How's everyone out there doing at the end of another week?
I've had quite a busy time of it. I'm waiting to hear about a couple of big projects that are 'out there' on various people's desks, and meanwhile trying to get on with other things... starting new projects off, and inventing others. Pretty boring of me to be so vague - I'm sorry!
Anyhow, Fester has been sitting with me, most the week, on my desk or in my armchair as i've rattled away on the laptop keys.
The music accompanying me this week has been Evie Sands (apparently Dusty Springfield's favourite singer!) courtesy of Nick, and Mike Garson's album of his interpretations of David Bowie songs. The latter is a record i've been waiting for since 1985 - when I first heard an old cassette tape of Aladdin Sane and couldn't believe that piano-playing by Garson. He sounds like a drunken zombie clown at a drag ball in a radioactive futureworld - that's what I always thought.
Reading... well, i caught up with that on my blog here yesterday. Just to add - i'm loving the new Natalie Goldberg book about her writing teaching and Zen (and oh, everything. She writes about everything all at once and she's utterly inspirational.) And just this morning a beautiful hardback first edition of Sid Fleischman's 'The Ghost on Saturday Night' turned up from an Amazon seller. I'm about to dive nostalgically into that.
TV wise - I loved the final episode of 'People Like Us' - a show that stayed brilliant to the end. They *have* to make more. The boys with the failing decorating business who made a ramp for the Nan with the amputated leg - that was just wonderful. Understated, true emotion. The write-ups, the reception (and, to be fair, the ads and title sequence) undersold this show as exploitation tv. But it was poetry.
Early next week i'm planning on writing something for my blog about my first Doctor Who novel, The Scarlet Empress - which I finished writing just about exactly fifteen years ago. If anyone out there has any particular memories of where and when they read that book, and what it made them think or feel (!) - please drop me a line and i might well use your thoughts in the blog piece. (email to: pmagrs@gmail.com) or just put a comment here.
Ok - here's the weekend! Have a lovely time.
Hello. I got round at last to reading Carole Matthews 'Winter Warmers', downloaded as a kindle freebie in December, as you'd recommended her writing. Seeing as we've had a few more snow flurries, I reckoned why not snuggle back into some christmassy reading! The short stories are very chirpy and bittersweet, made me laugh too. Not sure I'd eat a whole one, but as short tales it was crisp as icing.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be odd if there weren't co-incidences, don't you think? Yesterday I was reading about Mike Garson playing a medley as the opening act for the last Ziggy concert. There's an mp3 of it (complete with warm-up by the concert announcer!) on 5years.com in the interview with the soundman in the what's new bit.
Thanks for such a cheery blog.
Arthur
Thanks, Arthur! I love coincidences like that.
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