Wallpaper* City Guides

I started collecting Wallpaper* City Guides sometime last year after first stumbling upon one in a coffee shop. After reading tons of white texts on numerous Rogue Guides and Lonely Planet, the concise and design-led manner in which Wallpaper presents its city guides caught my eyes. Text were minimal, but always informative. Suggestions were limited to one venue per page or two, sometimes even three!

Wallpaper* City Guides are supplementary guides aimed at design, style and culture conscience travelers. These are not meant to replace your typical Lonely Planet, which are good for pointing out obvious tourist stuff. Published by Phaidon, City Guides books on the other hand are guides for architecture and design fans seeking a more sophisticated and curated experience on whichever cities they are visiting. For example, a listing in Copenhagen suggested a visit to an Arne Jacobsen designed petrol station about 20km outside Copenhagen.

Our current City Guides collection currently number about fifteen, and growing. We aim to get a City Guides book for every city we visited and those we are planning to visit. Some we've skipped (like Genoa) because we were only in the city for a couple of hours, though we will likely visit again due to its proximity to dreamy Cinque Terre. Despite its diminutive and pocketable design, we do not make it to a lot of the venues suggested - normally out of budget constraints - but that's fine as it means we have to visit again.

Brockley: Lewisham Micro Library

Lewisham Micro Library is a community book swap micro library located on the border of Lewisham and Brockley. It is located on the south side of Lewisham Way where it meets with Loampit Hill, on the corner of Tyrwhitt Road, just outside Brockley Market.

The micro library is made up of a classic K2 red phone box. As with all free book swap libraries, you take a book to read and replace that with an old book you have already ready.

The Independent Coffee Book: London review

I know nothing about the art of making coffee, but lately, thanks to the influence of a select few Foursquare friends, I've come to appreciate good coffee. After years of sipping rubbish coffee from chain shops, it's like discovering a whole new world of caffeinated delight.

The Independent Coffee Book is the ultimate companion guide for anyone who wishes to start the journey on discovering the many specialty coffee shops and carts dotted around London. Each coffee shop, listing includes detailed information such as the opening hours, historical perspective of the shop, Wifi availability, bathrooms, loyalty card programme and even the espresso machine used. There are also sections dedicated to the roasters Square Mile, Monmouth, Nude Espresso, Dark Fluid and Climpson & Sons.

Perhaps less useful for some customers but no less intriguing and interesting for coffee lovers are the inclusion of several pages detailing the history of the coffee trade in London. You will also find guides on coffee tasting, ethical trading of coffee beans, a short guide on coffee roasting and the different brewing methods. On the back you will find useful a useful fold out map detailing select coffee shops and their locations.

Print is not dead

As seen at Southbank Centre popup "aMAZEme" library

The Stupidest Angel film!

The Stupidest Angel is one of my all time favourite absurdist fiction. Written by Christopher Moore, who has hardly ever written a bad book (Fool was pretty bad though). So I felt a tinge of excitement and dread when while surfing IMDB I noticed there was an entry for it.

Yes, The Stupidest Angel is being adapted into a film and they are currently in pre-production phase. All of Christopher Moore's books has been optioned for film adaptation, but this is the first to be in danger of being made into one.

Casting for certain key characters has already been announced, with Tyler Labine lined up to play Theo Crow. Somehow I can't imagine Tyler Labine as Theo, the stoner constable of Pine Cove, the California town where The Stupidest Angel is set. I know Tyler Labine looks like a stoner, but he just doesn't look like a Theo, who I always imagined as malnourished and kinda sad looking. Still, it could be worse.

The fantastic Dina Meyer will be playing Molly Michon, the former B-movie scream queen aka Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland, who we saw last hooked up with a sea monster in The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove before settling down with Theo. I haven't seen a film with Dina Meyer for years, perhaps since Starship Troopers, so it is nice to know there is at least one film I am watching in the future which will feature her.

Bite Me: A Love Story review

Bite Me: A Love Story is the third book in Christopher Moore's 'Vampire' trilogy which chronicles the love life of a C. Thomas (Tommy) Flood and his vampire girlfriend Jody. Fear not as this isn't like those silly crapfest that has recently been turned into films. Instead it is filled with generous amount of action and dry humour that you would expect from the author of A Dirty Job and Lamb. If you've read all of Christopher Moore's books (and I have, about ten times each), Bite Me will sound oddly familiar. It gathers a couple of characters from previous books, blends them and churns them into one comedy mess, and when I mean mess, I mean a book you simply can't put down.

