My language study is an ever-evolving beast. For the last year I took 3 terms of Korean study at SOAS university, with a class and a teacher. It was definitely good, but after 3 terms I was starting to feel a little left behind. I needed some time to absorb everything I’d learned, and to see it in context multiple times. How to achieve that? Su’s sister brought me a lot of baby study books when they came over to visit. That was very generous and I thought an awesome chance – but actually each one is not so grammatical, …
Doctor Who series 11 episode 3 – Rosa Parks review
Last night’s episode of Dr. Who, in which the Dr. and her merry band went back in time to meet and protect Rosa Parks from a time-traveling rogue white supremacist from the future, absolutely shattered TV boundaries and thoroughly nailed its unabashed, bold, and beautiful progressive colors to the mast. Image: BBC It blew my head off completely. I feel like I’ve never seen anything like this on TV before, and certainly not within the world of Dr.Who. Where before it was always frivolous, empty, frothy escapades with a pointlessly manic Doctor, whizz-popping like LSD balls in a tombola through …
New blurb for my book The Last
Today I got in my head that my zombie series starter The Last could do with a refreshed blurb. Where did this idea come from? I really don’t know. The book’s been out for over 3 years now, and sales are slow but steady. What if it has still never really hit its stride? Well, that is an easy thing to think, and also an ‘easy’ thing to experiment with. I’m not going to alter the book itself, or the title, or the cover – all of which would require pretty major work. The blurb is its own thing – …
London march for a People’s Vote on Brexit!
Su and I attended the People’s Vote March in London today – it is my first real bit of activism. Actually I went to the trump protest march a while back, when they flew the Trump blimp, but I could stop by as I was on a lunch break at work. 700,000 people went today, apparently. We felt it as soon as we exited Marble Arch station around 1pm, an hour after the march was supposed to have set off for Westminster. It was totally backed up, no movement at all, and people were spreading off the street and onto …
A few cat pictures…
Nothing much to report on today so here are a few pictures of my cats! This was right after Churchill came back after being missing for 2 nights. I know, I know, I need to mow the lawn! Linc in the morning, having a good morning stretch. Both photos very ably taken by Suyoung – thank you for usage rights. PS – A company has approached me about paying 100 pounds to have a link on my blog. I guess I still have some Alexa ranking juice from the haikyo days, and they are hoping to draft behind that. 100 …
Stephen King’s The Outsider is not good :(
I have always had an up-down reader relationship with Stephen King. His best book in my view (and I have not read many of his classics, so they’re not in the running here), is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. His worst was, hmm, maybe the Outsider? I liked much of Needful Things, and much of The Stand, and maybe Mr. Mercedes too though I have no real memory of it, but I didn’t get the appeal of The Dark Tower. I realize the following criticism is going to annoy King fans, so to speak to that: King is obviously …
Why I hate skinny pants…
(This post really needs some pictures of me in my flare-pant-wearing days. I will try to dig some up when I get home). Why so many skinny pants??!! I hate skinny pants. I do not get it as a flattering look. I do not understand for a second why all pants are moving in this direction. Let me give you some context on my skinny pant story. When I went to work in Tokyo, Japan at 22 as an English teacher with GEOS, my first real job out of Uni, I bought my first real suit. Of course, I’d had …
Churchill missing and mosquito mystery solved
Our sweet cat Churchill has gone missing again. So far it is two nights that he hasn’t come home, which is a worry. It’s autumn and getting cooler, and it’s been raining a lot, so it doesn’t make sense he’d be just hanging out. More likely he took shelter in someone’s shed during the big rain over the weekend. Now I assume he’s locked in that shed. The longest he was away was 10 days in the summer. We figured in that time he was locked in a shed as well. It gives hope that he can survive for a …
Doctor Who series 11 episode 2 – The Ghost Monument review
I am loving the new series of Dr. Who. Embedded in the stories, characters and setting so far are deep, meaningful comments on our current world from an unapologetic, muscular kind of liberalism. When one character suggests using a gun, the Doctor rounds on that unequivocally. That is a bad idea. It’s stupid. We have to use our brains. And because the show is bending to her will, the attempt to use a gun goes incredibly badly. It’s humiliating. And so it should be. In England we think guns are bad. People shouldn’t have them. We are right in this …
Carpal tunnel from Diablo III
Su (my wife) and I have discovered our PS4! I bought the game system over a year ago, along with 2 games – The Last of Us, a zombie apocalypse survival story, and The Witcher, an epic fantasy roamer. I didn’t play them much. I love exploring in The Last of Us – the ruined locations are so detailed and immersive, it’s like I’m back in my haikyo exploration days. But I’m not good at 1st person fighting skills, so I keep getting killed by zombies. The Witcher is the same. 1st person is hard, and I haven’t got the …