ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

Thumped by the canal

I finished the new Ian Rankin novel the other day. Doors Open is his first non-Rebus book but he continues to portray the grimy criminal underside of Edinburgh with relish. I was enjoying it right up to the bit where someone gets mugged outside my flat at the end of the canal. But it was a targeted hit, so I'm probably safe.

That's me told

My Mum has been in touch to let me know that she is the proud owner of a copy of Bicarbonate of Soda, a very versatile natural substance. Apparently it's one of a series which also includes beetroot.

Babies in snow

Back in January I spent a few days in the Lake District with my friends Penny and Andy, who run an outdoor center there. Penny and I tried to see how far we could get up Skidaw with a buggy containing her son.

Not very far actually. We abandoned the buggy and carried him for a bit, but went back after worrying what people would think if they found his empty pushchair on the mountainside.

The poor kid is the proud owner of the world's worst baby-grow outfit. A clash of Hippy and Inca civilistations, its basically a big square with a hole at the top and another at each corner. You could fit four babies in it. And loads of other stuff, like nappies and cots and pets.

It also turns out that Penny is the owner of the world's most boring book: "Bicarbonate of Soda, a very versatile natural substance." In hardback. Available from Amazon.

Not really

xkcd.com

Two coffee shops and one toblerone

I've finished it. After a day involving two coffee shops, and one toblerone (100grams, not one of the huge ones) I turned the last page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just after midnight. Actually I rushed the epilogue because I had cramp in my foot so I might go back and read the last bit again today.

No spoilers. I promised. But I will say that the film producers who read the book yesterday will be pooing their pants today as they calculate how much the film is going to cost to make ...

film producer #1 : How many ****** were there?

film producer #2 : At least three I think.

film producer #3 : Don't forget the ******.

film producer #2 : And the giant *******.

film producer #1 : And it looks like we'll have to set fire to the **** ** **********.

film producer #3 : That'll be pricey.

film producer #1 : And we're going to need six extra ***** *******.

film producer #2 : Sh*t.

film producer #3 : Is there anything else we can finance instead?

film producer #1 : Has anyone made a 'Rhubarb and Custard' film?

film producer #1+2+3 : Ta na na naa, ta na na naa, ta na na na na naa!

Harry Potter

I couldn't find anyone who wanted to buy the new Harry Potter book with me at midnight last night. Even though they had magicians and owls at Waterstones. Real owls! I passed by the shop anyway on the way home, the queue was enormous, right down Princes Street ...

... round the corner and up the hill into the distance.

There were witches sitting on street benches reading the book. It was bizarre. No owls though.

Anyway, I'm going to get mine from Woolworths in the morning, take it into the Costa opposite and start reading. This blog will be a Harry Potter spoiler-free zone. You need not fear.

UPDATE: I have the book! I took it into Costa, but I didn't start reading it as it was more fun to watch everyone else reading it. Most people didn't care, but one 'I'm too cool for Harry' guy had removed the dust cover and was busy pretending it was War and Peace or something. I could see a steady stream of people coming out of Woolworths clutching a single book and wearing an excited grin. It reminded me of when book five came out. I was living in London, and walking to work early on a Saturday morning I kept pace with a Post Office van which was filled to over-flowing with identically sized Amazon parcels ...

Platform alteration

The Ghost Map

Despite the title, this is basically a book about poo. It's really about an outbreak of Cholera in nineteenth century London, and the attempt by two men to trace the source of the disease. By plotting the cases on a map, they were able to illustrate that the outbreak centered around a particular water pump and that the disease was likely caused by contaminated water. This was a big breakthrough for a culture that believed that disease was spread by smell; a sinister poisonous miasma creeping unseen down the dirty streets.

The pump handle was removed, lives were saved. Our understanding of germs was forever changed and people started washing their hands. In the final chapters, the brief is widened to cover bird flu, urban migration and the war on terror. Like I said, it's basically a book about poo.

A perfect spy

I've just finished 'A Perfect Spy' by John Le Carre. (There's meant to be a squiggle over the e but I still don't know my way around an apple keyboard.) I'm excited because it's the thickest book I've read since Lord of the Rings - and that doesn't count because it was three books!

I knew what to expect. It's not James Bond or Jason Bourne. It's about lying in wait for years with a carefully constructed cover story. Hiding notes in newspapers and leaving them on a park bench, or chalking a mark on a stone whilst tying your shoe laces. It's about a plot and a deception that takes place over a lifetime, not an afternoon.

It is the most densely characterised book I've read. The key to the plot is understanding the motives of the players. To built this knowledge, the story winds through a complete biography of the main characters, unraveling in the process  the justification for their current actions.

I turned to the last page and I honestly did not know how it was going to end. But I'm usually like that - a rubbish guesser. Even the Wombles books caught me out with their cunning twists.

How to stage a military coup

I accidentally read most of this book on a comfy sofa in Waterstone's last week. I feel much more prepared than I was before to take over a small Latin American country.  There was a brilliant fictional introduction to each chapter, where the author creatively imagines a military coup in Britain. He writes about helecopters buzzing low over the Thames, dropping troups in Whitehall who march on Downing Street. Very chilling.