Everyone and his grandmother have now read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and those who haven't have seen the film or heard the radio show. They made Douglas Adams the icon he is, and ensured that my mother recognises his name. Dirk Gently, however, is more of an unknown entity in the world of nutty literati and grandmothers alike. Rather undeservedly; it should be remedied.

Adams once wrote occasional episodes for the magnificent television series Doctor Who (and some of the better episodes at that). When, from time to time, the scripts did not pan out, he was known to convert them into pieces of books (see the Krikkit robots and the incident with the ashes, for example). Shada, which was left unfinished and unaired because of a strike, is one such, and Adams converted key bits of it into the strange composition of insanity, absurdity, hilarity and very, very close plotting which is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

The Doctor does not figure in it. Instead the reader must deal with the strange workings of the very odd minds of Professor Chronotis (Reg), and his cryptic comments, very strange behaviour and impressive magic tricks; and Dirk Gently, with his very strange hat, penchant for massive amounts of free pizza, and his tendency to notice things. The hat is very strange.

Dirk Gently is a holistic detective, which means he will use his gifts to find the missing cat by visiting Bermuda -- for holistic reasons, you ...

When I was 12 or so I read a book called The Short Life of Sofie Scholl, and it made such an impression I still feel caught up in it 15 years (oh my) later. When I heard a film was being made I had the unsettling conflicting feeling that consists of raw enthusiasm and trepidation -- it is a story worth telling, but I did not want to see it mishandled.

Sophie Scholl was 21 years old when she was executed in February 1943, together with her brother and a friend. They were all members of the White Rose (die Weiße Rose), an anti-Nazi movement, based in the philosophy department of the University in Munich, which used non-violent means like the distribution of leaflets to fight the totalitarian regime. You can read more about them here.

My fears for the film were unfounded. It contained good acting, excellent photography, beautiful colours, and horror just outside. The horror of it was particularly effective because it wasn't the main focus. It was always present, but subtle. I don't quite now how to explain it. It was not dwelt on, as I would expect it to be in a Hollywood version (I am sure one will come along any day now), but hovered around the strong red colours and the silence and the low tones, the restraint of the main character.

I think of German as a hard language. And whenever Germans are angry, it is. But this film also underscored ...

In the Bookman magazine, there was always (well, for quite some time, anyway) a section called "The Young Author's Page", which appears to be comments on writings sent in. Sometimes it is rather harsh.

RODERICK -- I see you enjoyed a picture. That is something. But in grateful homage to the painter, you might, since you rhymed, have made your lines scan, chosen a metre and stuck to it, and found a more graceful way of expressing your admiration than ``Late do our steps from this view diverge''.

and

ELINA -- You can do nothing with these, I fear. They are but bursts of fine language connected by desperate rhymes. To criticise them in detail would not be useful or fair.

Both from Bookman vol XII, April 1897, page 156.

And these, from May 1897, page 104:

HATHI -- Quite amusing. It might be accepted, but your handwriting is against it. I have found great difficulty in deciphering the MS.

and

VAGABOND -- Carefully and nicely written. ... The sentiment and language hardly call for criticism, but it is all a little dull and pointless. A missionary paper might print it.


And from Bookman vol XIV, of May 1898, page 54, there is more:

SHIELDS -- Your little girl's stories are really marvellous. Her command of language is extraordinary, as well as her power of carrying on a continuous narrative. I am glad she is `uneducated', and glad that she is the child of a medical man, who will know how to prevent her ...

