Booker Prize 24 October 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Books.add a comment
So the winner of the booker prize has been announced, it was Hilary Mantel with Wolf Hall, which I have to say even though I haven’t finished it and there is one book I haven’t read yet, is my favourite.
My least fave book was Summertime, by J M Cotzee (I’m not sure I’ve spelt that right). The book is written as a sort of biography, it follows a fan of JM Cotzee interviewing people as he hopes to compile the biography.The book just didn’t interest me at all, I didn’t find it enjoyable and the way that the book portrayed the author was very one dimensional and made him extremly unlikable. This was the first book I’ve ever read by the author, and I wonder if that’s possibly why I didn’t like it, it was also supposed to be the 3rd book in a biography set he’s written, and I do wonder if maybe I’d read those then it would have made a difference to how I felt about summertime. There was some discussion at the meet up just before the winner was announced that this was quite a clever book. The man doing the interview’s is a huge fan of the author and believes he can do no wrong, where as the interviewd people often didn’t think that highly of him, showing that authors aren’t always these great people. Still I did not like this book.
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, this book follows the story of essentially a house in Czechkoslovakia, that has a glass room from the 1930’s and on during the war years. Its a bit of an odd story I did find it interesting, but also very clinical, I guess that could be because the author is trying to fit it into the theme of the glass room. It’s a story of 2 halves, the first half following the family that built the house, before they leave because of the Nazi’s and the 2nd half the Nazi’s use of the house and after the war is over the use of the house as a place for physiotherapy for children. It made the book feel quite disjointed in a way, and makes you hvae to get used to a whole host of new characters in a short space of time. I found this book kind of interesting but at the same time a bit silly, pretty much everyman present in the book was a two timer. I don’t think this book was fantastic but I do feel it is worth a bit of a read.
THe Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds – This follows pretty much true events of a mental asylum where the poet John Claire was, at the same time it is also the place Alfred Tennyson putting his brother into care. I did find this book interesting but at the same time I found it too short. It was snapshots of events that happned over about a year and a halfs worth of seasons, and I kind of wanted to see a bit more of the big picture. So all in all a good book but too short.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – This story for some reason I am finding the hardest to talk about. I did find this a very good story, well written and after discussion at the meeting there are several possible things that could have been behind the events that played out in the story. I wasn’t for some reason that drawn into the book, even though it is a good book. I think for me there just wasn’t enough excitment in it, I think I’m too used to reading sci-fi/fantasy where there is often more up down tension in a book.
The children’s storybook by AS Byatt – I haven’t read this one yet, though from what I’ve heard it does sound like a good book. I’m looking forward to being able to read it.
And finally Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – This is a weighty tome and I have to say that lugging this to work and back was a real pain. But it is a fantastic book (of which I still have to read 200 pages or so), its written in a stream of conciousness which does at times make it a little hard to follow, you can’t always be sure who said what. The book follows Thomas Cromwell as he rises through King Henry VIII’s court. There’s not really much else I have to say about this as the book just really draws me in, in fact one of the owners of the book shop who set this whole thing up said that he stopped reading it because he felt that having to speed read it in time to read all the other books just didn’t do it justitce. To which I do agree. A book that is a must read, although maybe wait untill the paperback is out! 
A blog update! 3 October 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
So it’s been awhile (yet again) since my last blog post… I wonder how long it will be till the next post? If I knew more about gambling we could lay odds on when it would be. Hopefully it’ll be sooner rather than later. Once of the reasons I think I was so rubbish at updating this is that because when me and C moved into our flat, we just had mobile broadband, which just didn’t want to work with my netbook, so I had to use his, and one computer between two is just awkward, so I just couldn’t be arsed.
However we have now moved back to my parents. No its not an ideal situation, but the flat we were in was too expensive, not to mention badly designed. It was always damp, the washing never dried in time, there was mould growing everwhere. I will admit to not beeing the most active person when it comes to cleaning but honestly I do not want to have to be wiping down skirting boards all the time due to mold. To be honest its lucky that we didn’t really get that sick either, although I quite probabloy was quite run down a lot. I do feel better now we’re out of there.
