than the 4:3 it says on the box.
Actually, I did get Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East for half price in Borders, but even the book sales were profoundly disappointing. If you don’t want books by John Peel, Sharon Osbourne, Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver, Trinny and Susannah or Alan Bennett, then forget it.
I’ve been belatedly reading a bit of the Christmas double (or is it treble) issue of the New Statesman (and yes, I really did accidentally pick it up thinking I was getting New Scientist, with my eyes only reading as far as “New”), and it’s worth it for a couple of things. Most surprisingly, Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur authors of “Is It Me Or Is Everything Shit?”, a book I wouldn’t have given more than a nano-second’s glance in the bulging Christmas “humour” section of the bookshop, make quite a good fist of moaning about Christmas. Best is “News about the high street” which makes the excellent point that while a couple of weeks ago, we were all being told how important it was to save for the future, we now have to take an interest in how well the shops are doing and how much cash they’re raking in during the sales. On TV, Next manages its usual free airtime by simply opening branches at the ridiculous hour of 5am. What a great job it must be working as an assistant for them. In the meantime, IKEA gives away a couple of free beds, and their new Milton Keynes branch gets a full three minute ad…, sorry, “feature” on the local BBC news.
The other thing to look out for in the New Statesman, is Mushrooms of Freedom, a new short story by Andrey Kurkov author of several previous novels that I’ve enjoyed.