Book stuff

Food, glorious Food!

| mlatimerridley

When lunchtime rolls around in Ireland, Latimer and Ridley find themselves getting hungry, but roast dinners and stews aren’t what occupy their thoughts; no, they’re reminded of their culinary adventures in Tokyo!

Latimer: whenever I get hungry, I think back on food I had in the past. And for me, it can be the very distant past.

For example, my sister went to college in London when I was 6yrs old; when she moved there, myself and my mother went with her, to help her settle into her dorm for a few days. One night we were very hungry so we decided to get chips. I can remember it vividly, how dark and cold it was (my sister tells me now that it wasn’t a good area to be in at night time!), the roads were black, wet with rain, and the chippy was a little suspect.

We got three bags of chips wrapped tightly in newspaper (old school!). They were massive bundles and the chips were delicious!

There were so many that we could only manage to eat a few.So the majority of those chips were tossed in the bin.

That was a lifetime ago, but to this day, I remember those chips when I get really hungry. I think back and always say to myself ‘oh why did I toss them! I wish I could eat them now!’

It’s such a strong memory. We always remember a good meal, as if our body is saying ‘yes, remember how much you like to eat! How tasty food is! REMEMBER!’ Somehow it seems like the body is afraid one day we might not like food anymore!

When we went to Tokyo, it was one of our aims to eat well everyday. When we were in Japan 4yrs ago, we were with other people and it was hard to find food that everyone wanted to eat. This time, we had no worries; we’re pretty similar in that we wanted true Japanese food, and we wanted to eat!

Thankfully, Tokyo was only too willing to feed us!

Every time we went somewhere, I took out the camera and snapped some pictures. Because we wanted to remember the food; we wanted to show people; ‘look, look at the food! Look how yummy it is… we ate that! We remember the taste’.

Looking at these pictures now, I have very fond memories of sitting in these places, munching on this food as Tokyo and its people flashed passed us; we ate in good company, had good chats and dreamed good dreams… so with that, let me show you our food memories!

Day one of serious photo taking involved yummy okonomiyaki (sort of savory pancakes) at the famous restaurant, Sometarou in Asakusa. We mentioned it in a previous post, but it’s worth another mention. It was amazing!

It was also the most tradition place we ate in, and while it was roasting sitting by those frying-slabs, it was just perfect!

Ridley lovingly paints our pancakes, with a substance we didn’t recognise but had the consistency of tar!

Cuttlefish and tiny red shrimp- probably us at our most adventurous I think!

The next day we were off to Ueno Park.

Now the Lonely Planet guide book didn’t recommend many eateries in Ueno, so we were stuck. It was a hot day, the park was vast and we were hungry. Looking around the periphery of the park we managed to find the Korean cafe.

Ah, we love Korean food, it’s hearty stuff, so we were very happy with this find!

Although the waiter didn’t understand us, and we had some mishaps ordering, which left Ridley with food, and me with a drink! Ha! We managed to sort it out and I ended up with food, but Ridley didn’t get her drink! But she didn’t care by then, it was too much hassle!

But actually, the drink was AMAZING! Like drinking sunlight (big assumption!).

The food was typical Korean fare (yummy!)….

Except for these….

Ahhh! What are they? They’re looking at me! Ridley ate them without looking as far as I’m concerned! When I pointed it out to her, she was two mouthfuls in… she was rightly aghast!

When we went to Ikebukuro, we ate in one of the shopping malls.

Which we were kind of thinking was a cop-out as we should eat ‘authentic’ food out in the little restaurants. But the guide book (not that it had become God in the last few days…well actually it had, all hail guide book!) said that the malls actually have some really good places to eat in!

They were right! This was a veggie noddle dish, with rice, served in a pipping hot stone bowl. Which, in winter would be just amazing, in summer a bit too hot, but still lovely!

At one point I remember we spent hours looking for this one restaurant around the Ginza area I think.

Ridley had her google maps out and we managed to find the place where the restaurant should have been. But it was mysteriously absent (she was annoyed because we had spent all that time looking and it was almost like the map had bested her!).

So, falling back on the God, Lonely Planet, we headed into the nearest shopping mall. We judged based on pictures what restaurant we would eat in.

It was on the top floor and faced a massive sky-bar that loomed over the mall from across the road. We sat down, and a lovely waitress came over and explained the menu (we had been staring at it completely bewildered). She had very good English (we were soooo happy!). The first thing she asked though was…. ‘have you ever eaten Korean before’.

Haha, we didn’t even know we’d come into a Korean restaurant. We were even happier!

The food was cooked (by her in front of us) over a small hot plate, in a large steel bowl.

She asked us if we wanted rice or noodles, we said noodles…. but they didn’t materialize. We were baffled, but we ate away not caring.
It was great, sharing food over a hot plate like that. Korean food is so hearty and built to share (kind of facilitates conversation too!).
When we were finished the waitress returned with the mysteriously absent, much discussed noodles. She put them into the remaining sauce and added water, leaving it to bubble away… It was so good!
It reminded us of being in a Korean drama! It was the best feed I think we had while in Japan.

I get very hungry thinking back on this dinner… sigh. On another day we contemplated going back to this place, but Ridley frowned, “I don’t think I could find it even if we wanted to, we did so much walking around… I wouldn’t know the way.”

Ridley is like a human GPS, so if NavWoman couldn’t find it, it wasn’t possible!

Of note here, is that myself and Ridley have this deep love of ramen. It started really from watching anime (Naruto mainly). We always wanted to taste the real stuff in Japan. We managed to on our first trip a few years back and we always regretted not eating more of it (our other friends didn’t really like it that much).

So this time we were noodle crazy- we wanted to go to ramen places as much as possible. It’s a massive bowl of happiness!

This place was a ramen shop around where we were staying (Akasaka). It wasn’t the best ramen we had, but it was nice. We had to use the typical vending machines the Japanese use in eateries like ramen places and curry houses.

Bascially you select the meal you want, pay for it, get your ticket and give it to the people in the shop. It’s a brilliant idea, because us foreigners aren’t left feeling confused… although a few times some kind Japanese people had to step in and help us! You have to match up katakana, kanji and hiragana symbols to identify the food you want on the machine (a little time consuming, so we had to make sure no one was waiting behind us, or sidestep and let them in first!).

I was actually always very happy to see these machines in the places we were going to eat in- a deep sense of relief!

Our search for ramen brought us to another cool, traditional restaurant around Akasaka. This ramen was delicious!

These were Ridley’s gyoza (dumplings… she didn’t like em- too many onions!)

