Me And My Big Mouth

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I have no idea if any of you follow my Bet of the Day. You will find it over there on the right hand side.

Most days I will suggest a flutter and a stake of £1. If you had followed my tips so far you would have £30 profit to show for it.

In the last two days I have had a 30/1 and a 9/1 winner. Could this be a way to avert the credit crunch?

The Bet of the Day is a contest between yours truly, author Gary Davison and bookshop entrepreneur Simon Key. Modesty prevents me from pointing out who is in the lead.

Australian Open: Day Twelve

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 29th (no change)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 41st (up 3 places)

It is all plodding along towards an inevitable conclusion. Hardly a vintage tournament but it has been good to have some new people on board.

It is our men's teams that have let us down. We are 13th in the women's team league but 41st in the men's. We'll need a good team talk before the French Open.

Here, for all you priests out there, is a pin up of Andrea Jaeger.

Blog In Action

Yesterday I blogged about an alien cauliflower.

Later that morning the lovely Jess from HarperPress popped round to my office to give me a copy of the Riverford Farm Cook Book which has some recipes for the mutant vegetable - as it bloody well should do seeing as Riverford sent it to me in the first place.

I am not sure which I was more chuffed about - the free cookbook or the fact that she reads my blog. I am always shocked when I actually meet someone who reads it. For some reason I don't think of any of you as real. You are all my imaginary friends.

Chaiwalahs Of The World, Unite And Take Over

I did things the right way round this time. I read Q & A by Vikas Swarup before going to see Slumdog Millionaire.

I rather wish I hadn't.

Which is a strange reaction as I enjoyed both book and film. It was reading/seeing them so close together that caused me a problem.

I had heard great things about Slumdog, so when my parents announced they were coming to take the kids off our hands for the day we decided to go to the local multidigicineplex to see it. MOTC and I were unanimous in that.

I finished Q & A the night before. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, a bit debut author clunky in places - plot development through exposition giving characters some unrealistic things to say - but a really clever story from a gifted storyteller. Something I'll take over literary prowess any day.

And because I was off to see the big screen adaptation, and in the knowledge that Danny Boyle knows a thing or two about visual style, I had great fun imagining what the director would do with certain scenes and characters. The hand-holding through the wall. The fading Bollywood actress. The battle between the priests. The Australian diplomat's house. The mysterious child spouting gobbledigook. The two excellent twists towards the end. Boyle was going to have a field day with them.

But here's the problem. None of them were in the bloody film.

I was ready. I was primed. I was in the mood to be blown away. Instead I spent the first half hour reconciling myself to the fact that the filmmakers had taken just the bare bones of the novel for their screenplay. I know, I know, this happens all the time in Hollywood, but I just wasn't expecting it with Slumdog Millionaire.

Almost everything, apart from the quiz show premise, was different. The lead character has changed name. He has a brother in the movie who is just a friend in the book (and only a bit-part at that). The quiz questions have changed. The most interesting episodes in his childhood have been omitted. And the love interest? Well, let's just say she wasn't quite as innocent in the book.

Which is not to say that Slumdog is a bad movie. It isn't. It is very good. I wouldn't call it amazing but it looked great with some excellent performances and it was £20 well spent (two tickets, a Pepsi and some nachos with cheese and extra peppers). It was fine. More than fine.

It just wasn't as good as the book.

My biggest gripe is that there are a couple of great twists in the novel which I honestly think would have made the film so much better. Leave them in and you have a classic. Leave them out and you have something that isn't.

Sorry, it must seem that I am on a downer about this but I'm not really. I was just disappointed that the best bits of the novel didn't make it into the film. I am sure if more time had gone by between my closing the book and sitting my bum down on a cinema seat I would be a bit more positive. Possibly.

Very good book. Pretty good film. Just don't mix the two.

Australian Open: Day Eleven

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 29th (down 2 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 44th (up 1 place)

Are Wimbledoves staging a last minute comeback? Only 15 places between us now.

I shall ignore the threat and concentrate on a particularly fine double act instead.

Alien Cauliflower

WT, as they say, F??

This turned up in our Riverford box yesterday.

I think it is a cauliflower, but I am not 100% sure on that.

Anyone?

Australian Open: Day Ten

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 27th (no change)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 45th (no change)

Tsonga out, just Serena left in it for me. I can't see a great deal changing in the overall rankings now but Shedworking has had a late surge which is very unlike him.

And a hello and a nostalgic ding dong to Martina Hingis.

Australian Open: Day Nine

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 27th (down 2 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 45th (up two places)

Just Tsonga and Serena left in for my team now. Not my best tournament it has to be said.

Reads Runners still head our group and are 11th overall. A fine debut performance - please come back and play again next time.

Martha is putting the rest of the grown ups to shame.

Our pin up today is a quizzical looking Lucie Safarova.

Acquired Tastes

I met someone yesterday, nice chap in all other respects, who really didn't like the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The movie, that is.

Obviously he is wrong and I am right but it did strike me that many of my favourite things are an acquired taste.

My favourite author, as most of you know, is Haruki Murakami. Many people 'just don't get him' and yet I can't get enough. His fiction is some of the most exciting I have ever read.

My favourite musician is Stina Nordenstam. Try this for size.

She is, I am repeatedly told, an acquired taste. I think this is the saddest song I have ever heard. Breaks my heart every time.

And now we have Jesse James. The most remarkable piece of cinema I have seen for many a year and, it would appear, an acquired taste.

Do chip in with your own faves that other people seem immune to. Personally, I don't understand the appeal of Scott Walker but am frequently told I am wrong on that score.

Australian Open: Day Eight

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 25th (down 5 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 47th (no change)

News of our inevitable decline is tempered only by the fact that Wimbledoves are two places off the bottom and unlikely to stage the sort of almighty comeback that would be required.

At least I bloody well hope not.

Most of us have taken a thumping with Andy Murray going out. My own team only has Tsonga, Serena and Bartoli left so I am hardly going to challenge for the title.

Oh well, we live and learn.

Today's pin up is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who, I am delighted to report, I saw saying please and thank you to the ball boys during the changes of ends in a recent match. A nice chap.

Time Capsule

I enjoyed flicking through To be President: Quest for the White House 2008 over the weekend. It is a comprehensive account of the 2008 US Presidential election, tracking the story from its early days when there were numerous candidates right through to Obama's victory.

It strikes me that this would be an excellent time capsule book. Something to keep for the kids to read when they are a little bit older and want to learn more about the events which hopefully will have shaped the world they live in.

Recommendations By Association

I make no secret of the fact that if you click through to Amazon from this blog and then actually order something then I get a small commission. It usually amounts to about £20 a month or something like that.

I usually piss it all away on the horses*, but that's my problem not yours.

About once a week I check my Amazon stats, partly to see how much wonga I am roping in but also to see whether people are buying any of the books I recommend. I am always chuffed when they are. For example, last week people bought copies of Autofiction, I Haven't Dreamed of Flying for a While, Will in the World, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (both the book and DVD) and a few copies of The Blue Fox.

This is all lovely but I am particularly intrigued by the other stuff people are buying. I don't mean the radiator cat beds, the shoes or the porn (you know who you are) - I mean the books and music. I am assuming that if you are buying books I recommend then the other titles you buy might be things I like as well.

So I have been sniffing around and here are some tasty looking things that are going on my wishlist.

Along Lost Lines by Paul Attebury. I am not a train enthusiast, not by a long way, but I do have a sort of nostalgic/romantic affection for disused railway lines. No idea why, and it is not as if I go around seeking them, but when I come across them I can't resist a walk. There is a wonderful route near Clare in Suffolk which I remember fondly.

Alva and Irva by Edward Carey. Twin girls create a plasticine model of their European city. That's me sold.

Mad Elaine by Helen Stevenson. A dull librarian's life is turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious would-be novelist.

Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse by Philip Ó Ceallaigh. I keep meaning to check this one out. When Haruki Murakami won the Frank O'Connor short story prize a couple of years back it was his translator, Jay Rubin who went to collect it. Jay and his wife Raku visited us on their way back and he mentioned how good the stories in this nominated collection were.

Now You're One of Us by Asa Nomani. I love the cover to this. And it's Japanese. And it is weird apparently. Sorted.

The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa. Set in Angola and narrated by a lizard.

The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling. Comparisons to Sarah Waters are a pretty good signpost for me. Although, come to think of it, I haven't actually read Night Watch yet which is v.poor of me.

Only joking - have you seen how well I am doing in the Betting Challenge?

A Song For Sunday

We have gone for some real class today.

My Favourite Things by John Coltrane.

Australian Open: Day Six

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 20th (down 4 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 47th (down 6 places)

Everything seems to be settling in to place with our destinies probably all determined now but there is still room for the occasional surge. Mark Robson's women's team have romped up the league in the past day but the overall rankings are more or less the same.

My own team selections did OK today. I still have five men standing, but only three women. I need most of them to make it through to the latter stages to stand any hope of a decent final position.

Is it a rest day tomorrow? I have no idea.

If it is, then we will all have an extra day to gawk at Elena Dementieva.

Fancy Some Grub?

I don't know about you but when it gets to the weekend any healthy eating plans go out the window. Pastries for breakfast and at least two slices of cake will have been consumed by the time we get to bedtime.

So think of me munching away while you check out a couple of my favourite foodie blogs.

Over at Front Studio, Yen and Michi head up one of the only Asian women-owned architectural partnerships in New York City. They firmly believe in going out for lunch every single day and I applaud them for that (and secretly hope they'll take me out for lunch if I ever actually make it to New York). They blog at Lunch with Front Studio.

101 Cookbooks does exactly what it says on the tin. Heidi is making her way through her massive cookbook library one recipe at a time. She is vegetarian and that is reflected in the recipe selection but unlike many veggie recipes these ones really do look tasty to me as an omnivore. I particularly recommend the Broccoli Crunch which I have adopted in an attempt to get more broccoli down my cakehole.

Australian Open: Day Five

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 16th (down 4 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 41st (down 1 place)

We are slipping a bit but still in the top half of the table. A great deal depends on which players make it through to week two so the weekend games are vital.

Wimbledoves are lagging behind because they have lost quite a few players in these opening days but if their remaining selections stay in the draw then they could claw their way back next week.

It won't be easy though.

In our team, Martha and Reads Runners are way ahead of everyone else and I can't really see that changing unless their players take a thumping over the weekend. Martha is 7 years old, I should remind you.

Today's pin-up is Vera Zvonareva, certainly the best looking Vera I have ever come across.

Third Post

Norman Thomas di Giovanni has completed the first stage in making the missing Jorge Luis Borges translations available for free online.

You can read The Garden of Branching Paths, considered the cornerstone of Borges' fiction, here.

Second Post

Eight children's authors have been kidnapped by monsters.

No, really, they have.

All the details are here.

Tell your kids.

First Post

I was interviewed on the North Meadow Media blog yesterday. I may have accidentally called Tim Adams a wanker in one of my answers. I do accept that this is neither big nor clever.

Australian Open: Day Four

Me And My Big Serve team ranking: 12th (down 3 places)
Wimbledoves team ranking: 40th (down 2 places)

A bit of a shocker with Venus going out today. I think a lot of us had both Williams sisters in our teams and were banking on them meeting in the semis.

Oh well.

We can console ourselves in the arms of Kateryna Bondarenko.