Stuff I want

Grant Morrison's new comic, The Filth will be starting in June.

I've just seen the first available image.

I will be buying this.

And some day, hopefully, they'll get around to collecting the last volume of The Invisibles, so I can read it through from start to finish.

Time

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation in the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

30

In 5 months and 2 days I'll be 30 years old.

I'm still debating what to do. Part of me wants to make it something special - and therefore to either spend the day away by myself in contemplation, or to get completely out of it in some form or other.

But I'm currently mostly tempted to spend it (semi) quietly with my friends (if I can persuade them all to spend it in the same room as each other), and just relax and have a good time without doing anything in particular.

This is not a Test

This is not a Test

You will not be graded later

You will not pass or fail

You will either enjoy your life, or you will not

It's up to you.

Sharpe's Company

Joe lent me Sharpe's Company, which cover's Sharpe's career during the sieges of sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.

I hadn't read any of the Sharpe novels before, nor seen any of the tv series, and was a bit wary of it. The opening chapters didn't really help quell my wariness, the prose seeming quite dull and leaden after the delightful style of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.

Also, the main protagonists are definitely Real Men (TM) with honour and courage and about 30 times my testosterone, and the kind of people that would work with Kimball Kinnison if they got the chance. I loved Wilbur Smith and EE Doc Smith when I was a fair bit younger, but I find it hard to empathise with that kind of thing nowadays.

However, as time went on, I grew into it. The opening few chapters seemed more there to remind people of "what had gone before" and once we started to progress, I was dragged into the story.

It was great to have the full horrors of the Napoleonic Wars displayed in all their gory detail, without them being glamourised (the siege of Bajadoz makes the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan look a bit easy. I mean, some of the people that went onto the beach actually survived).

The characters definitely grew on me the more I got to know them, and yes, while they're definitely hewn from solid Heroicum, they have foibles and they are aware of their own imperfections.

Having read this one, I'm tempted to read the rest (in order, of course, nothing worse then experiencing a series out of order). Not tempted enough to go out and pay money for them (I have other books I'd buy first), if they happened to be in the house, I'd definitely work my way through them.