My yummy ramen (I love sweetcorn)

Ridley’s pork ramen (looks delicious)

The best ramen we had, we got in the Ginza district, in yes, another shopping mall! This was our last night in Tokyo, so we finished it with the food we had loved most- (well, next to the Korean food!).

This business man was eating beside us. He was a little rude to the guy making the ramen.

I found at times the meat that was being used was tough. But this was melt in your mouth pork. I feel like Homer Simpson at the moment, drooling away at the thoughts of eating.

I was so tired this night. Me and Ridley sat at this bench for ages. We were the only people there. I nodded to sleep at one point (resting my eyes, haha). When we got up to leave, the two ramen chiefs smiled over at us and gave us big goodbyes and thank yous. It was a nice way to end our ramen adventure!

A side project we had was to have proper Bubble Tea/Milk Tea. This is popular in Asia. Basically it’s a milk-based, flavoured drink, with tapioca balls in it. The straws are thick so you can suck them up. The desire to get the Bubble Tea wasn’t that strong as the days wore on. It was only as we passed through Harajuku on our third round that we found this Pearl Lady place. Which seemed to be where all the kids hung out.

It was all pink and open plan and full of cheap fast-food places selling curly potato fries and so on. 

After about 10mins of trying to remember my Katakana (argh, I hate Katakana). I was able to figure out two flavours, caramel and strawberry! That’ll do we thought!

We settled down at the window overlooking Takeshita dori. We slurped on our Bubble Teas, with intermittent coughing/choking fits when we gulped down a tapioca ball or three, or ten.

We’ve had some bad Bubble Teas (Christmas market, Berlin brings back bad memories of gingerbread, hot Bubble Tea! Oh nasty). So, I was dubious. But this was so tasty. I wish we had of known about this place sooner! Check it out if you’re ever there- it’s so good!

Following a delay in our flight (actually an out and out cancellation), we ended up in an airport hotel. I finally tasted the strange green-tea and cherry blossom flavoured kit-kat I’d bought. It was actually nice. But doesn’t it look weird?

We were offered a free all you can buffet lunch- I should never be offered such a thing! I tried a bit of everything (and felt sick afterward). I snapped a picture of the fancy Japanese sweets because they looked so lovely. But I didn’t like them- they were made from rice dough and filled with bean-paste… I was expecting chocolate- so I was left grimacing, while Ridley nodded, “yep, bean paste! Knew it!”.

On the way home, our fly was practically empty- it was heaven for a long-haul! Everyone, I kid you not, everyone had a three seats to themselves! 

I won’t end with airplane food- don’t worry (it makes me sick and I can’t eat it). But I was able for this ice-cream….

Our final taste of Japan, for a few years at least!

On a book related update, the editing of our book is nearly finished! By me at least… procrastination must be the way of getting things done in a weird way! I’ve done so much of it. Soon we’ll be sending it to the professionals. We are so excited to be walking down this road! Ridley is busy with her book trailer too, so all is going well!

In the editing process I have been armed with my moomin cup (always full of Lyons tea) and my moomin pen for the taking of notes (both bought in Kiddyland in Harajuku)! The kit-kat, yes, is one I bought in Japan. If it keeps I plan to eat it when the book goes ‘live’ so to speak! Keep watch… it might not last that long!

Irishisms

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: It is said that the Irish people are a nation of storytellers. While I don’t know if this is true, it’s hard to judge yourself, I do believe that everyone here has at least one good tale to tell. We all also have one friend who was the class clown with the best, most outlandish long tailed stories, ever. This pal was just all round good craic. And when I say craic, I don’t mean the sniffy sniffy powder up the nose and now your flying through the stars kind. Craic here is everything from good banter, teasing (or slagging, which is basically good natured insulting, we love to do this), sarcasm, the atmosphere, jokes, music, singing, fun and just generally all of these combined to ensure you have a great time or night out.

Each country is unique. Personally though, I like to think the Irish sometimes have the strangest and sometimes hardest quirks to understand. So we’re going to share a few of them with you!

1. Irish people use a lot of fillers in their sentences that make no sense, though we understand them all the same and they sound nice. It keeps the conversation flowing (no awkwardness), examples included:

‘ah, sure that’s that really.’

‘You couldn’t be hoping for much more.’

‘Sure, what’s the use.’

We even have conversations with our cars-we just can’t shut up. The Irish like to talk. Des Bishop does a hilarious sketch of this actually. When we overtake someone in the car and they’ve moved aside to let you pass them. We switch on our hazard lights for a few seconds to say ‘thank you’ in car speak, then they will flash you with their head lights with a ‘you’re welcome’. You also get a ‘flash flash’ from oncoming cars, sometimes, to warn you about guards or speed cameras ahead of you (ah ha, policeman you won’t win today!) For the rude drivers or the ones in a particular hurry (but still rude) they come up behind you and flash you with their head lights asking you to move in. Once you do this and they’re safely ahead of you, you should receive a ‘thank you’ from their hazard lights.

2. Des Bishop also mentions the infamous immersion! It really is something that people in Ireland freak out about. Basically the immersion is turned on to heat up the water in your tank for the main taps or if you want a bath. Every single Irish mammy is convinced if you leave the switch on too long, the tank will explode. Even after my brother, who is an engineer, gave a massive explanation showing that it was actually impossible for it to blow up, my mother was silent for a moment and then said ‘Even still, just make sure you turn it off, you can never be too sure.’ No matter how many technical or scientific terms are hauled out, she’ll never be convinced!

3. We give the most confusing directions: “You go left, right, then you go right, right. When you come to the fork in the road, there’s a white gate to your left, ignore that and go the opposite way. Go down passed Lynch’s house, they’re the ones with the giant bullock in the field. Their dog is always digging up my azaleas, the fecker, go passed there, then go left, I think, and you’re there. Did you get all that?”

Despite these confusing directions, we’d prefer them to the sat nav. We have a deep seated suspicion and hatred for sat nav systems. We talk to them as if they can hear us. “You hadn’t a fecking clue where you were going, you got us lost again, you eejit!”

4. We’re a nation obsessed with the weather, we talk about it, complain about, analysis it and predict it. And at the merest hint of sunshine, we all strip down to our vests and shorts to show off our white chicken legs. We make the most of every sun ray as we know it won’t last long!

A good hello for any Irish person on rainy day would be; ‘Jesus, the weather’s desperate.’

And a typical answer to this? ‘Isn’t it just! You wouldn’t know what do be doing with it all.’ Nothing has actually been said here. It’s basically gibberish but the whole point is not to impart any important information as such, it’s just to be friendly and you’re showing a united, similarly miserable, front against the grey leaking clouds above.