In other news, work, well not sure what I can say about that, my manager has told me I need to write my own job description… I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to write there! I also don’t quite know what I am and am not allowed to do sometimes with regards to the databases, because I’m not under IT and well.. it’s all just a funny situation and I do wonder about looking for a new job.
Recently I’ve started spend a lot more time at my local independent book shop, they do a lot of activities like having authors come in and give talks (although I haven’t been to any of those yet) but they’ve also doing a knitting group once a month which I’ve been going to. It’s very nice being able to sit and drink tea and eat biscuits and just knit.
It’s also that time of year for the Man booker prize, and the book shop has posed a challenge to read all 6 short listed books and then to get together to discuss who we think should win and then see who actually does win. This started 3 weeks ago and the winner is announced this Tuesday, so far I am on book 5, I’m not going to be able to finish that and start on book 6 in time. Its been an interesting read as I have read quite a few books that I wouldn’t read normally (being the fantasy and sci-fi buff that I am). I have to say though that out of the 5 it’s only this 5th one that I’m reading now that I’m finding the most enjoyable, it is also the favourite. Once I’ve read them all (which maybe by next weekend) I’ll put up a post just summersing what I thought of the books. (If I remember, look there that should be a 2nd post not too long after this one!! If I manage it that’ll be amazing 
) C’s been doing this challange as well, it’s taken him most of the time to read the book that I’m currently on, he’s only just got his hands on a 2nd book. Although the bookshop did joke that he could just ask me what the other books are about.
Anyway I think that’s it for now.
25 April 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.add a comment
So C thinks I’m going mad, and I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I might be. Last night, I swear I heard a rustling sound, but C insisted that it’d just been him moving slightly, then when he’d popped out the room I heard another rustling sound, I sat up and I swear, I SWEAR I saw something grey flash past and vanish behind the dressing table. Now I’m not really scared of mice, I’ve saved quite a few from my cats over the years, but at the same time knowing that there is one in your bedroom, is just a little disturbing. C didn’t really believe me when I told him there was a mouse, but we did ponder how it could have come in and the only thing we could think of was that possibly it came in through the back door when he’d had it open earlier in the day. Although the back door is up a steep step so… who knows.
So then I woke up this morning bout 5am ish, to hear a scuttling noise from the kitchen so I got up and pushed the bedroom door to, as I didn’t really want it back in the bedroom. Since then I haven’t heard hide nor hair of it. We did head out to look for a trap, no not a normal put cheese on and break the mouses back kind, one to just trap it and let it go outside. I just haven’t the heart to kill the poor thing. The only things Wilkinson’s had though (cause really I’m not quite sure where you go to get such things these days.) were the back breaking traps, poison, or fancy ultrasonic devices that you plug into the mains and the noise is supposed to disorientate mice. So we currently have that plugged in, but so far there has been no sound of a disorientated mouse.
C is therefore quite sceptical that this mouse even exists, and thinks that I may just be mad an imagining it…. :S
In other news, work is going ok. Since we’ve moved offices I no longer have a desk and am continually hot desking, which is quite annoying. I’ve nearly finished the project I’m working on which means I really need to start the other one that my manager wants me to do as I’d quite like to stay in this job for the time being.
Food Glorious Food… 28 March 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.2 comments
So I’m coming up to a bit of a cross roads in my life, and to be honest I’m not quite sure what to do. I’m vegetarian, I have been sicne I was about 18, in fact this is the second time I’ve been veggi in my life. the first time was when I was 10 and that lasted hmm 4 years possibly. I became veggi that time becuase I’d been on a school trip to Pendarren, in Wales, and we’d been taken to an auction of farm animals, and well that rather put me off eating meat for a while. But then I started to miss bacon and I went back to eating meat, although funnily enough I mostly only ate chicken as I wasn’t even that big a fan of bacon.
The second time I became veggi was after I’d seen a programme on how they eat dogs in Korea. Now to my mind a dog is a cute animal used as a pet, possibly a work animal if it’s a husky or a sheep dog, but not really to be eaten. Thus I don’t really think I could ever bring myself to eat a dog, and yet I argued to myself, I can eat chickens because they are ugly?