This is a love story, though not your typical one. Tommy and Jody are lovers, who so happened to be vampires, except they aren't the elder kind who sleeps in coffins and can turn into bats. Jody has only been a vampire a couple of months longer than Tommy, and Tommy has only been one for like a week. Biggest issue of all is Tommy wants out. And then there's them being bronzed into statues by their perky underage goth girl minion Abby Normal.

Abby, whose daywalker name is Allison Green, lives with her genius scientist undergrad boyfriend Steve. Steve, also known as Foo, has hair that is very manga (Abby's words, not mine) and perform experiments on vampire things, finding ways to turn them back though the fact that they can turn into mists irritates him more. There's also this fat shaved cat, Chet, who has somehow turned himself into a vampire and is stalking the city turning hobos into dusts with his gang of smaller but equally deadly minion of undead cats.

To make matter worse, the elder vampires has set sail for the city. Their mission: to clean up the mess left by Elijah, the original vampire who turn Jody (and Chet), and that is to kill all the vampire cats, vampire humans and anyone who has seen or knows about the vampires. Soon enough Tommy, Jody, emergency backup mistress of the Greater Bay area Abby, Steve, the Emperor of San Francisco and his lieutenant dogs, the Animals aka Safeway night crew (with the help of a Chinese grandmother's anti vampire cat remedy) and two incompetent cops have to join forces to save the city, and more importantly, themselves.

I am gong to be honest here. Bite Me was kinda disappointing by Christopher Moore's standard. It is a far improvement over his previous book Fool (which I am pretending never happened), but falls behind his greats like the original vampire love book Bloodsucking Fiend, the missing gospel that became Lamb, and A Dirty Job (easily one of the greatest comedy book written). Abby, whose diary posts were pretty amusing in You Suck, came off as being a tad more annoying than usual. It doesn't help that her blog posts read like an older person trying to be young (which is exactly what it was). And then there's that other annoying character from Fluke, but I'll leave that as a surprise. Bloodsucking Fiend had just the right balance between humour, and isn't as over the top as this. The final quarter of this book also felt rushed. There are also plenty of unanswered questions and lose ends not tied up, like what is up with that old short Japanese man?

Still, any disappointing book by Christopher Moore is considered great in the literal world and I would not hesitate to recommend his to anyone who has a liking for books with plenty of humour. Just read Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck first if you can help it (you don't have to, as the first few chapters does good in catching you up). Personally I am still reeling at the unexpected ending, but perhaps a fourth book to fix that? Please...!

Bite Me: A Love Story is available as a hardcover from Amazon UK and Amazon.com

I read The Lost Symbol so you don't have to

I wasn't expecting much of The Lost Symbol, but it surpassed even my wildest expectations. It was awful. I mean dreadfully bad. I read this book in one day, not because it was so compelling, but because it was so ridiculously bad I wanted to get it over with and write this little rant. You would think that after four books, Dan Brown would learn to write or at least aim to change his formulaic approach to writing mysterious thrillers, but no...

This has all the hallmarks of a 'Robert Langdon-series' book: predictable plot, tedious pacing, "it can't be that simple" code cracking, a cast of inept law enforcement agencies (in this case the CIA and a bunch of idiot security guards), cardboard characters, psychotic villain with family issues well versed in religious icons (with a predictable big 'reveal' at the end) and a geeky but fine scientist sidekick. Oh, and the usual tangled cliffhangers at the end of every fucking paragraph. Then we have plenty of pseudo intellectual nonsense by characters who are so dumb they frequently decide to hang around solving puzzles whilst being chased. The characters here are so dull and uneventful you just do not know just who to root for, though to be honest I was rooting for Sato, the willy CIA boss, to stick a spork inside Robert Langdon and wail "this is national security priority, away with you and your cryptic nonsense".