5. In the summer, when the days get longer (the clocks change-we’ve daylight savings time) and eventually it’s still light at half 10 at night. People here will always remark, ‘There’s a grand stretch in the evenings.’ Grand here means nice or good.

Grand pops up a lot in Irish conversations. I tend to use it all the time. I don’t notice this, unless I’m abroad and I start to get funny looks. I like using it, though it is another example of a sentence filler. Say for answering something with a No, it softens it; ‘Ah no, you’re grand.’ Or you can also use it with a yes, ‘Oh grand, that would be great.’ Confusing, yes?

6. Red lemonade, it’s like normal clear lemonade, but with lovely chemical red dye in it. It’s unique to Ireland. We fought the E.U. to keep it, you know, when they tried to ban it. Yet I don’t know many people who actually drinks it these days, though because it’s ‘ours’ we don’t want to give it up.

7. Irish people and punctuality do not go hand in hand. We are generally late, for everything. This includes the public transport systems too I might add! 

8. When you pass an absolute stranger in your car on a country road, always wave, not crazy fast side to side wave, you’ll get a strange look for that. No, it has to be a slow hand up as you pass by (the even cooler, laid back farmer way is just raising a single index finger and a nod-the nod is optional.) If it’s a sunny day, you may get the wave out the open window. Exciting.

9. We all love cheese and onion flavoured Tayto crisps. Anyone who says they don’t isn’t a true Irish person. Quite a number of people will also get two slices of white bread and put the Taytos in between them to make a crisp sandwich. Yummers. (I don’t actually do this. Loads of other people do this though.)

10. We’re a nosey nation, we like to know about our neighbours and we gossip about them constantly. A simple hello can lead to the history of a single family, an example of an actual conversation I overheard yesterday:

“I saw Johnny Mac Donagh up town.”

“Johnny Mac Donagh, now whose he?”  (This question is really more, where does he come from, who are his people? You’re judged on your family, relations and connections more so than what you’ve achieved yourself.)

“He’s related to Josie who married Jim Murphy, the garage man. Bit of a scandal in that family. He was originally going with her second cousin Mary, then dropped her like a hotcake when he met Josie, but sure it all worked out in the end. They got married and had little Eoghan who ended up being a doctor. Or was it a vet? No, a doctor! Now he’s over in the Amazons or some such place, playing with monkeys.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, Johnny was just out for the milk and the papers.” 

(And I was left wondering, what happened to poor Mary? And if little Eoghan was a doctor and not a vet, why was he ‘playing with monkeys’ in the Amazon?)

11. We have to refuse something three times before accepting it. It takes a type of coaxing to get us to agree. I think we say the first no out of politeness, we don’t want to impose, the second is to double check the person offering is serious and not just doing it out of courtesy, then the third time you can relent. When it comes to food or drink, never just assume an Irish person’s first no, actually means no. Always check with an ‘Are you sure?’ There will probably be a ‘Ah no you’re grand’, in this instance you just have to say ‘Ah, go on!’ And with a giant grin the other person will get stuck in to whatever you’re offering. You HAVE to ask again- this is very important. If not, when you walk away the Irish will turn to each with horrified looks and go, ‘the cheek of that! What was yerman/yerone thinking? Oh I’m ripping (angry)’!

If you’ve ever seen the show Father Ted, Mrs Doyle’s offer of tea with ‘Ah go on, go on, go on….” is a more exaggerated version of what actually happens. Speaking of tea, it is drunk the country over. There are two brands that rival each other here. You’re either a Lyon’s or a Barry’s tea drinker. Choose your side! (Lyon’s would be our preferable brand. We love you Lyons!) Tea is drunk for numerous reasons, and for no reason at all. I think the average is four cups a day per person in Ireland. Perhaps when I’m working I average around 4 cups, but on a day off….that could be easily doubled! I do like fancy coffees too, but if I was only ever allowed one or the other again in my life, I’d always choose tea.

12. When we go abroad, we love to use Irish. It’s our secret language. We could hate it with a passion when we’re at home, but when we visit a different country we all suddenly start using a cúpla focal as gaeigle (couple of words in Irish), knowing gleefully no one else can understand us. Though I’m waiting for the day someone turns around and starts talking back in Irish to me, that would be awkward!

13. Despite speaking English, we’ve warped it in such a way that someone visiting the country, even if they’re completely fluent in it, might think we’re speaking a different language all together. We’ve different sayings or ways of saying things that make no sense to visitors.

  • She’s a pain in the face (she’s very annoying).
  • How’s she cuttin’? (how are things going? Very much a country saying.)
  • I was scarlet for her (a Dublin saying, meaning I was embarrassed for her.)
  • Fair play to you. (well done to you-if you’ve succeed at something.)
  • It’s Baltic in here or it’s perishing in here (it’s absolutely freezing in here)
  • The craic was ninety! (it was fantastic fun)
  • What’s the story? (Another type of hello with also how are you incorporated into it, it’s a more Dublin version)
  • He’s a fine thing. (he’s handsome)
  • Don’t be foostering (don’t be messing around/wasting time)
  • She’s going to eat the head off you (she’s really angry and going to yell at you.)
  • Well (very lazy hello, how are you, between very good friends)
  • You made a hames of that. (you messed that up badly)
  • Would you cop on. (would you get some sense. Stop being an idiot.)
  • She’s a goose gob (she’s a silly idiot)
  • You’re gone in the head (You’re crazy/mad)
  • I’ll give you a shout. (It’s a way of saying good bye, ‘I’ll speak to you later’ but without any sort of actual commitment to do this. It’s an empty promise really!)
  • You wouldn’t be going to the shop? (‘be going’ comes from a tense we have in Irish, it’s called the continuous present. Also, we tend to ask for things in the negative. You wouldn’t be getting milk in the shop? Hinting that you’d like milk too.)

That’s just a few quirks that we have. It probably makes us all look a tad mental. But crazy can be charming….right? 🙂

If you’re looking for a funny look at Irish people and the strange things they love and say try this book: Stuff Irish People Love. Everything in it is so true!!

I’d love if anyone would like to share national traits from your country, are there many of them? Is there a country quirkier than Ireland? While you think of a few, I shall return to my book trailer creating! The days are flying by too quickly, we’ve so much to do before our book is published!

Dreaming of Disney

| mlatimerridley

Our chance visit to the Tokyo Disney shop in Shibuya reminded us how much we love Disney. Being children of the late-80s, our love is focused on early 90’s ‘renaissance era’ Disney; that’s Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King. So, entering the magical world of Disney always brings us back to our childhood.

