Traffic

A number of you guys have introduced writing exercises in your blogs, with varying degrees of success. I was listening to The Stereophonics earlier on today and during Traffic (Track 5 on word gets around) i realised that the boys had written what could easily become a writing exercise. Listen to the song and the lyrics describe Kelly's opinions on a stranger he drives past but only sees for a second. Do the same.
But of course, this is very similar to what others have tried to implement on their blogs, so the spin is it needs to be written in lyric format, with the same pentameter scheme used in the song. i know that this is weird because it is more interesting for a poetry student but, who cares. Good luck.


And listen to Dogs- Turn against this land.

The number 23

Also, while I'm posting, has anyone seen the recent Jim Carrey film The Number 23. If not, it basically tells the story of a guy(played by Carrey) who is obsessed with the number 23(as the title would suggest) after reading a book about it. And while the film itself peters out towards the end, as inevitable conclusions need to be made, Jim Carrey is on fine form as the obsessed dog catcher, and shows that he can actually act. (I should really point out that i hate slapstick, and slapsticky stuff, so films such as Liar Liar, The Mask and Ace Ventura are incredibly bad in my opinion. However, when he is actually acting and not prancing around like a twat he can be excellent- The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)
Anyway, the point of this post is that the film struck up a bit of paranoia in myself, for example, my house number in wales is 23, The number 23 comes up in my phone number, and perhaps most strangely i watched the film late last night, just because i was bored in my house, and it was late enough to technically be today when i watched it.
The 11th of December.
11,12.
11 +12 =

Watch it, and the same will happen to you....

P.S Listen to a band called Dogs.

It's happened, and i am not ashamed of it.

So, after exhausting the supply of Martin Amis novels, (M.A's the king) i found myself with a spare hour in the library with nothing to pick up off the coveted M.A shelf apart from a book of essays, which i unbelievably picked up and skimmed through. You know when we spend four days writing an essay, (Which I'm sure many of us will be doing over crimbo) and think it's something pretty fucking special?
Yeah, well it's not, this guy can not only write great short stories and novels, but he can write unbelievably good essays too, which sucks for me and you, but, credit where it's due. Kudos.

Also this week i branched into the world of the elderly Amis, reading one of Martin's father Kingsley Amis's novels Lucky Jim. And i must tell you, it's really good as well. i started reading it yesterday afternoon in order to put off starting one of the three essays i have to write, and by two o'clock today i was finished, and i thoroughly enjoyed it, and will start on another one of his novels in the next couple of weeks. Which raises the question, Who's better? Anyone who's read a book by either of them feel free to vouch an opinion.


Also, listen to a band called Dogs.