And so the Smith-Graham-Smith’s party was lots of fun. The theme was 70s, and as usual Mrs and I went a little bit over the top with costumes. Memo to self: stop basing sense of self-worth on how well you do any given task; no-one is awarding marks.

As the Mateus Rosé flowed, it occurred to me that nothing marked us out as uncultured heathens more than the reaction of the other guests to the little bowls of pink stuff Lise put out to accompany the Monster Munch, Twiglets and Crispy Pancakes. For us, this was, clearly, Angel Delight. But we’re common; everyone else assumed it was taramasalata. I had never heard of taramasalata before the age of 23, and it’s not hard to see why. “Haw, Jimmy; Ah canna get this tarry massey latta tae stay in wan bit lang enough tae deep-fry it.”

More photos, including one of Mrs P’s get-up, on Flickr.

Oh, and thanks, all, for the rockin’ book recommendations in the comments thread on my post below; keep ’em coming.

I’d very much like y’all to offer me some recommendations for reading, please – just an author’s name and perhaps a suggestion of the first of their books you think I should read – and so, partly just to give you an idea of the kinds of books I enjoy, and partly because I’d like to offer you some recommendations in return, here’s a selectionette of some of my very favourite books:

Use of Weapons Iain Banks
You’d probably want to have sex with me if I said that my favourite writer was Camus or Chekhov, but for me it’s Banksy every time. Yes, this is sci-fi, but ignore the label; it just gives Banks the chance to work against a different – and awesome – backdrop. This is simply a classic yarn, told with conviction and flair. My copy is well thumbed; it’s one of the few books I can happily re-read, and it’s worth buying just to see the craft of storytelling practised so well. The fact that he shares a surname and beard with one of MacUser’s illustrious columnists and all-round dudes just makes him all the more rockin’.

A David Lodge Trilogy David Lodge
The thing that Lodge does so well is to get you inside the heads of his characters and show you their motivations and neuroses. The clever bit, though, it that he usually alternates between different characters and sometimes an omniscient narrator, so you get to see how a situation looks from different perspectives. OK, not ‘clever’, but at least ‘well done’. Get the trilogy – ostensibly about the world of academia – as you have the added bonus of some characters popping up as cameos in later books. They’re described as the current characters see them, but because you’ve known them from earlier books, you know the stories behind these impressions. It’s basically fiction for nosey people, but done with gentle wit and a kind of very British understated panache.

The Science of Discworld II Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
I’ve given up pretending that I’m too cool to like Pratchett. And besides, at their best his books can be very well-done satire and parody with all the power they have to make you see reality in a different and often more illuminating way. But if the sheer silliness of the Discworld has put you off up to now, try this. Every second chapter is a pretty normal Pratchett tale – featuring the wizards of Unseen University – but alternating with these is a bit of pop science, explaining how the mind works, concepts of phase space, and why storytelling is so important to us as a species. The fiction and fact weave together very well – Christ knows how, logistically, the three authors got everything so neat – and each leavens the other.

And because I can’t stop at just three, you should also check out The Road to McCarthy – the man can out-Bryson Bryson – Raymond Chandler – yes, his books sound like they’re being narrated by Frank Drebin – and anything by David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs or Kyril Bonfiglioli. And now, I have to go and pack for our Carrie-Bradshaw-meets-Jack-Kerouac-meets-Tom-and-Barbara weekend away in London. Oh, and bonus props to anyone who can complete the line that’s the title for this post without Googling it.

Now it’s your turn, dudes and dudettes: I need new books to read!

Wanky disclaimer All the links to books on Amazon contain my affiliate link. (Was that even necessary?)

Being a list in no particular order of stuff that we already know but that this weekend has confirmed.