Latimer: We blindly walked the busy metropolitan streets of Shibuya and came across the amazing entrance to the Tokyo Disney shop. I have never seen a shop-front like it before! It was great! I was instantly a child again!

Stepping inside was like stepping into a cloud of fairy dust…

We were in heaven (even though we had no intention of buying anything- it’s freaky expensive). It captured the essence of being young, of stepping into a dream. The shop just spoke to your inner-child, completely ignoring boring adult you (perfect!).

It all reminded us that Disney is King of romance and happily ever-after. We were buzzing with happy memories. Our current selves, that aspire to write the perfect romantic adventure, were moulded in our youth by Disney stories. One of the favourites, was Beauty and The Beast.

The story is so perfect- the Prince cursed because of his cruelty, wastes away in his ruin of a castle, while the Beauty, Belle, chooses to save her father’s life by sacrificing her own freedom, becoming the Prince’s prisoner. And of course he is horrible to her (though really he is just misunderstood) but she doesn’t stand for it, a fierce heroine who stands up for herself. In time, they both realise their faults and find love in each other but not before the dramatic fight-scene with the rival man on the roof of the castle (in the middle of a dark storm, beautifully animated).

The story teaches us that cruelty rewards no one and kindness is a virtue that must be nurtured or it will whither. In fact Disney has always taught us valuable lessons through fantastical stories. We grow up and leave it behind one day of course (there’s no point in talking to me about The Princess and the Frog, or whatever else comes along thereafter), but we all have our Disney stories. And they create a little child within us that never really disappears.

A spark of fairy dust in our hearts, it’s why we write and draw and play, even if we grow up. Disney always brings a smile to my face. This shop was like being transported inside my own imagination for just a while. It was pure magic!

Ridley: It’s true, Disney is a master at invoking those warm fuzzy feelings, while always having imparted (unknowingly to our small minds) a valuable lesson at the same time.

My favourite Disney movie of all time is Mulan. A beautifully crafted tale set in China, where the Huns have begun to threaten the Chinese empire and the Emperor has begun to amass a defending army in retaliation. It’s a story filled with love, loyalty, friendship, forgiveness and courage. It also showed us young girls that it didn’t matter who or what you were, if you worked hard enough and believed you could succeed, then you would, even with severe obstacles hindering you.

 Again as with Beauty and the Beast, our heroine enters her current predicament because she wishes to protect her elderly father, Fa Zhou, from conscription into the army. Despite the threat of execution if she is discovered, she masquerades as a man and goes in his place. We follow her attempts at becoming a soldier, beginning as a truly abysmal recruit then progressing to a skilled and competent team member. During this she also gains respect and friendship from her fellow conscriptees and of course, Captain Li…

Even looking back at clips of it, the illustrations are absolutely beautiful, not to mention the music. To this day I still know the words of ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ (mainly because it’s on my ipod!)

This story still stands strong, even up against all the impressive 3D animation and special effects. We become truly immersed in her tale, we celebrate and commiserate as she does and of course, we clasp our hands together as we wait to see how her relationship with Captain Li develops.

As with all of the best Disney films, Mulan brings us on a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows, until it culminates into a dramatic ending where our heroine shows what she’s capable of against the Hun leader with the backing of her soldier friends, who have accepted her for who she is despite her previous deception.

When you enter the Disney shop, these are the wonderful happy memories that you instantly recall. All the fantastic relationships, the rollercoaster tales, the warm fuzzy feelings and without a doubt, the beautiful soldiers, princes and beasts, you remember everything. So Latimer and I couldn’t help wander the store with smiles on our faces, exclaiming over well loved characters (and the price tags on them!). 

Disney deals in dreams, possibly unattainable ones, but they’ve also taught us to strive hard for them no matter how difficult. For us, this really is why we write, to re-create these types of relationships, build these magical worlds and hopefully help to continue the dream for others.

While in the fantastic Harry Potter books, Albus Dumbledore said, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” I personally believe our dreams make the living part all the sweeter. I think Disney might just have thought this too.

Book Relationships

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: If I’m honest with myself, I really only like books with relationships in them. Though that doesn’t mean I exclude books without them, I just tend to gravitate away from them. But even with a blanket statement such as ‘I like relationships in books’, I can and will become even pickier. I don’t really like reading about well established relationships. Ones that have already happened and we’ve arrived more or less at the end, when ‘the get together’ is all over. I love the first moments, the awkward ones, the sqwee worthy ones; the first look, the first touch, the first kiss, the first ‘I love you’. In an established relationship, you don’t get that, you have the lovely romantic moments, the ‘ahh that’s so sweet’ and ‘you know me so well’ moments. I don’t want them. Maybe I like the thrill of the chase?

In a book or movie, after a couple have properly gotten together and it’s all happy ever after (or not), I loose interest. I don’t care if they have twenty five point five children, that Cinderella and her Prince Charming’s Kingdom tumbled to the ground around their ankles and they broke apart about a year later because his mother-in-law was a terror. I don’t want to know about any of that. It’s why I’ve avoided reading the Lord of the Rings appendices, which are supposedly very depressing. It’s also why I had mixed feelings about the very final chapter of Harry Potter, showing them married and with children, I had that all squared away in my imagination already. Nice to see J.K’s vision of how it all went but at the same time I wanted to shut my eyes (book and movie) and ears (movie) to it. (Especially to Draco Malfoy with wrinkles, some kind of scraggly beard and a widows peak! Nooo.)

This is perhaps why I I love a good young adult (Y.A) book, particularly a fantasy laced one, though a good murder mystery is always welcome. You get all these first moments in the early stages of the romance.

Of course, there has to be an actual story to it but it does need to have some sideline action *wink wink* with the characters. Even if it’s just a tiniest hint of an attraction, such as a ‘lingering look’- two words in a 55,000 word manuscript- I’ll drink it up like a parched desert wanderer. Even with the recent movie, Avengers Assemble. While I’ll readily admit I loved it without question and without any relationships in it, as such…did anyone else pick up on something happening between Hawkeye and Black Widow? Latimer and I did!

By god, after the film we were wiki-ing well into the night on that one trying to get some sort of conclusion to their relationship. A ‘relationship’ that had suddenly fully formed in our heads just based on a few looks, their mutual dark history and the fact she was in his room, alone. *cheesy grin*

Now I’ll give you two examples of books I’d probably read (though I’d probably grab up Book B much much quicker than A to be honest.)