Hope briefly materialised about two third through when the hero nitwit Harvard professor was presumably killed off. There was I thinking that the author has broke out of his predictable rut and did something decent and unexpected for once, but then he goes and bring the renowened symbologist (the true field here is semiotics) back to life leading to a scene where Langdon lovingly kisses Katherine (what, the heir of Jesus isn't enough for you?). The plot makes absolutely no sense, with the victim attempting to protect a secret that wasn't a secret anyway, thus causing plenty of unnecessary deaths along the way! Still CIA bungling their way through the story were some of the pretty funny moments, you can even excuse the death of that lone field agent sent to investigate the bald tattoo villain's home. But seriously, nothing here is original. Even the villain is lifted straight out of Red Dragon, whose hell bend desire to 'transform' reminds anybody who has ever read a good book (or watched the bad film) about Francis Dolarhyde.

I don't mind bad writing per se as long as they are entertaining. It is like watching some crappy Jerry Bruckheimer film - they are crap but for that one moment you are at least entertained. This however takes the award for being utterly dull, poorly written and just plain crap (like the film Transformers), padded to the core with useless Wikipedia trivia. It reads like a bad TV series that gets cancelled after a season. It even has product placements (who gives a flying fuck what phone Sato uses, what elevator Langdon take or car Katherine drives?). It isn't even original. It is a remake of da Vinci Code, which was a remake of Angels and Demons which itself was a remake of Digital Fortress or something.

Gosh, even National Treasure wasn't this bad. Avoid this book is my suggestion (don't buy it - borrow it from a library if you want to suffer). If you want to save what is left of your brain cells read Frederick Forsyth or Robert Ludlum instead, and leave books like this and Twilight to the X-Factor generation.

"Fool" teaser

Here's the Cliff Notes you wished you'd had for King Lear—the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue—in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and all Fate's bastards. It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune—only to discover the truth about their own heritage. There's more murder, mayhem, mistaken identities and scene changes than you can remember, but bestselling Moore (You Suck) turns things on their head with an edgy 21st-century perspective that makes the story line as sharp, surly and slick as a game of Grand Theft Auto. Moore confesses he borrows from at least a dozen of the Bard's plays for this buffet of tragedy, comedy and medieval porn action. It's a manic, masterly mix—winning, wild and something today's groundlings will applaud. (Feb.)

A Chris Moore book based on a Shakespearean lore! Excited yet? I think I will re-read his entire back catalogue (for the sixth time) this week. ^_^

From Publishers Weekly via Amazon.com also blogged by Chris himself

Sony Reader PRS-505 impressions

I've been an avid e-book reader since the old days of grey scale Palm devices, where Palm OS once dominated the mobile world (oh how they squandered their market share). The best e-book reader I've ever used is actually the Dell Axim X50v (well before it was nicked), which has a wonderful 480x640 screen that made reading books and mangas a joy. The problem with these and modern devices are the (lack of) battery life and the inability to read books outdoors.

Today I had a chance to play around with Sony's recently released (in the UK at least) Sony Reader PRS-505. The PRS-505 is an updated version of the PRS-500 which was released in 2006. The PRS-505 contains a 6" 600x800 resolution (perfect for reading graphic novels) electronic paper screen with support of up to 8-levels of grey scale. E-paper allows for a massive improvement in battery life (around 7000 page turns on the Reader) as well as paper-like characteristic (high contrast, flicker free, readable in the sun).

The Reader supports Sony's BBeB book format (in both DRM and none-DRM form) as well as both protected and unprotected PDF, TXT, RTF, DOC and ePub e-book formats. It is a shame that Palm documents (pdb) doesn't work on the Reader and I won't hold my breath that the Reader will eventually support it (which is a darn shame).

The UI is quick to understand. The 'menu' buttons acts as a 'back' button that allows you to cycle through the menu. Like digital music, e-books can be sorted through different categories e.g. writer, publisher etc. A couple of buttons are laid on the bottom of the Reader and a quick access short cuts (0-9) that allows you to easily select books/chapters etc.

Dedicated page forward/backward keys are also easily accessible near the right edge of the Reader, though it may annoy lefties. The Reader is made of plastic and is about the same size as a trade paperback. It is also much thinner (about the same thickness as a standard mobile phone) and light. A Pro Duo card slot is available to supplement the 256MB flash ROM.

