Pulling Puzzles Apart

One of the few artists that has never fallen out of favour with me. I found out about his sad passing at 11:50pm last night. The phone was ringing off the hook! I was so saddened that I couldn't get back to sleep properly and I just woke up ever thirty minutes or so.

I really feel that something is missing now. Something from childhood is lost. I remember my sister holding a hairdryer to my face whilst I sang 'aahaaahaah' from Earth Song, putting cellotape under my shoes to help me moonwalk and doing the Thriller dance routine in my bedroom.

I grabbed my iPhone last night and my Facebook and Twitter accounts were flooded with status updates about Michael Jackson. That is why I love the internet! It felt like me and my friends were united together in our sadness.

For all of those that are posting nasty comments and jokes (I have seen them all over different websites) just remember that he is somebody's friend, son, brother, father...

I don't think it will be long before the media start dishing dirt on him and dragging up the court cases. I would rather remember him as The King Of Pop.

My favourite MJ song:

My Dad recommended this film to me claiming that it is 'fantastic.' My Dad hardly ever raves about movies so I was very eager to watch it.

Taken is a movie about a former spy (Liam Neeson) who through his job, has become estranged from his ex wife and 17-year-old daughter. He retires from his job to make up for lost time with his daughter. When she asks him if she can go to France with her friend he is very reluctant to let her go but allows her to after a lot of pressure from his ex wife. His daughter calls him from France and then... she is taken. Neeson uses his 'spy skills' to track down his daughter!

I found the whole 'guy trying to make it up to his daughter' routine a bit tiring because it has been done so many times (made me think of the War Of The Worlds remake, which led me to Tom Cruise and I never want to be reminded of that idiot) and I settled into the film quite comfortably. I also found the daughter a little annoying. She has her Father programmed into her phone as 'Daddy' and she ran and skipped a lot in the film. All a little unbelievable. When I was 17 I was moody and very much over calling my Dad 'Daddy.'

However, when I got to the scene where the daughter is actually taken my mood changed. She is on the phone to her Father and she sees her friend being taken by two strange men. It happens so quickly that I couldn't help but go into her frame of mind. What would I do in that situation?

After the daughter was taken I then went into a 'parental' mind set. For example, I would go through anyone and anything to get to my child.

I found the film enjoyable. There were moments that had me on the edge of my seat literally muttering to myself. Quite a lot of violence as you can imagine. Entertaining but not fantastic.

Trailer:

When I cook dinner I like to listen to audiotapes (I am currently listening to Lord of The Rings). Yes, I know, it is very sad indeed! When my boyfriend gets home I turn off the audiotape and switch to Radio 1!

I used to listen to Radio 1 all of the time and about a year ago I could have told you every band that was in the charts. Well, not anymore. Chart music just doesn't 'do it' for me anymore! I think Black Eyed Peas are number one at the moment with a song called Boom Boom Pow whatever THAT means!

As soon as I turned on Radio 1 yesterday I heard the Big Brother theme song and the words 'latest big brother news.' Does anyone actually give a damn!?

My ideal radio station would have some music (80s/90s and some current) but I also like listening to the news, book reviews and movie reviews. The station would also be devoid of any ego crazy DJs! Do not talk to me about Scott Mills or Chris Moyles! I might be sick!

So... do you think my ideal radio station actually exists?

I am quite new to this reviewing business so let me start by saying: bloody hell!

Oskar is a 12-year-old boy who is very badly bullied at school. One day he meets the girl next door, Eli. She never comes out in the day time, the curtains are always drawn and a strange old man comes and goes from her apartment. They bond over a Rubix cube and you come to realise, as you read the book, that they need each other in very different ways.

There were parts in the book that sickened me and made me wonder whether I wanted to be reading it (although I am glad that I carried on). The way that Oskar is treated throughout the book put a lump in my throat. There are particularly destressing parts where Oskar is bullied and I kept thinking 'if he was my son... if he was my son...' I almost cheered when Eli told him to 'hit them back... hard.'