Take for example Book A, “Inspector Martin Berking is a world renowned police detective, he’s responsible for clanging shut thousands of cell doors on criminals across the country. Respected without question by his fellow colleagues, their murmurs of appreciation ring hollow when he lies alone in bed a night staring up at the ceiling. His fantastic career is all he has. Only alcohol is his companion. That is, until Claire enters his life. He catches her shoplifting while buying his next bottle of whiskey. Late at night, on the pavement outside a convenience store, she manages to smash both his bottle and his life to pieces. When her large blue eyes beg him for help, he’s drawn deeper into her tangled, dark world, until he begins to realise that this seemingly simple case may be his last.”

(Yeah I know, I just borrowed the plot there from about a 100 different crime novels with a hardline, bachelor, alcoholic detective extraordinairé, such as Inspector Morse, Rebus, Frost, Dalziel, Taggart…I’d read it because of the introduction of Claire, but if you took her out and it was just a crime novel where some criminal bumped into him and that led to the same case but without the romance, I’d be less inclined. Also, I tend to only like female protagonists. Saying that, I have and probably will still read books like that (as in without the relationship) from time to very odd time and I definitely watch those sort of television shows- I do like trying to solve the mystery before the end, especially with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot- but I’d like the romance included. Please 😛 )

Book B would be far more up my little avenue, my hands would itch to read something like this, “Maria doesn’t know when she stopped believing in magic. As a child, she was ridiculed for her belief in her imaginary friends; the ones she used to play with in the forest behind her house. The same forest she stopped visiting when she was twelve, though she can’t remember why. Before that, she has only vague recollections of dancing bare foot in tall grass and numerous flower bracelets. Though the one vivid image that haunts her from that time, is the handsome face of a boy crowned with thorns and the whispered words ‘Wait for me’. It is a memory that, even now, shoots a shiver of fear and delight through her. It’s also something she wishes she could forget. Soon, however, she gets her wish. When a new neighbour moves in next door, she starts to develop feelings for him. As her memory of the striking boy fades and starts to be replaced by Daemon’s arresting smile, strange things begin to happen, unending tricks and jokes are played on them. Then he returns. He is older than she’s dreamt but just as handsome and as Maria begins to remember everything, her life is changed forever.”

Now, this kind of book I’d be very interested in reading-anyone written anything like it? Send me a link!- Reading a blurb like this I’d automatically think there’s a triangle love story about to happen-which if M. Latimer-Ridley was writing it, there would be-though at the same time, I’d want there to be more than just the obvious relationship as the main plot though. So then I’d question what she remembers, hopefully that leads to a nice fast paced story.  

(As an aside here- I made up this rambling ‘book blurb’, does anyone else do that? When I was younger, I used to love writing random ones on the back of my homework notebook, making them as sensational as possible, but I’d never know what was going to happen next. When I got older, I started to fill in the gaps, which lead to writing books, I suppose! Still short and fun to do! It lets your imagination flow!)

So..I’m wondering am I the only one with such picky criteria for my books and in particular, the relationships in them? Hopefully there are other people out there that are like me. What do you like to see from your relationships, perhaps established ones are best for some people? Or, heaven forbid, do you hate having any couples in your novels at all, does it detract from the story? 

I think in a future blog post I’m going to talk about my top 5 or so, all time couples and their ‘get together’ stories. That would be fun-ideas welcome!

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For now though, Latimer and I have saved our little brown pennies, euro coins and notes, and we are now able to wing our way to Japan for a two week break away. We’re sharing a twin room, where she’ll probably want to strangle me by the end of the holiday! (I don’t snore, honest… 😀 )

So there will probably be ‘radio silence’ from us while we’re gone, though I’m thinking about bringing my laptop…tempting, tempting…then you’d end up (more than likely) getting numerous posts about our Japanese adventures, posts which I’m certain will mainly be filled with pictures!

All photos in the post are from freedigitalphotos.net, thanks to them.

The wonders of paper art

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: Found this fantastic video at the wordpress blog London Art Portfolio. It is a book trailer, of sorts! The paper art is beautiful and is really attention grabbing- I immediately went to look up this book by Maurice Gee, just to see what it was all about. This is an example of complete skill, patience and imagination. You can’t help but think if this is an example of the type of effort put into just advertising the book, ‘Going West’, then the book itself must be fairly impressive….
I also love this video as it combines my two loves; art and writing!

londonartportfolio's avatarLondon Art Portfolio Blog

This amazing video is made up of over 3000 images, recreating an extract from a novel by Maurice Gee, entitled ‘Going West’. The entire film was made by hand, using only paper and scalpel blades, and was filmed with 2 SLR cameras, using Dedo lights to light the pages. What a fascinating example of  how patience can pay off!

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The Book Soundtrack

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: So I finished Mockingjay last Friday. The fire burned swift and fierce. I totally ate that book. I started reading at 8pm and finished by 1.30am (minus aimless wandering time and tea breaks, ‘can’t talk people, Katniss has a rebellion to finish, and I can only just spare enough time to make tea!’).

Orbie only started Mockingjay on Thursday this week; and she was hard pushed to even start. The fire died in her quickly; she was very, ‘neh’ about it after she had raced through Catching Fire. I thought about it as she asked, “Is it any good? Should I bother?”

Baffled I asked, “How can you not read it after you invested all the time? In fairness, don’t you want to know what happens in the relationship?”

She shrugged, “That’s probably all I care about now.” I nodded (it was pretty much all I cared about too).

Anyway, her reading it had me thinking back over it.

It was good, the series as a whole, of course I had enjoyed it. But wasn’t the ending very lacklustre? The relationship only really ended on, “we are both broken, let’s be broken together”. The big showdown never really happened. I feel like I wouldn’t be alone in thinking that as a reader I had been let down a bit.

There weren’t any significant relationship moments that left you clutching your chest, sobbing, “beautiful, perfect”.

The ending was very rushed in the sense that; they got together, in time they healed and then everything was as good as it could have been. But, did we not deserve more of an insight? It left me disappointed, not overly so but still, disappointed.

I wonder will the movies kindle more of a relationship-fire?

Moving from on from the books; I happened upon a soundtrack. Here enter-th my other great love, music (the stories with sounds!).

I just stumbled onto it (maybe you’ve heard it before) it’s called: The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. It’s the official companion soundtrack to the movie with songs, from various bands, relating to the Hunger Games. Now I’m not 100% sure if they wrote them especially for the movie (but some of them must have done, because they talk about ‘daddy working in the mines’ and specifically ‘mockingjay’).

The thing that caught me was I really liked the people that sung/wrote for it: The Low Anthem, Arcade Fire, Birdy and The Civil Wars! Wow, I thought, I must give this a go! Sting also did a song “Deep in the Meadow”; that’s Katniss’ song right? Sting… my god. (I don’t like it, but hey, Sting, I am impressed!)