When I first handled the Reader I thought it was a none-working demo unit. This was because the screen looked as though the texts were printed on a paper then stuck to the screen, kinda like how mobile phone shops market their none-working 'display' units. It was that good. The screen isn't paper white as the background has a sort of light greyish tone to it, but it does look paper-like.

The contrast is good though and black isn't as the blackest black I've seen (if that makes sense!). Screen refresh (the whole screen flashes black for a fraction of a second) is on the slow side, but isn't slow enough to detract from the experience. Text is very clear and is easily readable in the sunlight. Three text size options are available, great for people who tends to purchase and read large print format.

Personally I am going to wait for a while until the e-book selections at Waterstones increases (they have about 3500 fiction books for sale). It would be best if Waterstones gives customers an option to buy electronic books at a discounted price if they also buy the physical copies. But perhaps best of all, the Sony Reader is surprisingly open and allows you to upload and read the tens of thousands of copyright-free books from Project Gutenburg.

All in all, I really do like the Reader. At £199, it isn't too bad a début price considering that Borders UK is selling the iLiad e-book reader for a massive £299-£399. And while the screen does not offer the same experience as reading on a thick high quality printed paper, it is still the closest you can get an electronic screen to be comfortable on the eyes. While it won't replace hardbacks, but if you travel a lot and is an avid reader, then this may be your dream product.

The Sony Reader PRS-505 is now available for £199. Unlike Borders UK, Waterstones has decided to backup the Reader with a dedicated online store. While the selection seems respectable they don't seem to be selling e-book versions of Christopher Moore's books yet (eReader does - but the books won't be compatible with the Reader).

Christopher Moore "Fool"

Somehow this little none-news managed to slip by me. This is the book cover for the US hardback of Fool by Christopher Moore, best selling author of Lamb and A Dirty Job. The UK release, most likely by publisher Orbit, will almost definitely feature some kind of cold CG artwork like all his reprinted books are now carrying. In the mean time you can pre-order the US hardback version.

via

You Suck: A Love Story review

You Suck: A Love Story is a direct sequel to Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story. As a recap (spoiler follows) of the first book, Jody a red-head woman living in San Francisco is turned into a vampire after being attacked by elderly vampire who was using her to quench his boredom. She seeks the aid of a C. Thomas Flood, a nineteen year old writer and immigrant to the city who works at the local supermarket supervising a night shift potheads dubbed the 'Animals'. A series of vampire related murders started popping up and attracts Tommy and Jody to the attention of authorities. Aiming to secure their human-vampire relationship, Jody and Tommy seeks to uncover the motif of the elder vampire with the help of The Emperor and his two dogs. The story ends with Jody saving the elder vampire from being killed by her human boyfriend Tommy.

The story of You Suck picks up immediately after the ending of Bloodsucking Fiends. Despite promising the police that she would move away after the events of Bloodsucking Fiends, she and the elder vampire has been turns into bronze statues at the behest of Tommy. Jody escapes and turns Tommy into a fellow vampire, whom is finding the experience rather uncomfortable. To make matters worse his fellow Animals, now penniless after spending half a million of dollars on a blue hooker smurf, has turned their backs on him. The police are also on their tail and the elder vampire still encased in his claustrophobic bronze statue is planning his revenge. New character Abby Normal (from A Dirty Job, which The Emperor and Jody also made cameo appearances) is drafted in as their new willing minion to help with their attempt to escape destruction and remain together in love.

To be honest I didn't find the sequel to be a particularly great read - at least not on par with Christopher Moore's standard. It isn't short, though due to the lack of intrinsic plot it was rather a quick book that can be completed in a couple of hours. It does provide many of the unanswered questions that were left hanging in Bloodsucking Fiends, but it isn't as funny nor was it as mesmerising. Elijah the 800 year old vampire came off as none-threatening and stupid; and the ending was spoiled by the liberal use of deus ex machina. The highlight of the book is definitely Abby Normal. Her character adds an extra dimension as a Starbucks addict Goth minion of her Lord Flood and her diary pages are pretty funny. Also returning are the two detectives, veterens to all things heinous fuckery most foul; and Steve the Japanese manga dude who is actually Chinese.