The fact that Let The Right One In is set in Sweden (translated from Swedish) helped to add an air of mystery and vulnerability. I didn't know any of the places mentioned and therefore, as a reader, I was well out of my comfort zone.

John Ajvide Lindqvist is being hailed as the new Stephen King. Well, I have read several Stephen King books and I have never looked over my shoulder whilst reading one of them. Let The Right One In is truly creepy and full of gore but a fantastic book.

Let The Right One In was made into a film. The movie podcast that I like (BBC Radio Five) have given it a fantastic review. It is in Swedish but has English subtitles. I am eager to see the film because I have heard a rumour that there is an American remake in the pipeline.

I would say, on a scale of one to ten, I am at an eight for 'skill in making small talk'

I went to a wedding on Saturday and as with these occasions, I was forced to speak to people that I have never met. I was placed on a table with family and friends and I was sat directly opposite a girl that knows my boyfriend's family. I had never met her before, I hadn't even heard of her before.

She started off with this comment to my boyfriend 'you look really grown up... it is a surprise.' She then went on to comment about my boyfriend's face! He had a different place setting to me, his was plain but mine had the Bride and Groom's names and the date printed on it. I said 'oh look there is clearly some favouritism going on here' to which she said 'or is it just because of his ugly face?'

Is that socially acceptable? Do I have a rod lodged somewhere that I need removing? I really do not know!

Anyway, we did get onto the more conventional topics of conversation. She asked my boyfriend 'what do you do for a living?' He answered her and then asked her what she did to which she announced her profession with a little self assured shake of her head! Why do people do that? It is all well and good to talk about our careers but when people bulk out their shoulders and shake their heads like a nodding dog it becomes evident that they were only asking because they want to announce what they do for a living! The act is so transparent! She had told us before my boyfriend had even finished asking her what she did.

She then moved onto me. I told her 'I am a writer.' If you tell somebody that they follow with two quick questions:
1) what do you write?
2) how much do you make?

Is it acceptable to ask somebody, that you have only just met, how much money they make? I wouldn't do it myself. I have no shame so I told her the truth 'the last poem I sold made me 50p a line' to which she looked down at the table and my boyfriend grinned at me.

My point is, careers and pay packets do not define us. It isn't what we do for a living but what we do with our lives that is important. It is essential to like your job in some way because you spend so much time there but a career does not make you your actions make you. I won't remember her in years to come for the proffession that she was so eager to boast about. I will remember her for the rude remarks that she made all through dinner.

I am one of those people 'sad' enough to have a reading list and it was during a rather boring law and politics lesson that I decided to add Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. My teacher was droaning on about some trivia I didn't really care for so, I fired up my computer and found The BBC Big Read Top 100. I then spent the next two hours adding the books that I hadn't read to my reading list.

My local library never seemed to have Rebecca and I never got around to asking for it so, it sat at the top of my reading list for a good few years until I found it last week.

A young girl (you never find out her name) meets Maxim De Winter in Monte Carlo, he proposes to her rather suddenly and although he is twice her age and of a higher class than her, she accepts. When she marries him she only knows a handful of things about him: he was married to a woman named Rebecca who drowned suddenly, he loved her very much, he cannot get over her death and he owns the mansion named Manderley. Max takes his new bride back to Manderley where she struggles to find her place and her own identity and although Rebecca has died it becomes apparent that she still rules over Manderley and the housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, seems determined to keep her memory alive.

I knew that I would enjoy this book from the very first line Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...
The heroine's struggle with identity is described so well, the awful few years between being a teenager and growing into an adult and desperately trying to do and say the right things are so well explained that the book was a real joy to read.
The isolation of Manderley, the 'plain girl' getting the 'rich man' and the 'other woman' reminded me of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

And if the first line wasn't enough to hook me, I gasped on the last page and that was enough to make me wonder about the book long after I had put it down for the last time.

I cannot say much about the new Star Trek movie apart from that I loved it.