It got me thinking about how often I ascribe a song to a specific character (book, movie TV show etc). You know when you are listening away and you start thinking, ah that’s such and such singing about this, that and the other.

Did anyone come up with any songs for the Hunger Games? I had a go (I was listening to Lana Del Rey’s album a lot; so that’s why it’s two of her songs!)-

(Katniss singing about the Games and Peeta; it works, born to die)

(Katniss after the Games- I like the ‘sweet like cinnamon part, cos it’s like a baker, Haha…)

Back to the ‘actual’ soundtrack; Taylor Swift sings a song with The Civil Wars (Safe and Sound), which is beautiful. I have never heard a Taylor Swift song before (I know nothing about her, except the following: she’s young (-er than me!), American, blonde-?, Kanye West badmouthed her at an awards do once- I think).

Her voice works so well with the country tones of The Civil Wars. I feel like they add a lot of maturity to the song because the song she sings on her own is awful (Eyes Open), very teeny; it’s so false, it hasn’t got any sense of being ‘real’ or from the heart. It’s so over-produced. It’s actually grating; it has no place with the rest of the songs.  

The Civil Wars by the way are amazing; they are just a girl and guy with a guitar (if you ever have a chance to see them live, seriously go, they are excellent). They are so in sic with each other it’s amazing; they should be together (this is how it always goes, trying to pair people off), but they are actually happily to other people *sigh*! It’s like they are unromantic, musical soul-mates; perfect harmony. This song is very sweet and lovely; it does reflect Katniss and the Games very well. Also, the song The Civil Wars sing on their own is very beautiful too (Kingdom Come).

Glen Hansard also has a song on the album; he is an Irish singer/songwriter. Who won an Academy Award for his co-written song ‘Falling Slowly’ on the film Once (it’s beautiful): and he used to be in the Irish band The Frames. He’s actually really good, but my god, his song… Take the Heartland, which people think describes Cato; is terrible, it’s just terrible! It’s a sound so unlike his usual self.

‘Come away to the water’ by Maroon 5 (which in my head I just called Macaroon 5!); is another great song. It just conjures up the images of the grim, brutal districts and the oppressive Capitol.

Arcade Fire’s song ‘Abraham’s Daughter’ has an undertone, rift in it that sounds like it was in the movie. The initial rift sounds like the Hunger Games to me (like the theme for Harry Potter is Hedwig’s theme).

But my absolute FAVOURITE song on this lovely soundtrack is ‘Lover Is Childlike’ by The Low Anthem. Oh, I love them. It’s a heart wrenching song. The tone, his voice… it’s perfect.

Sometimes I think songs are like books; you find a great one and you think you’ll never see the like again. But time passes and new ones come.

Susanne Collins is very lucky; these bands actually did songs about her world! It’s amazing; it’s a brilliant idea. The book soundtrack; brilliant! Let me know what you think of the songs! Give them a go; well worth musing over who/what they might be singing about!

How I know I’m a book geek…

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: If you are anyway like me, some of below applies to you! If most of it does, we could probably become best friends or perhaps the very worse of rivals and bitter enemies-who knows how these things work!

Read away and let me know…are you a book geek too? Have I missed something and I need to add it to the list?