You Suck, like any of Christopher Moore's books comes recommended. But if you are expecting Moore's usual kinky banter and high quality wit you may find it slightly disappointing. Still, you should never fear for an accomplished writer like Moore. Even despite it being one of Moore's weakest entries, You Suck is still an enjoyable light read especially if you are a fan of absurdist fiction. Just don't expect it to be a classic like Lamb and do make sure to read Bloodsucking Fiends and perhaps A Dirty Job first.

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror review

The Stupidest Angel is one of Christopher Moore's book to be set in the town of Pine Cove, California. Strange things has happened to Pine Cove, California. A couple of years before a lustful lizard called Steve reigned terror on the town whose many crazy residents were unknowingly taken off their medication in exchange for placebos because the resident psychiatrist felt guilty by the apparent suicide of one of her patient. Before that in Practical Demonkeeping, the town played host to Travis and his demon servant Catch, where Travis attempts to seek a lost incantation necessary to get rid of his annoying green pal - whose hobby includes eating the people he meet.

It is almost Christmas in Pine Cove and Lena Marquez has just accidentally killed Santa Clause, her ex-husband Dale Pearson. Josh Barker, a seven year old child, witnesses the apparent death of the red fat guy and immediately prays for a Christmas miracle. Naturally no one believes him. Tucker Case, years after saving a bunch of cargo cult worshipping cannibals from an island, agrees to help Lena by providing an alibi, as well as sleeping with her. Constable Theo Crowe, already busy investigating a seemingly blonde 'robot', doesn't believe her - but a blackmail by Tuck only incensed him further. Meanwhile the angel Raziel is sent to earth to grant one child a wish that can only be fulfilled by divine intervention, and immediately misinterprets and grants Josh's wish and instead reanimated the town's dead - all of whom developed a liking for brains and Ikea furnitures! Further complicating matters is El Nino.

We see the return of many key Christopher Moore characters from his other books, including the archangel Raziel (from Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal), Tuck and his Ray-Ban wearing Micronesian talking fruit bat Roberto from Island of the Sequinned Love Nun, as well as some of the residents of Pine Cove, such as constable elect Theo Crowe and his samurai bearing warrior babe partner Molly Michon, friends Gabe and his dog Skinner, as well as Valerie (The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove) and Mavis Sand (Practical Demonkeeping, and the previous aforementioned title). Centre to the theme, these characters are brought together through their desire to be with one, a key Christopher Moore theme.

You will never read a more witty book that any of Moore's book. They tend to lead you to an unimaginable setting, often told through ridiculously exaggerated plotlines. His characters are very unique, indeed one of the many unique traits his characters has are how dysfunctional each of them are in their own right. The Stupidest Angel isn't a long book (it is one of his shortest work), but the entertainment is second to none. It is one of the most brilliant books I've read recently and comes close to Lamb as my favourite Christopher Moore book.

Christopher Moore books are very rare and difficult to come by. They are available on the eReader e-book platform.

J. K. Rowling

... please please please stop acting like a neurotic idiot. Seriously, go to Portugal and find Madeleine McCann instead of trying to court sympathy here like the raving lunatic you are trying to portray yourself as. Your books are fine, but to think that by breaking down in court because you may lose sales is absurd. May I suggest a visit to the library or book store, where you will find countless of fair use books on other books and other third party derivatives of other books. If other authors (who are probably not as successful as you are) don't bitch about it (in fact most authors would be delighted if the same attention is given to them), I can't see why you should. Or is being richer than the Queen not enough?

I don't deny it. I enjoy Harry Potter books, but I classify them in the same section as Da Vince Code. They are entertaining, but as far as literary skills goes - are pretty damn poor. It's not like Harry Potter was an original concept anyway. The next time I read Harry Potter again, I will try to imagine it was written by a well behaved, respected and likeable literacy genius. Like Terry Pratchett, but that would be too insulting to Mr. Pratchett. Hell, I think I am going to celebrate this blog article by re-reading The Colour of Magic. Who's with me?

street logos

This is a birthday gift from RichardAM, who sent this through my Amazon Wishlist. Many many thanks mate! Incidentally it was this very book that caused me such grieve, but fret not another parcel containing another gift was among the Royal Mail screw up. Woo-hoo!


