I've read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, it was rather good.

If you haven't read it, Half of a Yellow Sun is also great.

Happy Birthday!

"just" Tom Hardy?!

I was unwell and insomniac over the weekend and consequently tore through Kate Grenville's Secret River, which tells the life story of a convict transported to Australia in 1806, and how he, and others like him, went from convicts to settlers. It also does a very good job of describing the tensions between the British…

He was rude to my… psychiatrist.

I've been a vegetarian for 15 years and do not miss meat at all, but your post has just led me to briefly consider whether I could perhaps declare that shrimp don't count. Because yum, shrimp cocktail. Sadly, my inner hippie won't let me.

This post is wonderful, and brings joy to my heart.

Finished Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. It's very well written, and I enjoyed it a lot, although the main character is perhaps a bit too good to be true and the research shines through here and there.

Three months! Congratulations!

Yikes. The water was off in my flat for about three hours yesterday and I was freaking out. A week doesn't bear thinking about.

Of all the indicators of awful this thing effortlessly hits, my favourite is the dimestore youthful prettyboy who's evidently been tasked with delivering a few moments of comic relief and is so epically unsuited to the challenge that you can basically hear his mental gears failing to engage.

I have it on DVD, and unlike the vast majority of DVDs I own, which just seem to gather dust while I work through my terrible TV viewing choices, I've watched this one every few years or so. And I feel another rewatch coming on now.

I think anything that gets people thinking creatively and writing is great

Stopped?! Who'd want to lose the comic relief at a time like this?

I'm partial to 'bumface', myself. Largely because it's the only way most people I know refer to him.

My my. Blusteringly leaping to defend David Cameron's honour. Now I've seen it all.

'Hamfaced tory cockwomble' should cover it.

Thank you.

I'm having similar issues. I've been struggling quite a bit, mentally, for a while now. And I keep thinking, "crap, things already weren't going great, and now this." And then I realise how ridiculous (to put it mildly) my irritation is when others have been through unimaginable trauma, lost loved ones etc.