  1. You can’t pass a bookshop without going in. It draws you in, like a magnet….walking, walking, walking, turning? turning into bookshop…exceeellent.
  2. You can’t leave a bookshop without buying something. There’s always something there that’s just begging to be bought. ‘Buy me, buy me!’ said the 10 euro book.
  3. You’re number one favourite shop-is a bookshop.
  4. You often have hours pass by while you’ve been in the bookshop and not noticed.
  5. Sometimes you envy the people that work in bookshops and libraries.
  6. Sometimes you visited the library so often as a child (and perhaps now, still!), that they knew you by name.
  7. People never wonder where you disappeared to, they look round for the nearest bookshop and then just pop in there to find you.
  8. The smell of bookshops and books relaxes you, in fact you notice when you enter a bookshop you often inhale, deeply and a grin begins to spread across your face. Your eyes light up and you abandon whoever you are with to go wander the shelves. If they try to start talking to you, loudly (and not the odd, whispered ‘oh look the new one!’) and you have to shush them, mortified that they’d embarrass you like this in front of the bookshop employees or they follow you around, sighing as if they’re bored, these things will all ensure you never return with them to a bookshop.
  9. If you’re somewhere where there is more than one bookshop and someone asks which one is better. You have at least 3 pros and cons for each place. These will often include points like their shelf size of a particular genre-how big or small it is, their variety of books, how quiet the place is and what type of seating can be found there. Oh and if their deals are any good, 3 for 2 is always a good thing-well not for my pocket!
  10. You’re the friend people ask for good book recommendations. You should wear a badge, people are missing out that they don’t know you have, the knowledge.
  11. When you have holidays coming up, you plan for the amount of books you can read in the time you have, you image the big pile with glee. Planning for everything else follows after this.
  12. You would never dog ear a book. Never.
  13. You have numerous random bookmarks, everywhere.
  14. You have extremely fancy bookmarks, made not just from paper but material, metal or wood.
  15. You always get books or book related things for your birthday or Christmas or every occasion really (and this makes you happy, oh so happy!)
  16. You have pre-ordered a book. Many of them.
  17. Amazon is like a best friend. You like those recommendation emails they send you. Sometimes you laugh and say things like ‘Oh amazon, you know me so well.’ and then look around to make sure no one heard you.
  18. You often get annoyed at an author for taking so long to write the next sequel. You expect them not to have any life and just slave away, just so you get your next fix of their series.
  19. Once you’ve read this ‘next fix’ you’re almost depressed that it’s over and now you have nothing to read again.
  20. Breaking the spine or having one broken on one of your books gives you a sick feeling deep in your stomach. (that crack, god the crack of the glue in the binding! Don’t do it! Eventually pages fall out!) If you see someone bending their book back until the covers meet, you cringe and think, if that book were mine, I’d never treat it with that kind of abuse. You think that book would love you all the better for it. (This is beginning to sound a lot like craziness! Mwhaa!) Mind, a tiny little bit of wrinkling in the spine is fine, shows a book is loved.
  21. Similarly leaving a book open, face down for ages so you don’t loose your page (a few minutes-fine, I’m not that bad, but not for the night or longer) This means it will never again close properly. If you leave it like that long enough it will always just open on that page, over and over again!
  22. Someone ripping the page of your book or completely out of your book (even worse!) would begin your long unending high shriek of horror and pain. You would seriously contemplated buying a new replacement book, just so you know this one isn’t in your collection, ripped and ruined. (You possibly have already done this at least once? No one who knows me would dare rip my books, I’d turn into a harpy. I did have one work acquaintance I made the mistake of lending a book to while she went on holiday. She accidentally dropped the book into the pool, dried it out in the baking Spanish sun for a few days and gave it back to me pages stuffed in, falling out, warped cover with the words ‘I was going to buy you another one, but it dried out. So I didn’t think you’d mind.’…..Ever more, she’s just gotten book recommendations, no books.)
  23. Leaving a movie that’s been adapted from one of your favourite books, the words ‘the book was better’ or ‘they didn’t do that in the book’ always passes your lips. (Though sometimes, secretly, you thought the film was fantastic (rarely)! But saying it would feel like a betrayal to the literary world in general.)
  24. When a friend or acquaintance who never reads or has never seemed interested in the written word, ever, begins to start talking about one of your favourite books-first you suppress the look of surprise, then the gigantic sneer-there is no way they love that book or understand it like you do. No way. (if they have the book in their hand, sometimes you ask to see it, just to ensure it’s the same one. Perhaps the author and title and the cover are just extremely similar…no damn it, its the same.)
  25. When a friend or acquaintance (possibly the same person above?  <(‘~’)>  ) again with no love for the English language, reading or writing, gets an A in an English paper and you get a lower grade, little green monsters take over piloting your body. They seem to like shouting ‘why!’ at the sky and slamming things a lot; locker doors, bedroom doors, your head against the wall-repeatedly.
  26. You have a massive book collection that you often glance over and smile fondly at, like they’re little friends waving back (I’m starting to sound delusional, yes? Hello small friendies!)
  27. When you look up at this collection, you’re enormously proud of the fact you can remember exactly what happens in each book and which ones you loved more.
  28. The books you loved more have a better position on your bookshelf, particularly if you like rereading them a lot.
  29. You have a few signed books that you love. And perhaps the odd first edition, which if you had people over to your house, you would include them in the grand tour. ‘And here is my first edition…’ (I have signed books, no first editions *sigh* )
  30. You hate having miss-matched covers of books in a series. They all have to be the same version, example; all British versions of Harry Potter or all the American versions, there is no such things as having a few of one and the other, are you mad?
  31. You have bought more than one version of a book because of a new cover being prettier than the one you had already.
  32. You hate when you’ve bought the large tall hardback of a brand new release and the rest of the series you have is in paperback (though you just couldn’t wait for them to release the paper back, you wanted that book-yesterday!) Now it just sticks out there on your shelf, like an awkward billy-no-mates giant book, beside the other smaller novels in the series. You set that book up for a life of bullying, are you happy?
  33. Your love of books can often be combined with and begin to encompass a notebook or stationary fetish. You have many beautiful, leather bound, fancy notebooks that you have no intention of ever writing in. You do use a diary, it’s the most unique you could find online. Everyone has admired it at some point and you smile with pride, as if you created it.
  34. As a child, you were given pocket money with the words ‘don’t spend it on a book this time, gets some clothes.’ The thought of buying clothes always seems like a missed opportunity. There is no fun to be had there, it’s a chore, whereas a book buying session, why that can reach heights of untold excitement!
  35. If you started a really good book or series, gotten swept up in it and then remembered you already had an engagement to go to, a party, for coffee or out to a night club, you have at least cancelled once with ‘the flu’, just to stay home and continue to read. It becomes a shameful secret…
  36. You also have the odd friend or two that you can actually tell them the truth in this instance and they completely understand and don’t judge you. (Hi Latimer!) In fact, they have done it themselves too at some point.
  37. While you have an e-reader and you love it. You still prefer actual books and they will never be replaced. In fact, you bought an e-book, loved it so much you want to now go buy the bound book version, just so you can added it to your shelf.

So…anyone else find they’re like this? Or have I gone too far?

Too far…I thought so, ah well…least I have my books! Hello friendies! 🙂

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Latimer and Ridley love hearing from people, so if you have any opinions, non-opinions or little nuggets of wisdom please share them with us in the comments below! Alternatively, if you’d like to get to know us more, why not email us or follow us on twitter and talk to us directly!

In other MLR news, we are currently working on two novels, one of which we intend to publish free on our website. We’re striving hard to make them both LSA and RSA worthy! So stay tuned for more information!

Random Post #1

| mlatimerridley


Ridley: So Latimer and I saw The Hunger Games movie today, finally I got someone to go
with. (I already blogged a little below on the fact that I read the books! And liked them, a lot.) I find if Latimer’s not on board with an obsession, I’ve few options to drag people along, all my other friends have much different tastes than mine. Some wouldn’t even really like to read (Say what? Yes, its true!). I also tend to have no one to go to my music concerts with either (ah there’s my tiny violin, let’s hear it play the saddest song just for moi! Ha.) Rammstein was my last one. I never asked Latimer, I know already what the answer would have been- she’d have taken a deep breath, wiped the tears from her cheeks, stood up from her bent over laughing and said ‘No’.  (She likes her Indie music instead.)

Anyway, HG, mwhaa, I have managed to convert her. We popped into the bookshop afterwards and she bought the books. Though the covers were horrible versions; garish, very boyish and a lot like Anthony Horowitz’s books. They did have ones with black designs lying around, slightly different again to the nicer ones you can get on Amazon, but they didn’t have Catching Fire in that version. (I know, I know, we’re so picky, but it needs to look nice up on the bookshelf!)

It was only a matter of time really, I had no doubt she would have folded. There could be no hope for her holding out, not when I was poking her, mentally, ‘read read read…’ and quite annoying at it I was too! 🙂

So I’m pretty sure she’ll be holed up with a cup of tea for the rest of the evening/night. I’ll get a random text at some point round 2 am, I’d say. Good times. I’m almost jealous that she doesn’t know what happens in them. Does anyone else sometimes wish they could erase their memory of a really good book/series and then read it all again, experiencing it like you did the first time? Though I’d want my memories returned to me afterwards, just in case there was anything extra or important in them!

I also bought a book while we were there. (I know I have a problem, I just can’t pop into a bookshop without buying something. I have no sense, and more books then I can read!) I got Cassandra Clare’s second book in ‘The Infernal Devices’ series, it’s called Clockwork Prince. Good series, though there really are a lot of echoes in it from her ‘Mortal Instruments’ series, the characters are almost the same, just with different names. Though if you leave a large enough gap between the two series, as I have done, it doesn’t really matter. She’s still a very good author.