It is street logos (1st revision) compiled by Tristan Manco and published by Thames & Hudson (so you know the paper quality is good). Not many know it but I am a huge fan of urban art (mainly stencil graffiti), the good one I mean. Obviously I don't do graffiti myself (it is illegal you know) so the extent of my involvement in it merely is to admire the art and to read about the recent commercialisation of the movement.


This book is filled with not-too-useful but still informative tidbits on the ever changing landscape of street art especially regarding the movement away from typographical graffiti to iconography based. Did you know that Space Invaders invading your clean city is conceived by an anonymous Parisian? Yeah. And he calls himself 'Invader'.

street logos is a perfect coffee table book companion to the admirers of (good) street art as well as the trendy who would not dare make the pilgrimage trip to Bristol.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun review

I last read Island of the Sequined Love Nun about three years ago out of a recommendation by eReader. It made me laugh so much, like all of Christopher Moore's novels later on. I read it again today (har har, Harry Potter)

The book tells the tale of Tucker Case, a 'hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy's body', who, as a typical loose cannon, happened to crash his company's Learjet while making love in its cockpit and became a eunuch due to it. The time not spent thinking of his damaged penis, he has to try to find his way. with a male Filipino transvestite and his fruit bat, to a tiny island where he has been offered a job as a pilot for a "missionary". While obviously presented in a dark comical way, the plot is just deep enough to offer some entertaining religious analogy (it exists!) between Christianity and a religion based on World War II pilots and conspiracies.

This isn't Chris Moore's finest book (that honour in my opinion belongs to Bloodsucking Fiends). But it is my first Christ Moore book and it got me hooked, which is why I adore it. The author reminds me of the late Douglas Adam. Though the style between the two are very different, both often injects nonsensical humour in the most unsuspecting ways into pretty 'convincing' plots.

Highly recommended.

Harry Potter launch party

Pictures from blurry mobile phone cam:





It was very tempting to shout out spoilers, but I guess I am getting a bit too nice. Plus I don't want hundreds of Potter fans coming for my blood.

Sigh, I am guessing I am getting too old for this shit...

Update: I pity those people across the road at Waterstone's. It's raining and they have to queue outside. No hot coffee too...

Update 2: No sign of Madeleine McCann's eyes...

Update 3: Plenty of people are bitching about the price of the new book in Malaysia (storm in a fucking small teacup). My take? Just pay whatever you think the book is worth, then get on with it. If you think it is worth £18 then pay it. If you think it is worth £9 then go find a shop that sells it at that price. If you think Rowling is rich enough already, torrent it. If you worship her then send her a cheque. It is your choice. But you can't force a store to set the price based on your needs.

Madeleine McCann is still missing but do we really care?

Posters of missing Madeleine McCann are to be made available to book retailers around the world at the request of Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

I hope those same posters will also feature prominent pictures of other missing children, you know, the thousands who has gone missing since Madeleine McCann became a newspaper seller, but has received zero publicities. But £5 says it won't be true. Cuteness sells (even I can't resist the charms of 'metoyou' teddies) and nothing is cuter (for the media) than a blonde girl from an affluent family.

Thankfully it will be just be posters of her at the launch events (as if we need reminding - we just want to know whether Dumbledore wanted to be killed by Snape). I want my copy of book seven to have no weird and creepy eyes. "Maddy" just isn't 'in' any more, like Beckham (knowing that they will be an ocean away makes me feel good) or Big Brother.

via BBC News

In other news the British press has continued its vilification of Robert Murat, the only 'suspect' in the case of missing "Maddy". Their lead is with Murat's alleged claim that he doesn't care about "Maddy" any more, as though it is a bad thing. Can you really blame him, when even half of Britain doesn't give a hoot about the McCann any more? If he is innocent, his life has been effectively ruined by trial by media and the only thing in his mind right now is to clear his name.

Conveniently, the Madeleine's Fund Ltd. Co. has so far continued raking in like there is no tomorrow. The lesson? Lose a child (while breaking the law) = gain close to a million quid in 'donations'.

Tolkien's The Children of Húrin out today

I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's works (not so much of Peter Jackson's films - they are good on its own, but hardly inspiring) that I have read some of his more difficult posthumous publications such as The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. These two are my favourites outside the main books, especially Unfinished Tales where plenty of the back story to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were outlined and explained.

