The Mind Meme...

Actually, some interesting results - the suggestion that Technical Sales would be a good career for me is duly noted.

( Read more... )

Books...

I've been thinking about books recently, as I seem to have been reading quite a lot and haven't been paying much attention. This recently led me to buy "Quite Ugly One Morning" by Christopher Brookmyre at Heathrow Terminal 4 Books Etc (A crap one btw, buy books before travelling through Terminal 4) - and to find that I'd read it before. Whoops.

Not only do I need a database of books I own, but also of books I've read.

Anyway, recently...

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde: Quite stunningly weird, Robert Rankin does literature. In another 1985, Thursday Next, a detective with the LitraTecs is on the trail of Archeron Hades who has her Aunt trapped inside a Wordsworth Poem. Stunningly odd.

Gateway - Fred Pohl: Technically a re-read but I had forgotten how good this was.

Time Travellers Strictly Cash - Spider Robinson: A short story collection including some GoH speaches from 1970's world cons. Quite an interesting bit of Fan history.

Finity - John Barnes: My first John Barnes, I will read more but there was something about the style I didn't take to.

Broken Angels - Richard Morgan: Sequel to Altered Carbon. Not bad, a good read but too damn long - at least 150 pages too long in fact. I especially liked the end sequence.

I'm in the middle of The Skinner by Neil Asher but I'm finding it hard going for some reason.

Holiday!!!

I just booked a holiday! Its the first time in years I've actually booked a package. Well, a sort of package. I fell foul of evil direct marketing from American Express. I've an Am-Ex card I use for all my business expenses and you get a bunch of cool stuff for free with it. This includes a pretty stunning travel package which includes; access to business class lounges all over the world, free travel insurance (even if you don't book or pay with the card), free car insurance for hire cars in the USA and bunch of other stuff.) Anyway, on Saturday after a long walk and a sit in the sun M and I took a quick look at the nice hotels in the nicely packaged brochure.

Oh, we thought, that all looks nice. We managed to rule out some of them by checking the web for info about the hotels. Something I recommend for any brochure - the Canary Island hotels seem particularly guilty of dodgy advertising.

So, in the end we've settled for Malta at the end of September. Its a lovely looking hotel in St Julian, flying on real airlines (BA) not charter and they arrange a car for the airport/hotel transfer rather than a coach with some woman from Bolton explaning how much fun you're going to have.

Cool. 10 days in a nice hotel with a pool side bar and a pile of books. I can't wait!

Accomplished

Been getting some "stuff" done.

TCASU:
Hotel - Booked
Flights - Booked
Car Hire - Not booked, but it seems pointless to book now

All I'm missing is a B&B for Thursday night in Dublin - anybody set anything up? We'll be arriving late though.

I've also done my car hires for various upcoming trips, hotel bookings and a bunch of other things.