For noen år tilbake fikk jeg en kjempefin gave av Tor. Green & Black's Organic Chocolate Cookbook. Mange år senere har jeg fortsatt bare prøvd to av oppskriftene. Den første var hjort i sjokoladesaus. Jeg konkluderte dengang med at selv om det var godt, var det ikke så godt at det var verdt alt arbeidet, og at hjort i fløtesaus med tyttebær alltid vil være bedre. Jeg har derfor lagt den oppskriften på hylla. Dette er historien om oppskrift nummer to (og jeg er redd konklusjonen min er noe av det samme):

Lime, Chili and Chocolate Bread

Til dette trenger man
25 g gjær
25 g brunsukker
4 dl varmt vann
450 g hvetemel
1 ts salt
125 g mørk sjokolade (rundt 60%)
1 tørket chili (finhakket, uten frø)
1 1/2 lime
5 cl olivenolje

(I den egentlige oppskriften står det 15 g "active dried yeast" som er noe Britene driver med. Man kjøper en boks med bittesmå kuler av en slags tørrgjær som man så må aktivere med vann og sukker i et kvarters tid før man begynner å bake. Jeg har endret litt på oppskriften for å få den til å stemme med norske bakevaner.)

Finhakk chilien (fordi jeg ikke hadde tørket chili for hånden tok jeg fjernet frøene fra en fersk liten rød chili, som jeg så hakket og satte i ovnen på rundt 100 grader en stund -- presto: tørket chili). Sett den til side.

Bland mel, sukker og salt i en eltebolle.

Hakk sjokoladen og ha den i blandingen, sammen med den tørkede chilien. Jeg brukte 70% sjokolade, og jeg lurer på om det var litt dumt. Jeg anbefaler i alle fall ingen å bruke noe mørkere enn det.
Ta så en lime og en duppedings (man kan bruke en gulrot-rasp hvis man gjør det forsiktig), og rasp av en del av det ytterste skallet på limen (ikke rasp for entusiastisk, for den hvite delen er den delen som smaker ekkelt). Tor sier at man bør være forsiktig med å spise limeskall hvis man ikke har å gjøre med en økologisk dyrket lime (fordi det er i skallet man finner mest giftstoffer), og det er jo noe man kan ta til etterretning med mindre man er allergisk mot denslags.



Og her blir oppskriften litt forvirrende. Det står nemlig

Add the ... zest of one of the limes. Thinly slice and chop the lime, skin on, and add half to the mixture with the juice from the other half lime.

Jeg får det ikke til å gå opp med oppskriftens 1 1/2 lime. Hvis noen har tolkningsforslag tar jeg ...

I've spent all day, well most of it, going through several years' worth of this publication. On March 1st 1870 it reported that

There are booksellers in London who imitate the Marquis of Carraccioli, who published a religious work under the very ambiguous title of ``La Jouissance de Soi-même'' ...; and says one authority, ``the sale of this work was very continual with the libertines, who, however, found nothing but very tedious essays on religion and morality''. So, in later days, booksellers of a certain notorious street sold tracts in sealed packets, labelled with taking titles; and the publishers we glance at advertise curious and appetising histories which would seem perfectly fitted to come under Lord Campbell's Act, but which are very dull compilations, in every respect contemptible and utterly deceptive. (132)

Unfortunately they did not include any examples.
And I am very curious as to the notorious street in question.

For mange år siden ga min mor meg en bok om lystbetont rengjøring. Det står mye fornuftig i den, men en av de tingene jeg virkelig festet meg ved var at det sto at man skulle sørge for å ha alt man trengte for å mikse seg en gimlet i etterkant.

Belønning er viktig i alle livets avenyer, og det er ikke alltid et rent hus alene er nok.

Nå har jeg egentlig aldri vært en stor tilhenger av gin. Med unntak av Hendrick's Gin, som det vel passer ekstra godt å drikke her i Edinburgh. Men Hendrick's Gin går ikke så bra sammen med lime (en av de vanligste ingrediensene i en gimlet) -- en Hendrick's gin&tonic, for eksempel, vil tradisjonelt ha en agurkbit istedet for den mer tradisjonelle limebåten. Jeg har derfor ennå ikke benyttet meg av denne glimrende idéen. Men så kom jeg over en oppskrift på en Hendrick's agurk-gimlet. Her.

Man skreller og kutter opp en agurk.Deretter kjører man den i en blender. Eller i en slik fancy tupperware-dings som mamma skaffet meg, som gjør samme nytten med håndkraft. I så fall kan man sette på noe gammel swing-musikk og danse rundt mens man vrir og vender på den, intil agurken er meget, meget finhakket. Deretter kjører man den så gjennom en sil, slik at man bare får den fineste agurk-saft.

