Twuh-tuttin, Sir Terence, Norwegian Wood and Good Things That Are Hiding in 2009

On this, the last day of the year (if you follow the calendar of Gregor), I have very little energy to disseminate herein.

I have spent the post-primary-gifting-period slowly working my way through a batch of stand-up, books and music from before I was born.

I have been enjoying the works of TV's Richard Herring, namely 'That Was Then, This Is Now', and waiting for my other Richard Herring based purchases to arrive.  I have been informed this will take several weeks however, due to glue-based mishaps in the production of DVDs.  This is not a huge problem however, as when it is necessary I can muster the patience of a thing which is significantly more patient than I am when I am my usual, unaltered state of patience.

**I have backtracked up this blog because I have just received the post, which included Richard Herring's 'Bye Bye Balham', Stewart Lee's '90's Comedian', 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (Oscar Wilde), 'The Great Gatsby' (F Scott Fitzgerald) and 'The Heart of Darkness' (Joseph Conrad).  It seems then that I have ended 2008 as a spendthrift, and I will look to temper this in the coming year.**

Randomly clicking through the webbosphere sometimes offers up little nuggets of joyous information which are truly outstanding to experience.  One such nugget is this coverage of the new year honours list.  Usually I tend to find that Britain's new Knights are previously unknown to me, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Terry Pratchett in the list (SIR Terence, if you please)(His name is Terence)(It is seriously, look it up).  Sir Terry is definitely the coolest Knight ever, and I certainly think more Knights should don a cowboy hat at every opportunity.  A man able to shrug off a disease as an 'embuggerance' sits very comfortably in my hall of heroes (the one off of the MediEvil game, yeah, the one with the talking statues and magical weapons and stuff, that's the one).

Another author who resides in my literary Valhalla (though he isn't dead - and neither is Terry Pratchett)(in retrospect, that was a bad analogy) is Haruki Murakami, who I discovered in the summer (that is to say his books.  I wasn't on an archaeological dig where authors past and present had been submerged in semi-caustic tar and where I then would have to dig them out using only newspaper folded into a cone.)(I would however, be tempted into such an occasion).

Having read 'Dance Dance Dance', which gripped me as a book due to the vibrant realism of it's characters and situation, which often melded seamlessly into surrealism, I was looking forward immensely to reading 'Norwegian Wood', and it didn't disappoint.  The surrealism which gripped me in 'Dance Dance Dance' is opted out of 'Norwegian Wood', Murakami paints the real world uncannily accurately in this novel, to my tastes at least.  I feel that he really has a knack for teasing the remarkable from the ordinary, and his narrative, which could easily pass for a real-life account, masterfully draws the profound from the mundane.

**Or maybe I'm just indulging my mancrush for the work of Haruki Murakami.  Certainly reading this book has influenced both my music and reading tastes, inasmuch as I have listened to the Beatles, and purchased 'The Great Gatsby' (for £2! Who knew you could buy anything for two pounds anymore? Apart from anyone who was at Woolworths in it's final moments).

Finally then I'd like to summarise a few things that I am looking forward to in 2009 that I am already aware of.  These things are largely comedy based, and some are quite solipsistic, so unless you are interested in a) Live stand-up Comedy in the Cardiff area or b) my life, then you may not really be interested in this concluding paragraph.  However, you are here now, so you may as well finish reading it.  Go on, you curmudgeonly sort.

Right, now that they're gone, I am looking forward to Stewart Lee in his new comedy vehicle, namely, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (a title which is the product of some good sturdy linear thinking), Richard Herring's 'The Headmaster's Son' in Cardiff (if linking that here means there's no tickets for me I will be righteously miffed) and cheap shows again at the Glee.  From a far more personal angle then I am looking forward to the end of university (my tenure there, not the end of the idea of university), Canada (of going on holiday there, not just general glee at the thought of Canada) and also of scraping funds together in order to make 2009 the first year of my attending the Edinburgh Festival, which I hold as the Holy Grail of events.

That said, I hope that no matter what 2008 held for you, 2009 yields twice the delight.  Happy New Year.