i’ll be making a couple of posts today, while I watch SBS play the same four ads for greenhouse gas, Mythbusters, Heineken and Honda over and over for thiirty minutes… seems to be a glitch… makes you wonder about the ads that have corrupted – cars and beer (playing an awesome glitchy rythmic sound over snowy green visuals)… maybe SBS has been hacked?

Anyway books.

I wrote last time how i was annoyed about the materiality of song lyrics etc… well Alain de Botton landed in my life recently through a friends recommendation and a very cheap Penguin book Consolations of Philosophy and i find myself reading about Socrates, Seneca, Epicureus and so on. And I think a bit of critical thouhgt is just what i needed. It’s made me think about why i bought the clothes I bought recently and pointed out to me just how much i DON’T buy into mainstream pressures, and maybe that’s a good thing. Also I don’t completely agree with the picture Alain describes of the world, I can’t help but think the privileged life he’s lead still hasn’t communicated to him what it’s like to have no hope, something which the middle classes may not suffer, but those in poverty certainly do. Poverty isn’t all sunshine, hard work and loaves of bread, buddy.

Anyway in response to this intellectual void i’ve suddenly noticed, I got myself more meatier reads (to go with the Jasper Fforde books I still didn’t own) such as Blubberland and The Great Feminist Denial.

The latter has a hilarious book cover which says everything I want it to. Even more when you compare the American cover with the pinched waist to the original UK/Australian cover. Just in case you were wondering if the book title was justified.