The book that's not for children and who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

I finished reading this recently:

This book was, for the most part, dull. There are 17,000 characters intricately involved with each other - kind of like Love Actually based in 1895. The Children's Book is indeed a page turner. A page-turner in the sense that I regularly turned ahead a few pages to see when the scene would end. It got better towards the two-thirds mark, which, in a book of 600 pages, requires some staying power. My staying power was that I had paid for this book and not borrowed it from the library, which is how I usually acquire my literary material.

What attracted me to this book was the cover (I'm ashamed to say it, but I am extremely shallow in the book cover department. If it has a colourful sketch of a twenty-something 'careergirl' alongside either a handbag or a lipstick, move along please), and also the fact that it was recommended as a 'read of the year' on the TV Book Club. I should have realised as soon as I saw the panelists: Gok Wan was one.

This book was not riveting, even though it includes horrific themes such as father/daughter pornographic pottery, and children being brought up in a house so bohemian they don't even know who their mother is out of their 'mother' and maiden aunt. Same father.

Some parts were just infuriating: in particular, long, boring scenes describing in detail a puppet show. All the action happens in the last third, so for this reason I would not reccommend The Children's Book.

I have just started reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, currently #2 on WH Smith's fiction chart. The Times promises it to be "the most gripping book you will ever read". 70 pages in I am not convinced, but I'm looking forward to it. It's (no prizes for guessing) historical fiction, but this time based on the Tudors. I'm not the biggest Tudor fan, but seeing as a few months ago I visited Hampton Court and really enjoyed it, now I have something visual to work with. Wolf Hall is an unofficial, jazzed-up biography of Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII's right hand man.


I'm sure you can't wait for the review of this beast.

Famous people from my town

Probably not interesting to anyone who doesn't live in the Rossendale Valley.

1. Agyness Dean (model)





2. Henry Holland (designer)






3. Jane Horrocks (the original Little Voice and voiceover for Tesco adverts)





4. Sir Paul Stephenson (chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police)





5. Betty Jackson (designer)





6. Natalie Casey (ex-MTV presenter and Donna from 2 Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps)

Population: Not a lot

Valid famous people: 6

Obviously our most enthralling claim to fame, apart from the questionnable ski-slope that acts as an identifying location for any people unsure of Rawtenstall's whereabouts, is Agyness Dean the supermodel, who, like I, went to Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School and sixth form. This blogpost was inspired by Agyness's update on Twitter:

Just remembered that Woolworths is no more!!!! The 1 in Rawtenstall is now an Ethel Austin's store instead. I want pick and mix! What now?

I used to work at the very Woolworths that Agyness used to select her overpriced confectionary from. I worked there for £3 an hour until I saw the rota in the brown-carpeted, 1940s-based staff room which said I was to work at 6.30am on Boxing Day. This, combined with the fact that I had to wear a nametag that said Rusna, and a borrowed Woolworths polo shirt that was a size 16, made me quit.

Girls not Aloud to eat?

Interesting.

Sourced from the Daily Mail.

Why I can't quite make the change to Wordpress...

1) It is extremely difficult to do anything on.
2) I want my Alice picture as the header, and it will only let me use a very narrow portion of this.
3) It says *blog name*... 'Just another Wordpress weblog'. Oh well thanks for reminding me how insignificant I really am in this world of blogging, I don't need reminding every time I look at my blog.

The Blind Side

So it's Thursday night, I'm supposed to be transcribing quotes from the pages of Newspaper Power for an essay on political bias... but instead I shall praise the privilege of being a member of SeeFilmFirst, and seeing them for free as well as first.
My boyfriend and I went to see The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock the other night. It's a true story, based on the life of NFL star Michael Oher (pronounced Oar, like in the boat).
Michael Oher (Big Mike) should statistically have been a failure; probably a drug-addict, wife-beater, drive-by professional or all three. Brought up in foster families in the projects of Memphis, he was known as "the runner" as he would never stay with the family he had been placed with, always escaping to find his birth mother who would prefer a night with the crack-pipe than a night tucked up reading stories to her 12 children.

The Tuohys are the perfect American Republican family-of-four, of whom the patriarch owns 85 Taco Bells. One evening, the Tuohys spot Big Mike on the side of the road in his oversized clothes that he washes in the sink at the laundrette. Being God-fearing Christians, in a selfless gesture that seems inherently unrealistic and even downright stupid, the family offer to put a roof over his head, clothes on his back and food in his belly. No strings, no preliminary trial.
The filthy-rich white family take in the huge homeless black boy and let him sleep on their $10,000 couch. And that night was the beginning of the rest of his life.

Sandra's performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy is impeccable and reminded me of the Southern Belle busybody mother of Britney, Lynn Spears.
The film is feel-good and has more than a generous helping of cheese, but it was all real. Which makes it remarkable. It's the real-life Ryan Attwood in the O.C. It's a refreshing example of Christianity to the point of fairy tale, but proves that not all parts of religion are corrupt. It's one family's effort to overcome prejudice and racism. It's a bit of sunshine; straightforward and lovely.

If I hadn't been offered a free ticket to this film I probably would have never seen it, but I'm glad I did.

The Creepy Bones

Saoirse Ronan is doing pretty well for herself. The 15-year-old Irish actress (her name is pronounced Sorsha) has got two impressive films on her CV - 2007's Atonement and now Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Both of which I loved. I don't understand exactly why it is called The Lovely Bones, but then again I didn't know what atonement meant until I just Googled it.

Having read the book in summer 2006 on a balcony in Puerto Banus, Spain, I couldn't remember anything of the storyline when I went to see the film. I remember being mildly terrified at some parts of the book, in particular one night when my family went out for dinner with friends and I remained on the balcony alone as it crept towards midnight. I remember deciding to move inside the apartment at one point and swap the book for a John Legend CD; so convinced was I that I was going to die alone in that apartment.

I digress.

The Lovely Bones should not have been awarded a 12A certificate. Whilst it was not graphic, the suggestion was bad enough. I would not chaperone an eight-year-old to see a film which involves a man lying in a blood and mud-filled hot bath, with a facecloth over his face, in eerie silence whilst a charm bracelet chinks against a blood-soaked sink with a knife in it.

And nothing is scarier than being trapped underground (not that it has happened to me) with porcelain screaming clowns surrounding you, with a paedophile, who at some point during your short time down there you realise is going to kill you. So you run for the ladders leading back up the earth, but, of course, you are an insect in a jar and can't get up the sides.

Stanley Tucci is terrifying as Mr Harvey. Who'd have thought that Gay Nigel from the Devil Wears Prada, the lovely, cruel-but-kind fashion assistant at Runway magazine who plays mentor and guardian angel to green Andy, could play such a part? Misty blue contact lenses, huge glasses, a toothbrush moustache and pervert-esque combover render him unrecognisable.

I mean.........























Italian Stallion to pervert neighbour in a few hair implants.



Saoirse's face is slightly annoying because it means you're in for another five minutes of her running towards rainbows or sashaying through fields of corn when it comes on screen. But apart from these slightly boring other-worldy parts that Suzie Salmon (the dead girl) frolicks in whilst she is waiting to get to heaven, the Lovely Bones is a fantastic film that makes you think about it long afterwards. If only about how the Devil Wears Prada is ruined forever.