To my mind, that was not a good argument , and so I became veggi. And to be honest that’s been fine. Untill recently. I’ve come to the conclusion that a LOT of the veggi meat replacement stuff, just tastes like crap. And while quorn mince/pieces are alright, a) you really have to flavour them up as they don’t taste of anything and b) C doesn’t like it. So at the moment there is not much substance to our meals, pasta/rice and veg isn’t that filling. As C doesn’t like mushrooms either I’m starting to feel as if i’m lacking in proten a little bit too.
Watching cooking programes where they have a nice bit of meat in a delicious looking meal doesn’t help either. So maybe my solution is simple, I just start eating meat again, but in some ways I don’t really want to, plus it’s been so long since i’ve eaten meat that to be honest the thought of actually biting into a piece of meat is rather sickening.
I’m really not quite sure what to do, I guess just think it over a little more for now.
The first great Tyranid Battle 22 March 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Warhammer.Tags: Eldar, games workshop, Tyranids
add a comment
So I did my first proper Tyranid battle today, fighting C’s Eldar, and well.. initial reaction is, he pretty my decimated my troops with all his gun fire. I lost both unit’s of genestealers in his first shooting phase, (that included my poor Broodlord, he didn’t get to hit anything.) Then over the 4 turns that we played I proceded to lose almost a whole unit of Hormogaunts (1 survived), and a lot gaunts, 3 warriors and 2, YES TWO Carnifex’s. ALthough saying that I did very nearly did win, it was an objective match, I had one objectve, C had another, and before C’s last turn the last one was in contention between my carnifex and some of his troops, he managed however to kill that carnifex off with a power claw (he’d killed the other Carnifex in that fight off with a witch blade (that carnifex had taken damage previously before getting into that fight)). I rolled so badly for those two carnifex’s that it was almost laugable. I very nearly got a change to contend the objective C did have with my other carnifex, but by that point I had 1 Carnifex left, a smattering of Gaunts and 3 warriors, and well, he would have shot me to bits on his next turn.
So C did win that match, but it was quite a close run thing. What have I learnt from this? THat when I deploy, infiltration is probably going to get my genestealers killed, that I should stick all my gaunts in front, and probably have my Carnifex’s in front too, as they are quite hard to kill, and in theory (assuming the dice gods like you) they should hit quite hard. Oh also that the barbed strangler is a pretty good gun against guardians.
What I also realised would be useful during the fight would be a 3rd barbed strangerler, and also some deep striking units to hit C’s army from behind, so I now have a Lictor to build.. hehehe.
10 March 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.add a comment
And again its been way to long since I last updated, I keep saying to myself, oh I should blog this or that, but thats usually on the train to/from work and by the time I get home it’s slipped my mind or I can’t be bothered. Admitidly I’ve had a good excuse recently as I’ve finally moved out of my parents house and into my own flat with C. It’s quite a nice flat, seperate bedroom to the kitchen, and with a reasonable amount of space. Although once we moved in we realised that it was quite dirty in places, whoever lived here before us was a bit of a slob, as there was bubble gum sticking a door mat to the floor, disgustingly dirty microwave and oven. But we’ve got things cleaned now and are settling in. The real big annoyance was the lack of phone line into the place, apparently when it was done up, the old phone lines were ripped up and the new ones were negletced, so we’ve gotten a mobile broadband package and are just going to do it that way, as in some ways its just easier.
On the knitting front I’ve FINALLY been able to start Vivian, my mum ordered the yarn for me for Xmas, but the company didn’t have enough, so she had to cancel the order and then re-order later. So I finally got the yarn a few weeks ago. Although I must confess I’ve made quickish progress on the top, I’m almost up to the sleeves. I’m really enjoying the knit, there’s been a few places where I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but it’s going well so far, and the yarn is quite lovely. I’m using Louet, Riverside Chunky yarn in charcoal. (I am not yet set up in my new place to sort out taking photo’s and uploading them to flickr yet.)