Det var ingen som sa det skulle være enkelt.

Man skal nå ha ca én dl agurksaft.
Bland det så med et par t-skjeer fersk limejuice. Og et par t-skjeer sukker. Og en halv dl Hendrick's gin. Ha i noen isbiter, og rist til alt er blandet.

Ha så i et glass og se ut over ditt nyryddede og nyvaskede kjøkken.
Ikke ...

I have spent the entire day going through old issues of the Athenæum and The Bookman, both literary journals based in London. I was looking for comments on Thackeray's plans for his unfinished novel, Thackeray's death, Stevenson's unfinished novels, Stevenson's death, and other things of a similar nature; but the thing with going through this types of journals is that I always end up spending a disproportionate amount of time reading stuff completely unrelated to what I am supposed to be doing. In an attempt to make it somehow justifiable, I share it with you.

The first caught my eye because Nietzsche always does. It is from the ``Notes from Paris'' section of the 1896 Bookman, and is written by Robert H. Sheard.

I see that an English edition of Nietzsche's works is in progress of publication in London. It should be well received by students of philosophy. I think it nonsense to write, as I saw it written the other day in some French review, that Nietzsche's doctrine ``systematises all the worst instincts of human nature''. The same writer added, ``The credit which this doctrine enjoys among the young generation seems to me singularly dangerous and menacing''. The [sic] is exaggerated alarm. The student of philosophy is de facto a hard-headed man, who is unlikely to allow himself to be influenced one way or another by the teachings of any one of the philosophers whom he reads. The weak youth does not read ...

The London Review of Books has published a number of lectures online, in video form.

This one is by Jacqueline Rose. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are some kicks in the general direction of recent British and American history, but it is focused on the Dreyfus affair. It is fascinating. She attacks it through a focus on three (well, four) heroes and discusses the historical setting for that particular moment of anti-semitism. It is not a history-lecture but a series of readings of texts of the period. And it deals with the nature of justice. And it concludes with a rather scathing discussion of Israel and zionism.

It seems pertinent in the context of the current focus on the Gaza blockade.

The lecture lasts for about an hour, and is then followed by a Q&A-session of another 40 minutes, which I still haven't seen. But I intend to.

Stephen King, according to my copy of this book, calls it "a masterwork of narrative suspense". I can only surmise he has found it hanging somewhere in a really nifty way. It is one of the more underwhelming books I have read this year.

First you should know that The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Charles Dickens' last novel. It was left only half finished at his death, and no one knows how it was supposed to end. Dan Simmons is not the first to find inspiration in this state of events. He is not even the first to write his own mystery story with Dickens' novel figuring somewhere at the centre. But he is the first that I know of to make his mystery so completely over the top.

What Simmons has done, basically, is say "I can do nothing interesting with the actual mystery of how Edwin Drood would have ended, but I want to profit off whatever connotations of mystery it still carries, so I will mix it up with magic evil Egypt and suggest Dickens may have been a murderer, oh and Collins too and possibly make them both victims, oh and because opium seems to be central to Dickens' book, and since it was central to Collins' most famous book, I must mention the drug three times on each page".

The narrator is Wilkie Collins. It has little to nothing to do with the author Wilkie Collins. Simmons makes use of parts of his life ...

This is from the Guardian fashion blog (which is a video). I swear I clicked on in accidentally, but once I had, the sheer mindbogglingness of it boggled my mind. There are people in the world who will actually say things like "So here I am in my boring dress. Which is really nice. Boring is good. Boring is a compliment! This is what we've got to get used to". She looks like she is dreading getting used to it, but she has to because apparently it is the fashion now. "I mean, how fabulously boring is that coat". Another gleam of golden oddness. "It's been such a long time since you could get excited about going shopping for a boring pair of black trousers". I am glad we finally have permission to do so now. From the great pantheon of fashionistas.

Yes, I watched the whole thing. Giggling. And now I share it with you. Haven't you been deprived all these years? Not knowing that boring is good!