So I’m off to curled up somewhere to read too! *clicks the kettle on* 

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Latimer and Ridley love hearing from people, so if you have any opinions, non-opinions or little nuggets of wisdom please share them with us in the comments below! Alternatively, if you’d like to get to know us more, why not email us or follow us on twitter and talk to us directly!

In other MLR news, we are currently working on two novels, one of which we intend to publish free on our website. We’re striving hard to make them both LSA and RSA worthy! So stay tuned for more information!

Old School Fantasy: aka ‘Epic Fantasy’

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: Good evening; I am the ever absent, but ever present Latimer (that’s an oxymoron I think).

My life recently has been a bit chaotic. But Ridley has bravely held the fort (actually, she built the fort; or re-built? Renovated? She’s lost in here somewhere now, the foundations of our creaky, cyber-space battle-ship of dreams!).

Fear not Ridley, like White Gandalf, I return to you now at the turn of the tide!

Basically, I have finally re-emerged from work; slightly the worse for wear, but triumphant (also like White Gandalf, I see a pattern emerging; Ridley is Frodo and I am Gandalf! It’s so obvious, ha).

Now, it’s time for tea and a blog; my first in what feels like years. Forgive my creaky style; don’t worry it’ll all gel together somewhere in the middle/end!

I wish I could be industrious like Ridley and blog a book review, but honestly I haven’t read anything (unless you want to hear about Frank Ryan’s Virolution- well once I fight my way through the rest of it-! Slowly but surely, I’ll get there; you won’t win against me Frank Ryan!).

So because of that, I’ve decided I’m going to start with a TV show that is also a book (see, it’s almost a book review! ALMOST!)—

My ‘renovation blog post’ is *drum roll* on Game of Thrones (GoTs) (one of the hottest shows on TV at the moment I reckon).

I saw this one coming over a year ago; it was a teaser for HBO way before it was due to come out in like May last year. We were being teased big time, for ages.

 It’s obvious from the get-go that HBO knows how to make a show. GoTs is shiny; it’s vast, it’s epic… and it’s peppered with a great cast (mostly England, Scotland and, Ireland as it happens; Joffrey goes to Trinity College (so Wikipedia tells me). I want to hang around Trinity and shout at him ‘you’re mad, Joffrey! Mad!’; wonder does he get that often? Hmm, I want to know!).

In the past, I used to read epic fantasy- mostly because A) my brother had an epic collection of epics and B) I was a kid and I couldn’t afford to buy my own books. I didn’t know Ridley back then so I had to make do with e.g. The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind and The Belgariad by David Eddings. Later in life, I read my own epics: The Guardian Cycle by Julia Gray and The View from the Mirror by Ian Irvine. There are common themes in epics:

– Author: usually a man (almost ALWAYS a man let’s be honest)

– Boy, farm boy, well, average Joe Soap. He’s just a kid; He’s a He (bar The View from the Mirror; a rare exception with a female lead)

– He might look it; but he’s not normal, he’s special (we are all writing that character, though, I will put my hands up on that score, the common in all fantasy, epic or urban)

– A terrible event, *scourging of the shire style*

– Boy leaves on a journey

– A shadow stirs in the East, a Dark Lord

– Annoying female characters, jaded knights, sex, war, blood, death, depravity, politics so confusing you no longer know where you are; names that make NO sense; place names that look like the author had a fit while typing; a million and one characters, with a million and one points of view that alter change and grow with each book in the series that seems to last an eternity to the point you no longer know if you even A) like the story anymore or B) know what happened in the beginning (so the re-reading cycle begins!)

– Mystic forces move in the dark, the characters enviably ignore them *just stories, Joe Soap of the Shire, just stories*

– And of course they aren’t

– Epic battle…

– PROPHECY! So important- ‘Joe Soap, you are the chosen one’

In the end, all the epic series you read blend together, so that you no longer know what events happened in what stories.

So, bar the lack of concrete Joe Soap (though, actually John Snow would probably suffice), Game of Thrones is a quintessential epic. Honestly, I have no particular love for epic books. They weave and twist and weave and twist; and at first you enjoy the weaving but then you realise you have gotten lost in a maze and it’s no longer fun and actually it’s just a chore to follow.

There’s a lot to be said for over-complicating stories. The reader wants to float, not struggle through your story. I want to be taken on a journey, not forced into a battle, with the plot.

I know the Game of Thrones story; I know he has a million and one characters and points of view. And for me, that’s why I can’t handle epics anymore (Lord of the Rings is the great outlier though!).

BUT wow, Game of Thrones is fun to watch!

HBO are going to work me through the confusing parts; the actors are going to show me the plot. So the stress is taken out of the epic (mostly!).

It’s not brilliant; but it’s good it’s really good. And it’s something different to watch. It’s got so much going for it. The opening theme is epic; beautiful.

The design is slick and realistic; it’s a grubby, deprived world, with nasty people, and only a few who you actually like. There is a LOT of ‘whoring’ though; sometimes very gratuitous- I’m no prude, but there’s an element of porn without plot in Game of Thrones, more often than not.

 Peter Dinklage is excellent as ‘The Imp’, Tyrion Lannister. You can’t talk about GoTs without mentioning Peter Dinklage. Although his faux-English accent is a little grating after a point, I forgive him this because Tyrion is smart, witty and he knows what’s going on (unlike much of the other characters) and I want him to outwit the people who think he’s pitiable; I enjoy the way he uses his head to fight his battles, it makes him an unlikely force to be reckoned with. He’s a political player; and you can tell he’s only going to get more and more involved in the power struggle as the story goes on. I lift my hat to George R.R Martin; the Imp is a very bold and intriguing character.

There’s also some nice eye-candy (Jaime Lannister and Rob Stark, par example). Even though my imagination can handle making a handsome man, it’s nice to have HBO doing the work for me!

I’m not in love with Game of Thrones; but I’m ‘in like’, very much so. It’s a good watch, there’s no getting around it. Once you get into it; it’s like eating a cake- ‘more! Give me MORE!’; it’s not the tastiest cake, but the sugar rush is so good! I would recommend it, if you haven’t watched it. Try a few episodes, get into it. The opening of the first episode is very atmospheric (I want to know more about the White Walkers; they seem to have been seriously neglected in series 1; I really hope they come back with a vengance in series 2).

Ah, yes, I’m blissfully ‘in like’ with Game of Thrones.

Series 2 is starting this week- so it has occupied my thoughts throughout the last week of struggling. Looking forward to something really takes the edge off the stressful things.

YES- Winter is finally here!