Pun based title, when I think of one

Lists here, lists there, lists everywhere on the World Wide Web. They're ridicuous. The value of a 'best ever' list ends as soon as you've read it. Your taste isn't the same as the person's who devised the list. And when we're talking about pop culture, what could be more disposable? However, here is a list of favourite music videos. Mine, just mine. Its main purpose is to remind me of them - then I can go straight to YouTube and watch them. They're all there. You may have noticed I have a 'Desert Island Discs' page. But this isn't really appropriate for that. Partly because of the inevitable confusion with the 'favourite music' theme. A lot of 'best ever videos' lists I've seen are clearly lists of someone's favourite music, when they've simply gone and found the video made for the various songs. Not here. These are film pieces . True, they are all for songs I like. But in my humble opinion, with each one, a film...

Space pirates!! Revenger is what you might call a ripping yarn. Two kids steal aboard a pirate's sailing ship and go in search of treasure, hoping to repair the family fortunes. They have to prove themselves to their shipmates, deal with abrasive friendships, betrayals, tragic losses, and all sorts of nasty surprises; all in all growing up very quickly. A great range of unearthly threats and devilish traps confront them, not to mention some very unpleasant villains. Yes, Revenger might well have been a typical classic boy's adventure story; except that this isn't the 19th Century, it's set in space, the 'ship' sails on the sun's light, and the two sibling teenagers are girls. It's the first book in a trilogy by Alastair Reynolds . He's best known for his Revelation Space series, the epitome of what most would think of as 'hard sf'. Which means that the real meat of the books is the speculative science, and its far future setting. I have re...

Longbourn is home to the Bennet family. They are Mr and Mrs Bennet, with their five daughters, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Lydia and Kitty. If this sounds familiar, it's hardly surprising. However while  Jo Baker's book Longbourn is set in the Bennet household which readers worldwide know and love from Jane Austen's most famous novel, it has as its focus a cast of characters who are usually only fleetingly seen in classic novels, the various servants who keep the household running.  There is quite a cottage industry - or should I say, stately home industry - devoted to spinoffs from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice . Many years ago I gave my Mum one of the better known examples, Pemberley by Emma Tennant. At that time I hadn't read any Jane Austen myself, but I knew she was a fan; as far as I remember she was non-commital about its worth. I've just had a quick check online and it does seem that the majority of these books are continuations of the story. I confe...

 You will know the riikinkukko better as the peacock . Or, strictly speaking, the blue or Indian peacock. I didn't know until just now that there are three species of peacock. The green peacock is found in South East Asia, and a third, the Congo peacock in Africa. Quite mysterious how that one ended up where it is. They all have striking trains for display. Of course the extraordinary multi-eyed feather display of the male peacock isn't evident in this picture, not least because that isn't a male peacock. Peacocks have been introduced all around the world, especially for decoration in ornamental gardens . My local tip (ie. local council refuse disposal site) is not an ornamental garden. Nevertheless, from somewhere nearby which I haven't figured out yet, they come and hang out at the tip. At first it's a pleasant surprise to see them, but soon they're more of a nuisance, getting in the way as you park and unload your stuff (today, hedge clippings, cardboard, ...

Coming Home by Sue Gee tells the life story of a family, born at the end of Britain's time in India and then making its unassuming way in the aftermath of the Second World War, sending two new lives out into the world while experiencing the fading away of the old. Many of the books I've read recently have been thought provoking and worthy of comment, and yet I haven't done so. Yet this... Maybe I shouldn't write about it, because there is so much that is personal attached to my response to it. Which I can't ignore. I have glanced at some other reactions to the book, and while it's been mostly liked, it doesn't seem to rank as highly as others of her books. Myself, I have read The Hours of the Night and loved it, it's beautifully written and left a lasting impression. I knew I'd read more by this author. Coming Home seemed a natural choice, because of its background in British India. This is one of a long list of story elements which are echoed i...

I finished this book hating someone. Someone who doesn't exist. Sarah Moss ' writing can do that to you, and paradoxically the hate is fiercer for the fact that the villain of Ghost Wall isn't out-and-out evil; though he's not far off it. It's 17 year old Sylvie 's Dad, who signs the family up for a summer 'camp' experiencing Iron Age life up in Northumberland, organised by a university Professor, who's brought three of his students along. Her Dad is obsessed with the life of the pre-Roman peoples of Britain, of Northern England particularly. He's often drawn the family into this, so Sylvie and her Mum have often found theselves spending their holidays trudging aong ancient pathways, or going to museums to view ancient artifacts. And once he took Sylvie with him to see one of the bog people at an exhibition; a sacrificial victim her appearance preserved by the peat, who turned out to be a young girl not unlike Sylvie herself. At this summer cam...

Jerome K. Jerome wrote one famous book, Three Men in a Boat , still very readable (and highly entertaining) today, and likely to remain so for some time yet. It created a much imitated formula for comic narratives based on the farcical adventures of three foolish men. The realisation that this formula could be applied anywhere transformed the BBC's Top Gear from a worthy but slightly dull and definitely niche motoring programme into one of the most watched general entertainment shows on the planet.  There are four rather than three foolish men in Jerome's Novel Notes . And while there are any number of interesting occasional characters, notably the unnamed narrator's wife Ethelberta , and their marvellously nonplussed and unimpressed maidservant Amenda  (is that a historical spelling of Amanda?), they don't partake in any picaresque adventures. No, they assemble, regularly at first, and then more and more infrequently, in order to write a great novel . They are convin...