In reply to Amy A’s comment on my about page, I do really mean to record some more stuff for librivox, I just have to many hobbies at the moment. Plus I need an actual computer to record onto, although I’m hoping to get that sorted.
Ack this is a bit of a jumpy post, as I’m just not really sure what to talk about at the moment, plus C wants his laptop back.
The day I disappeared 29 January 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: police, pubs, theft
4 comments
So I’ve had an eventful last few days. Tuesday I met up with C and a few friends for our RP game, we’re currently playing Scion. I got there about 5.45, C was already there sitting at a table. We usually sit in a booth but they were all taken, so it was just a table this time. I sat down, we ordered food, I started working on my Lunar, and food came. At about 6.15ish I realised that there was one person (maybe two sitting at the table behind us, and I started feeling a little uncomfortable. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the woman (who was sitting on the chair behind C) was sitting at a bit of a funny angle, but i sort of thought, maybe she was waiting for someone at the bar. Oh isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing, I should have looked at her, or something… At about 6.40 (the person had gone by now) I reched into my bag to check my phone to see if a friend had texted as I knew him and his gf were turning up a bit late.
And… well can u guess where this is going? Yup, No phone in bag, and no wallet either. I had several moments of panic, while C insisted that they couldn’t be stolen, as my bag had been sitting right between our chairs but…
So obviously I had to cancel my phone, which is what led to the rather crazy events the next day at work.
I got into work a bit later than usual (9.15 instead of 8.35 because I’d had to make a statement to the police over the phone that morning), and I was off on a site inspection with one of the Estate Supervisors that day. (I’m looking at making a system to make their jobs a little easier.) We were supposed to be going at 10, but we set off at 9.30 and I didn’t get back to the office till 12. At which point my manager leaped at me and said ‘There you are, loads of people are looking for you!’ At which point I get told that because he hadn’t seen me come in he’d got worried, phoned my mobile (which of course was not repsonsive) then phoned Adecco. They phoned my house, but with no one in they could only leave a message. So no one was sure where I was.. (even though i had signed in!)
Thus I phoned up Adecco to say yes I’m ok, and then figured I should phone home to let my mum know to ignore the message on the answer machine from Adecco. However a couple of hours later I get a phone call at work from my mum, because she was worried as I’d spoken quietly on the phone and wanted to make sure I was ok!
It was all a bit crazy!
I was actually ok yesterday, it was today where I just felt horrid, and I blame that on a phone call I made. I got told by the police that I needed to phone the pub to ask them to check whether anything was even visible on the CCTV, to see if there was anything the police could do. So I phoned up the pub, and just, hit a wall of the most unhelpful and unsympathetic person I’ve ever spoken to. Maybe he didn’t understand me to well either but, I tried to explain what had happend and he said ‘I wasn’t in yesterday I don’t know anything about it’. Well ok.. doesn’t mean you can’t say something more along the lines of ‘Oh I’m so sorry about that, unfortunatly I wasn’t in yesterday.’
Then when i tried to explain what the police had told me, he just kept saying ‘we cannot check the cctv for you’. Which on the one side I do understand why they cant’ but on the other, he could have been A LOT nicer about it. In fact those two lines were about all he kept repeating to me. I was torn between crying and screaming down the phone at him, I know it wasn’t his fault, and its not the pubs fault but for fucks sake he could have offered a bit of sympathy. I even tried to give him the description of the woman I’d spoken to on Tuesday, but I hadn’t got her name and he didn’t evne offer anything helpful like ‘oh that’s so and so, i’ll just get her’ or something. It didnt really occur to me at the time to ask for a manager, i did ask if I could speak to someone else, but at the same time I couldn’t be arsed. That was the closest I’ve ever come to hanging up on someone. I phoned the police up after and explained it all to them, but.. yeah I think that phone call just really got to me. I just really wasnt in the best moods this morning.
And to top it all off, the police phoned back to say they’d contacted the pub, to be told that.. (and it’s this just bloody typical) the CCTV is broken. Seriously you wonder what IS the bloody point?