A few months ago I heard talk of a Star Trek film and having never seen a single episode of Star Trek I turned my ears off. My partner convinced me to go with him. His main argument was that we always watch what I want to. I couldn't argue with that because it is true so, I accompanied him to the Odeon last night.

What did I expect? Very little. I expected to be bored. I expected to be confused.

What did I hope for? I hoped that Star Trek would be a little like Star Wars. I like Star Wars.

What did I get? I got an amazing film! It is funny and watchable but there is some really nail biting and on the edge of your seat stuff in there too. I urge you to watch it - it is EPIC!

I have told my partner to get the other Star Trek films/episodes so that I can see what happens. I think that he is pleased to have a girlfriend that likes Star Trek but he wasn't too impressed when I saw him off to work with a Vulcan Salute and a wide smile.

You know what? I think I may have found a new fandom

Trailer:

I watched Claire Richards: My Big Fat Wedding last night about Claire Richards a former member of the 90's pop group Steps. I always liked that band when I was younger (yes what a tragedy) and I was shocked to see the weight that she had gained.

When she joined the band she was a size ten and the record company told her to loose weight so she went down to a size eight. She then became obsessed with her weight loss feeling that she was in constant competition with the two other female members of the group. When she chose to leave the band she felt at a bit of a loose end and she basically sat on her couch and ate for five years. Imagine having that freedom back after several years of watching what you have to eat.

It is kind of sad though that they project that image at children. I am in no way blaming my problems on the media but I grew up to have issues with my own weight. I was diagnosed with anorexia at the age of sixteen and have struggled with it ever since (I am 22 now). It was only last year that I relapsed again. I am back on track again now and I am much happier with myself but there was a time when everything depended on me losing weight and I dropped from a size twelve to a size between eight and six. I went through fads where I would only eat lettuce and drink water and another time I would only drink milk and eat bananas. I became obsessed with calorie counting and kept a tally of everything I ate! It was crazy. I remember being so hungry and so tired that I couldn't even get up. I just laid on my back on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

It took a trip to The Priory and a LOT of hard work to get me back to normal now. I don't care what I eat anymore and I don't care about excercising. I am much happier this way.

I suppose I just want to express how sad I am that girls feel that they have to do this to themselves. It isn't just girls though - there is a programme on Channel Four tomorrow night about the pressures on men to look a certain way. It is so so sad.

It is important that people accept the way that they are. My thinspiration was always Nicole Richie but I realise now that I will NEVER look like her and I am ok with that finally

It is important to be happy with what you have and make the best of that.

I went to see 17 Again last night and I was very pleasantly surprised. I expected the film to fall into one of two bins; too corny or trying to be but not quite managing funny. Ofcourse, the film had its 'aaaw' inducing moments and it had its laugh out loud moments and all in all it was a very enjoyable film.

17 Again is about a 17-year-old boy (no really?) called Mike (Zac Efron) who has his whole life ahead of him when his girlfriend tells him that she is pregnant and he leaves his career and prospects behind to raise a family. Skip twenty years into the future and you have a very unhappy man (Matthew Perry... Chandler Bing to those in the know) who has a strained relationship with his children and is getting a divorce when, in a rather Bruce Almighty way, he gets the chance to be 17 Again.

It was really sweet and really funny. It is a good reminder of what it is like to be a teenager, that tricky time when you think that the whole world is against you and nobody understands.

I went to see it with two of my sisters but I think guys would like it too.

Trailer:

If you only read one book this year make it The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Nine-year-old Bruno moves from his comfortable home and life style in Berlin with his sister Gretal and his Mother and Father to a new home that is run down and shabby. Bruno is very unhappy until he meets a boy who lives on the other side of the fence that runs alongside his house. The boy is called Shmuel, a very strange boy who is not allowed passed the fence and like all of the other people on that side of the fence, Shmuel wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

John Boyne never directly shines his torch on the horrors of the Holocaust but they seep into the story as Bruno explores his new home in all his innocence.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and it will be going into my permanent collection, never to be given away or traded. John Boyne has handled a very disturbing subject with great care and dignity and I urge you to give it a read.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has also been made into a film: