It is the first day of August, the first day of my two week holiday and it is pouring with rain. It wouldn’t really bother me that much but I’m heading off to Edinburgh tonight to see the Military Tattoo for the first time. A whole lot of firsts happening there!

According to the tickets, I’m only due a refund if the event is cancelled due to inclement weather and that has never happened. I guess they must be used to the unpredictable nature of our weather then. I did check the forecast and it looks like it may clear up in Edinburgh at any rate this afternoon so that can’t be bad.

To me August represents the slide into autumn but since we haven’t really had a summer yet - it just seems to bring more of the same unpredictable weather. I actually like the autumn days with the nip in the air. I’m such a winter baby.

However, a mild winter this year just may save a lot of lives because of the situation with the utility prices. Scottish Gas have hiked their rates up by 35% but those who pay by direct debit (like us) have had their rates raised by 40% to compensate for the poorer families on meter rates. Now, if that were really the case, I wouldn’t mind as much but a lot of meter households aren’t poor - they just have meters because that’s how the power was installed in their house.

So, now the direct debit we pay has risen from £39 (approx $75) to £53 (approx $100) per month. Add the continuing fuel misery on to that and you have a pretty unhappy country. It isn’t made any easier when you learn that Centrica (the company controlling British Gas) have made record profits this year and their directors are going home with bonuses of £80,000 ($150,000). The govt don’t seems to be taking any action and that is making people unpopular - esp Gordon Brown.

Last week, one of the safest Labour seats in the whole of Scotland was lost to the Scottish Nationalist Party. No one saw it coming but it seems there is a definite rise in nationalism in Scotland and their party is getting stronger rather than weaker. I guess independence isn’t as far away as it looks.

Wow! That’s all I can say! Just wow! I love the new incarnation of the Batman movies because they are not afraid to delve deep into the psyche of a man who feels the need to dress up as a bat to fight crime. Bale is utterly awesome as Batman and equally impressive as Bruce Wayne. The movie is very dark but far from depressing as some critics are saying, I love, love, love all the angst.

I know all the focus is on Heath Ledger and his performance as the Joker but I think that is unfair to the rest of the cast who are all on top form. Ledger does give a very good performance but he doesn’t steal the show as some claim, because my attention was firmly on Bale and never left. He just brings something so sexily primal to Batman and there is that touch of vulnerability when he is Wayne. Utterly compelling. Bale is never boring in any of his films and he is a true joy to watch.

I’ve never been a comic book fan, in fact I’ve never read one in my life, but I’ve always had this thing for Batman. He is a hero but at the same time he is permeated with this darkness which is so exciting. I enjoyed the previous incarnations of the Batman movies but still left the cinema disappointed with the way the franchise seemed to be heading. Then along came Batman Begins and it pushed every damn button to perfection.

If you like your superhero films to be colourful and fun, then this movie is not for you. If you like your superhero films to be dark, angsty and full of superb acting - this is most definitely for you.

I had a monster of a migraine on Friday and spent most of the day in bed with my pillow over my head. It was so bizarre because I was asleep and suddenly woke up at 4 am with a stabbing pain in my left temple. Usually sleep is the best cure so it was very strange to get one while asleep. Anyway, I got up and got ready for work but within minutes was hurling in the sink - not fun. I decided it would be stupid to try and go to work so phoned in sick.

As I said, I spent most of the day in bed, either sleeping or watching DVDs with the curtains closed. Saturday, I felt better but it was a kick in the teeth when Auntie Flo arrived in the afternoon and I had cramps the rest of the day. What else could go wrong?

So, as fragile as I was, I decided to ban myself from the internet and the computer the whole weekend. I will confess to reading emails on my ipod but that was as far as I got. As a result, I finally finished a book I’d been reading for weeks and got pretty upset about the abrupt ending. I hate books that end abruptly. I also tried my first audiobook out but hated it. I decided I don’t like anyone else’s voice in my head when I’m reading, especially an American one. I’ve nothing against the accent - it’s just not mine!

1) Look at the list and highlight in bold the books you have read.
2) Italicize those you plan to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma- Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Never in a Million Years!!)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (en francais)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Yes, I’m a complete Apple whore, or should that be iWhore? After weeks of endless “should I” or “shouldn’t I” type scenarios - I caved in and bought an iPod Touch. I love the touch features although it is taking me a while to get the hang of it. It’s a bit fiddly until you get the knack.

I bought the 16GB version figuring I would need the extra space for the video downloads and I practically have my entire Bon Jovi collection already on it. I’m still feeling a tad guilty about the expense but I’m due a BIG bonus payment soon from work and I’m not going on holiday this year so figured I could treat myself.

I was holding out for an iPhone but really didn’t feel £30 a month was worth it in the end, especially since I don’t have a contract at all at the moment. I don’t use my phone often enough to warrant such an expensive contract and the PAYG option would probably be just as bad if I started using the net a lot. I’m not the world’s most social creature at the best of times so a new iPod suits me better.

The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko


I bought this book after seeing a trailer for the movie which included a battle scene that looked like something out of the LOTR movies. When I started reading the book, I realised it was completely different from what I had perceived so it kinda threw me a bit.

The Night Watch, the forces of Light, and the Day Watch, the forces of the Dark, have reached an uneasy status quo where they prevent each other from becoming too powerful. If the Night Watch commit an act of good, the Day Watch can retaliate by doing an act of evil of equal power. There are three stories woven into the tale, each one threatening to upset the precarious balance.

I’m not actually sure how I feel about this book because I found some parts of it hard to read and suspect that has more to do with the translation more than anything else. It certainly wasn’t what I thought it was going to be about and for that reason alone, I feel the need to read again once I’ve finished the sequels.

I did rent the movie but found it dreadful.

View all my reviews.