Guido

Yeh, was hoping to see India make the best of this but it's been buggered by corruption. Don't think anyone realised just how widespread corruption was before this debacle, seemingly affecting every sphere of life in the country and every person in it. Must be a nightmare to live there. It'll definitely go ahead (despite many top athletes pulling out on a daily basis) so my main hope now is that no-one gets hurt rather than the games being an enjoyable spectacle.

Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea: This book is intense and gave me the frickin FEAR from start to finish. Written as a (sort of) prequel to Jane Eyre, which i haven't yet read, exploring the 'mad woman in the attic' theme and keeping me on edge throughout with its allusions to the occult and setting of a post-colonial caribbean with lots of whispering hateful slave-descedents who know something the protagonist(s) don't, and it's a baaaaaaad something. In fact, that's only just scraping the surface of this novel/novella, which explores much more in the way of culture, history, women and power etc. Gotta be read.

Right, i've gone through my 'to be read' pile of about 100 frickin books and tried to pick out a shorter novel this time to help more people to get involved with the discussion and/or finish it within the month. I've settled on Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar', which looks ace. Under £4 on Amazon and only 234 pages long, meaning those of us reading other stuff should be better able to fit this in. Discussion starting weekend of 23rd/24th October if that's good for everyone. Someone inside the matrix sticky this for us please.

Cheers Paul, i'll have a think. And yeh, i haven't totally given up on Banks as the 'The Culture' novels seem intriguing. Reckon Transition would've worked better as part of a series too come to think of it. New thread on the way.

CP: "Yeh, will be interesting to see that. Into his sock apparently." RH: "That was the deal clincher weally. Incwedible."

"Forgot what i was doing now. Oh yeh, was gonna eat me Shweddies."

Shit is OLD! Still my cuppa tea too though. There are way better clips than this, though i do have the 'By the power of Rah' tune (01:29) as my ringtone.

Basement - Danny Dyer vehicle, one of his worst - 0/10. I can't think of a single thing of merit, which makes it one of the worst films i've ever seen. Astonishingly poor. Centurion - Over-edited, under-scripted, Sunday-afternoon-at-your-grandma's-after-your-tea sort of film - 3/10.

I've been away for a week or so and have read 3 excellent novels (A Bend In The River, Wide Sargasso Sea, Heart Of Darkness) since reading this one so not sure i'll remember everything i wanted to say. I enjoyed the book while reading it but i think it was mainly due to the fact that this is much lighter reading than i am used to and was a nice escape for a while (like watching the Bourne trilogy after Godard's back catalogue). However, I also read it at a much greater pace than i usually do, which tells me i didn't really have that much to ponder! Having read The Wasp Factory years ago, and it having left a very good impression, i was ultimately disappointed in this novel on almost every level. I thought the characterisation was quite poor, excepting the stock broker fella, though he didn't really offer much to the main narrative anyway. The plot wasn't that predictable (though i got that Tem and the patient were one and the same very early on) though this is mainly due to a lack of structure - i don't think all components of the story were necessary to either the furthering of the narrative or in providing a more explicit conclusion. It seemed a bit of a mess to be honest and as though plot development was being done ad hoc with no real sense of direction. It may be that the author was just trying to cram in every idea he had for the novel, rather than focusing more on specific character relationships and/or locations, such as the sprawling mega-city thing, which sounded ace but was only touched upon briefly. However, even if these issues had been addressed, i don't think i would have gone away thinking the novel had offered me any new window onto the world or inspired me to think about anything in a different way. I actually came away thinking this was mainstream 'holiday book' garbage, which i know seems very harsh as the guy can clearly write well and has lots of ideas and an expansive imagination, but it just wasn't pulled together very well here. I quite liked the Bisquitine character for her Akira-like capacity for destruction, though she reminded me of the girls in Tim Burton movies, which is a terrible thing for any book to do. All in all it kept me reasonably interested til the end, but i knew as i was reading it that it was a throwaway piece of writing and i was yearning for some literary brilliance after 480 pages of this, though the very end part with Tem forcing the car off the road via his hospital bed was incredible and rescued the story somewhat, leaving me indifferent rather than disappointed when i had finished. Knowing others were reading it at the same time also helped me analyse the novel as i was going along, which proved to be of benefit rather than hindrance, and i hope we continue with the book club, even if there are only a few paticipants for starters. If others feel the same then i think it's up to Paul to nominate who gets to choose the next book and for us. We could make a short-term rule of nothing longer than 200 pages if it might get more people involved. That said, i'm well up for reading anything suggested.

Absolute............................................. BOLLOCKS. Good morning!

Both. And Irwin won't make it as far as Spearing.

If you love travelling, and have the means to do it, then do it now as you WILL NOT do it if you start down a definitive career path right away. Your degree won't get you an amazing job anyway cos it's one of those silly degrees that make up 80% of the courses out there now. I'd say just fuck off round the globe for a few years and see if anything takes your fancy (don't just piss your time away, see stuff and learn stuff, maybe do some voluntary/charity work). If you get back and you're still clueless, move somewhere you like, learn a trade and eventually make shitloads of cash by charging £60 an hour for changing a windscreen wiper.

This is consuming your life.

Just been on a rough home visit but this has me guffawing back to normality! Wouldn't be as funny if it was anybody else.

Sure i'll get laughed at for not using torrents any more (seems too complex to make sure you're not detected and you need Peerguard/equivalent and proxy IPs or some other techy shit i know shit all about), but was looking for suggestions for the best sites to legally downloading films. Can't be arsed buying DVDs any more so just want to download them and stick them on a USB stick, which i can then stick in my DVD player. Might seem like an arse ache but it will be my modus operandi til i get the PC connected to the TV at some point in the next 10 years.

You could spunk in a BAG, throw it in her FACE and tell her to GET TO FUCK.

Did Paul choose you? DID HE?!!! No. No he didn't. You shall wait for Paul. We shall all wait for Paul.

I get paranoid (realistic) that airport staff are thick as fuck and their computers are shite, end up printing off every single piece of information i can and turn up at check in 5 hours early with a frickin lever arch file and 3oz of luggage.

Reckon it's TIME to serve up some good ol' 21st century JUSTICE to those who WRONGED you.

RiS...There is already a GF Book Club thread for the main announcements. This is the Book 1 thread so i reckon we should keep discussion in here or we'll be all over the place. Book 2 will have its own thread and so on. I'll hold fire on discussion til later in the week when more people have read it, but reckon we should still pick who chooses the next book this week. Would be good to keep a monthly format going - if it becomes every 2 or 3 months people may lose interest. Plus it sort of forces people to read more, which i personally find quite useful as i'm a lazy twat! Open to whatever people suggest though as it shouldn't be too strict.

I do believe, my dear bookworms (and slackers), that today would be a good day a) to start yapping bout Bisquitine and co, and b) for Paul to pick who gets to choose the next book. And you bes' hope it ain't me cos i'll fuck all y'alls shit up with some mu-fuggin Atlas Shrugged 1000-page Ayn Rand shit, which I don't even wanna read ya hear?

Gold ol Diamond White. Used to do the same to me when i was 14.

Had same shit with Tiscali and fucked them off sharpish. BT have been unbelievably good so far. Think it's about 2 years no probs yet, though i'm sure there are shitloads of better deals out there. I just don't bother switching cos it isn't worth the fucking about. Hey, look how sweary i am tonight! Fuck's that about?!

Just finished it but thought today was when we were going to start yappin about it! I'm off to find an Iain Banks forum to relieve some of this pressure.

I always add an "Only got a 20, sorry" before handing over said note to the till pleb. Silly ol' till plebs. They don't know ANYTHING.