THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

I am intending to write a post on the CTU's continued allegiance to the dismal Labour Party but that will have to wait for another day as I seem to be in the midst of a summer slumber.

This has involved me watching lots of football (no Xmas presents from Newcastle United as usual) and also a generous helping of Ashes cricket.

I have also been reading a fair bit. At the moment I'm about half way through Stieg Larsson's 600 page The Girl Who Played with Fire. This is the second book in the Millennium trilogy. I didn't read the first book but I did watch the video. My initial impression is that the book's are far richer and complex than the film translations.

And, thanks to wondrous free ebook downloads, I'm reading Jerome K Jerome's The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow and Three Men in a Boat.

Writes Jerome in the preface to The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow:

I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere 'idle thoughts' of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purpose whatsoever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading 'the best hundred books' you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change.

It's also been good to get reacquainted with Gene Hunt, the not very PC detective on the Ashes to Ashes television series, the follow up to the great Life on Mars.

Prime TV have relegated the series to late night screenings over consecutive nights. This week its running from Monday to Thursday around about 11pm. Clearly the first series didn't work for then ratings-wise hence its unattractive timeslot. It's one of the best things on New Zealand television at the moment but Prime think repeat screenings of Danger Beach are more worthy of peak audience timeslots.

Normal transmission on this blog will resume..soon.