Welcome 2009! 12 January 2009
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting, travel.Tags: lace, lily, socks, virgin trains, wedding, yarn
1 comment so far
So it’s been a while, (again, I think I’m always saying this). Christmas has been and gone, and I’ve had a good holiday. Unlike last year I haven’t actually catalogued my presents, which I maybe should do or at least take some photo’s of the wool I’ve got. I’ve also finally finished (well almost) Lily, I just need to block and sew in the ends, although I haven’t quite decided if I’ll stick with the cast off or change it to ribbing. I’ve also started some Jaywalker socks, almost finished one and I’m loving the colours. I will post some photos I promise!
So what else did I do for New Year? Me and C went up to Liverpool on the 31st to spend new year with my friend A from Uni, and also to go to another friends wedding on the 2nd. Which was quite fun, as my friend had his engagement pressi at the wedding, which was a big axe. The registra made the comment just before they exchanged vows that he could put the axe down as she wasn’t going anywhere.
Coming home however was a right PITA. It took us 6 hours, on what is usually a 2 and a half hour journey. >_< The train was going to be slow anyway, maybe an hour or so longer due to a plane crash the day before, but as we were on the train the power lines around Watford Junction went out, and our train got cancelled at Birmingham, (it had already taken 2 hours to get there.) We then had to wait 45 mins for a train at Moor Street (and it was so busy with people trying to get home to London that the police where there for crowd control.) That train took 2 hours to get home, and then we were at Marlybone station fora good half hour while I tried to top up my Oyster Card. But we made it home finally.
So since then I have been busy working, (well staring cross-eyed at spreadsheets…) but it’s been going well.
Anyway since starting this blog post several days ago I have taken some photo’s of my new socks
Pretty. It did take me a while to get these started, as I couldn’t quite get guage right, I also tried to do them top down, but kept getting it twisted so went for toe-up. So nearly finished with the first one.
Not actually an Xmas pressi, more a graduation present to myself, but again pretty. I know pink is usually not my colour but yet I couldn’t resist.
(I feel I’ve been quite lazy with this blog post.. but oh well.)
Santa will visit soon! :) 23 December 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.add a comment
So we had to move things around the house at the weekend in order to make space for Xmas, and thus put up our tree. We discovered, when my mum took the netting off that held it together that its well.. a rather short and fat tree.
Still am looking forward to Xmas, although I have to keep telling C that he can’t go and open his presents yet!
Update 17 December 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting, Warhammer, Work, librivox.add a comment
Not really got that much to say at the moment, it’s all been a bit hectic in someways as I fall into the rythem of getting up for work in the morning and then getting home. All this working means that trying to juggle this myraid of hobbies I have is a bit awkward (Still I’m earning money so this is not really a complaint). Tuesday evenings are taken up by role playing, we’ve just started a Scion game, which is proving to be quite fun, after only two sessions, after Xmas we’ll probably end up alternating between that and Dark Heresy if our two other players become less busy. But Scion is a lot of fun. (Sometimes I wonder what ‘normal’ people think when they hear what plots and plans we discuss, like hunting down serial killers, or trying to protect magical zombie raising chalices which people might think is the holy grail.)
My knitting has slowed down, although I think once I’ve settled in a bit more at work I’ll start taking some socks in, probably after xmas at this rate. Although saying that I think I’ve already settled in in some ways. They’ve all been so friendly, had my xmas meal with them yesterday and am taking part in secret santa. As a company they do have a lot of temps thou, so it’s quite nice.
Hmm what else? Ohh ack I’ve really been negleticting my librivox recording, and tbh I probably need to get up to date with some projects, chase up readers and such. (I think I meant to do some of this the other weekend but it slipped my mind, and I’ve got to find a secret santa gift this weekend).
Finally don’t even get me started on my Tyranids… I haven’t touched them in weeks (I also really need to get a case for them too.) Oh well it’ll get done at some point.. C just keeps hasseling me about it, but.. I do like my Tyranids and I do want to paint them (and well I want to get and paint a chaos army too) but… I want to knit.. and er.. Knitting kind of wins that fight. Plus its cold and dark and painting is fiddly.
