prolific.org

Eleven years ago, I saw British comedian Eddie Izzard perform a show in Amsterdam. Not long after, I set up a website about him, which ran in various incarnations from ‘95 to ‘2000. It was my most succesful website, at least until we set up Whedonesque.com.

I hooked up an old HD to my computer yesterday, and found the most recent backup of the site, made just before I took the site off line in 2000. Among the files were two original pieces I wrote. They are a review and an interview, both of which I’d like to share with you again, starting with the review.

I’ve also put part of the site back online, not originally created by me, but given to me to host. It gives me great pleasure to present: Pantscat!, an early Izzard creation.

The review follows after the break. I haven’t followed Izzard’s career the past five years. I stopped ‘believing’ and thought he was a bit too calculating, too eager in the quest for fame. Not a lot of soul. Then I just lost interest. But this was written at the height of my comparatively brief obsession with the man who said ‘Jam!’

[Read more]

Crikey, looks like I’m going to flex my withering writing muscle. I’ve been tagged by Mr Hg with The Book Title Meme.

(update: It’s taken me a month to get it together.)

1. Briefly describe an aspect of your life for which ‘The Dying Of Delight’ would be an apt title.

Delightful aspects have been sadly missing from my life. No dying, no death, not even little ones. Not a whole lot gives me pleasure at the moment. Even my appetite is lacking, so the pleasure of food has diminished somewhat. I blame the diabetes. It’s good to have something to blame.

2. Pick another book whose title has some resonance in your life, and write a little about it.

I could pick ‘The Light and Dark‘, but that would be too self-centered, even for me.

Looking at the books on my shelves, nothing really resonates until I hit Brendan Kennelly’s epic ‘Poetry my arse‘.

But I don’t want to make things too easy for anyone who picks up this meme from me, so I’ll choose MeFite John Bennett’s ‘Sea Otters gambolling in the wild, wild surf, which is the type of book you’d tell anyone they ‘must read’, because it’s dead funny and it might give them a few hours of that elusive thing, delight’.

Whatever.

I hear the Dutch title of this book will be ‘Dartelende zeeotters in de wilde, wilde, branding’, and it will be out in September this year. That’s for the benefit of any Dutch readers I might have.

3. Write one more short personal piece – one which matches the book title chosen (in part 2) by the person who tagged you.

So that would be ‘Saturday Night & Sunday Morning’.

That title means nothing to me. They’re just days. Parts of the weekend. Only slightly different from weekdays for the fact that I usually do not have to work. But sometimes I do.

I’m sure couples have their weekend rituals and younger folk are all about the Saturday Night out, and the Sunday Morning hangover. I’m too old for that now and every day is like Sunday.

4. Take your favourite little-known book and plug it to your readers. Authors need incomes, and word of mouth is one of the best ways to sell books.

John Banville may have won the Booker Prize for ‘The Sea’, but he isn’t particularly well known here in the Netherlands. ‘The Untouchable‘ is quite possibly my favourite book in the whole wide world. can’t say that everybody should read it, it’s not that type of book. If you identify with aging men (and for some reason I do), it may appeal. ‘The Untouchable’ is based on the life of Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge spies, and it deals with betrayal. Of country, of marriage, of friendship, of self.

5. Sit back and marvel at the magnificence of this meme. It was brought to you by an out-of-breath author, reduced (on account of her publisher* having expired) to trundling copies of her book across the internet on a rusty old trolley with one wheel missing, sweating and shouting “Buy me book, Gov?” Now visit www.TheDyingOfDelight.co.uk and see if you’d like a copy for yourself. I

There is something about this viral/meme that makes me uncomfortable and that’s probably why it took so long for me to finish the questionnaire. This last bit, #5, just annoys me a little. With apologies to the original author. I have no idea who you are. Please forgive me for not having the energy to find out. If I knew you, I might like the meme better, but perhaps this is one that doesn’t work beyond a blog’s regular readers. Or maybe it does and I’m just being my usual misanthropist self. Anyway, thanks for dropping by earlier.

6. Tag five people with this meme.

Nah. But anyone who reads me who hasn’t already done this, please, meme on.

On Metafilter, Pat ‘Wax on, wax off’ Norita’s death announcement gets more posts than George Best’s. I’m not sure what that means, if anything.

I have been at home and in bed with a really bad cold for the past few days, so reading MeFi and watching West Wing episodes is about all I’ve been up to. The worst thing about colds is not being able to taste food, taking the pleasure out of surely the greatest pleasure.

Winter is not my favourite season.