The Children of Húrin, a newly written tale by his son Christopher Tolkien based on works and notes by Tolkien, is published today in the UK by HarperCollins in hardcover format. Parts of the narrative has already appeared in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, but as this is the first independent Middle-Earth book by Christoper Tolkien, the text are of his own, although wholly adapted from Tolkien's original manuscripts and notes.

I read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year since 1998, so a new story in the series is something that I welcome. If it is anything like The Silmarillion however I expect to finish this not before autumn! However the fact that this new chapter in the series is a complete narrative should make it a much easier task.

Slightly off-topic. If you reserve Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from Waterstones they will guarantee a price of £9 (effectively halving the listed RRP), one pound cheaper than book six was when we got it from Borders two years ago. So you can get it on launch midnight at a price similar to purchasing it from Amazon, while joining in the revellers and soaking up the atmosphere.

It is just a book people!

So he is dead, big deal - it is a just a book people, get a grip! It is not as if no one saw it coming. The rumour has been out that he/she would be killed. Plus we know that there are worst things than death in the Harry Potter world. I am sure he will feature in book seven (as a memory) as so don't worry.

Harry Potter's new love interest is a little disappointing and so is Ron's. You could have seen in coming since book two so I was surprised that the author followed such a predictable path. Oh well, it is a book I have to remind myself that and so do you!

Normal blog resumes today. The telly is still full of talking heads on the London bombing. There is a nice new theory that the bombers were tricked. Does that make if any less worst? No of course not! Suicide bombing or IRA style bombing, they intended to kill innocent people. And they are Muslims. Reading the prints over the last week where the Muslim community has attempted to distance the bombers from the faith as unislamic is really pretty pathetic.

These people were Muslims but they also happened to be murderers just like the dead and new popes are Catholics and are both fundamentalists (who has called Harry Potter anti-Christian) and that Tony Blair is an 50% Anglican 50% Catholic who ordered an illegal war which killed at least 20,000 Iraqis.

I just spoke to my parents and me mum informed me that the Malaysian government has issued a travel alert to London due to the possibility of another bombing soon. Really? We haven't heard of any such alerts from our authorities here. I wonder how the Malaysian government could release such rumours. Which is why I am urging Londoners:

not to visit Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya administration centre in Malaysia due to risk of being exposed to the idiots who run that country.

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince

Ah, I do not about you, but I have finished reading the sixth book of The Lord of the Rings lite. Yes, it may be a light edition for 'kids' but it was a satisfying read. I won't bore you with tidbits of informations (Spoiler link: read this if you really want to know which character was killed) - just get the book yourself - but I am still going to blog on.



We arrived at Borders 10pm. Jennifer wasn't too pleased I have to admit. The first hour was spent free reading politico magazines like Time and Newsweek and some games mags. It is always amazing how 'international' current affairs magazines attempts to put words in our mouth. No matter, I had a more pressing affair to see too today, politics will just have to take a back seat.



We joined the queue an hour before 12. We were the 50th on the queue. Right up front was a twenty something goth. And his goth partner. Harry Potter has now been claimed by adults. I believe less than 50% of those who queued last night were under 16s where as the other half were adults like us. We also had a pretend Magicians who entertaining us, not that I was entertained much - their brand of wizardry proved to be lesser than that of even a squib's.



We bought two adult versions of the new book. At £9.99 it was snip, and we didn't have to wait for delivery. I know these are large corporations who often undercut smaller independent book stores, but what can we do - the traditional bookstore that we frequent do not sell Harry Potter. We paid up using a crisp twenty, then started making our two mile journey back. Pity those buggers at Waterstones. They had to queue from the outside (most were wearing depressing faces)! Unlike Borders who allowed us to queue inside.



An hour later we were back. Jennifer barred me from turning on the reading lights. Banished I was to the solitary confinement of the bathroom where I spent four hours reading 450 odd pages till about 5am when my body would not continue (yes, I am that sad). We may be the first to receive it at 12am BST, but the people from Malaysia are luckier. They got it at 7am, after a good night's sleep.

Now I am done. Two more years to go - I will be closer to thirty than to twenty.