This week, I have mostly been …
Continuing the party
season in style | at the work shindig which, by the way, did not go down
like this one:
 |
| {Screenshot from Love Actually} |
It was held at Carom @ Meza in central London
– the cuisine (!) was largely Indian with a rather splendid lamb shank for the
main (the starters and puddings were rather insubstantial to be shared between
six people on a table delicious as they were). It was a lovely opportunity to
catch up with the colleagues out of the office, though the dance floor was
slightly lame – a lot of us ended up at the club downstairs where people were
actually dancing!
Then on Friday night I was at the church ladies’ Christmas
meal – delicious chicken wrapped in ham, with salad and potatoes, and tarts and
meringues for pudding (and sweets), followed by mince pies. And then a little
segue up the road to our local hostelry where I happened to clock that a band I know
were playing in a different guise as Ruby and the
Rhythms! I took to the dance floor… and didn’t leave it until last orders.
Where I got the energy from after the night before is anyone’s guess, though this helped:
 |
| {cwaaawffee!} |
And finally for the weekend, after
singing with my rock choir at the Reigate Christmas fair, I went along to my
friends’ annual Gingerbread Galore party – the premise is brilliant: the ladies
buy in these genius flat-pack gingerbread houses from IKEA (sorry – pepparkakshus!) plus an awful lot of
sweets, and friends come along, drink mulled wine and decorate the houses. It
all gets slightly competitive!
Of course, despite the very able help of my friend’s young son
who was far more pragmatic about the whole construction of the house than I was,
my little cottage fell apart rather dramatically!
These memes sprang to mind:
Ah well. Can’t be good at everything!
Getting incensed | over
this article:
I agree more often than not with Guardian journalists’ stance on
literature (well, OK, mostly Lucy
Mangan Jonathan
Myerson
This article has been written in response to the University
of Kent having been corralled into apologising for its apparent statement that
its creative writing programme would not teach the writing of ‘mass-marketfiction or children’s fiction’ – as if the latter is a lower form of
literature.
Er, je pense que non!
To add insult to insult to injury, Myerson questions why the University felt fit to issue the apology and goes on to claim that no, children’s fiction is not on
a par with adults’ literary fiction.
You wot?
Myerson's argument is confusing -- for a start he looks no further than the works of Stephenie (not Stephanie, Mr Myerson -- at least spell the author's name correctly if you're going to dismiss her!) Meyer as an example of children's literature not to be held up as great.
Somehow he dismisses Roald Dahl, Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo and all number of authors both contemporary and classic and categorises a YA author as a children's author to make his point. Fail.
I am of course a coward so I didn't add my thoughts to the 770+ comments on the Guardian page itself, rather vented my full spleen on my friend's link to the article!:
It's an insult to lump mass-market fiction -- 50 Shades, anyone?! -- and children's fiction (The Little Prince, anyone??!?) in the same "ooh, we won't touch *those* with a barge-pole, we write *proper*, obscure lit fiction" category -- there is some supremely excellent children's and YA literature out there that forms the stepping stone to understanding adult literature, and should not be discounted!
IMHO (which is based, I should mention, on 13 years operating in the children's book industry so I may be *slightly* biased!)
And breathe!
Another (less controversial...) Guardian journo, Stuart Heritage, launched the first annual Elf-along on Twitter in reaction to Elf no longer being broadcast on terrestrial -- we, Mr Heritage's Twitter followers, watched our DVDs in synchronisation. It is nearly Christmas after all!
A couple of books I'd quite like to read.
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