• Jenny cannot drink more than one glass of Kir Royale without becoming utterly and amusingly drunk. No other drink has this effect on her.
• It’s not a weekend unless you visit Sainsbury’s at least once for every day of the weekend. Bank Holiday Mondays are included in this.
• There are only three basic plots for Sex and the City. (In this it’s very similar to Scot-wean-toon Oor Wullie, but with more, um, willies.) A Men are bastards/unnecessary B Women are sassy C Maxing out your credit card every episode is consequence-free.
• It’s impossible to buy a REDACTED in Bath, no matter now often you visit the REDACTED shop, largely because it’s never fucking open.*
• We could eat kedgeree for breakfast and dinner. In fact on Monday we did just that. We ♥ kedge. Bonus fact: when I first knew her, Jenny hated fish, rice and curry. Getting her to eat all three in the same dish for breakfast is proof, were any needed, that you can change someone.

* Censored so that D&L don’t have any inkling of the amazing† costume that I’ll be wearing to their 70s party on Saturday.
† Lame and overworked

I really am having a great time with my new DSLR, getting to grips even with doing stuff on full manual rather than relying on Program AE or Av/Tv. I’m loving the creative control of my f/1.8 lens; the selective focus in this photo of Jenny and her dad is intentional.

And today we went to Dyrham Park, a National Trust property near Bath. Though there were some beautiful landscape shots to be taken, my attention was caught by the selection of old wooden wagons and agricultural implements in the outhouses.



High-res and other shots, comme d’habitude, on Flickr.

Utterly sick of seeing dogs on this site? I don’t blame you. So why not hop on over to Mrs Phin’s site and watch her very fabulous guide to making felt. It’s much easier than you might think and we’re hoping that she might be able to pick up a decent little side income from the contextual ads as she adds more tutorials. Please do Digg it up – clicking on the Digg badge here is the same as clicking the one on her site; they point to the same article – and pass it around!

I like that I’ve finally got iChat, my instant messaging application, house-trained:

What do you do with £500-worth of high-spec digital camera goodness? Why, take slow-mo shots of an aging Staffie eating grass, of course.

I’ve been wanting to write this for ages: my guide to staying safe online is now available in the Tutorials section. It’s a best practice guide covering lots of general advice for identifying and dealing with malicious websites and emails, and it applies to Mac and PC users equally. This was written, essentially, for my parents, parents-in-law, and rockin’ octogenarian internet-using grandmother, but even if you’re not one of that select group, you should still find it useful; if you do, please forward it to ageing relatives, reckless friends and web n00bs of every stripe. Oh, and give it a Digg, why not?

Tech-savvy colleagues and pedants are welcome to suggest corrections and additions, but only after they have carefully read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page. But really, chaps, let me know if you think if I’ve goofed or missed out some vital details.

Well that was fun, wasn’t it? This is my ninth day off in a row – a record, I think, since starting at Future – and it has been all kinds of fun. What was originally planned as a week of Cornwall camping was cut short a little by the weather; though we were actually very lucky – the evenings were calm and dry – we did get caught in the car in some torrential downpours, and spent the second night in the tent fearing that we were about to end up in Kansas as the wind whipped around us. The campsite we stayed at, however, was rather lovely; it had a river running through the middle of it, and campfires were allowed. We were quite tentative on the first night (picture below) but on the second we got a real crackler going. It was all very ‘man make shelter; man make fire’. Props to wife for not being too grunky throughout the whole affair.

But we’ve had all sorts of fun back in Bath, too. There have been DVDs (hey, Cloverfield is good, isn’t it?), cinema visits (hey, The Dark Knight is good, isn’t it?) fancy meals out and trips to Westonbirt Arboretum where I played about with my cheap-but-rather-rewarding new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. Since I took some photos for Mrs P’s Arts Week at the end of term, a couple of her colleagues have asked if I would take some portrait shots of them and their families, and I wanted a lens with a nice wide aperture to let me work in low light and to get some nice bokeh going on. (I’m never sure how to pronounce ‘bokeh’, which I know is an anglicised spelling specifically designed to make it obvious how to pronounce the Japanese; how should a gaijin pronounce ボケ味 so as not to appear like a twat, oh Japanese-speaking-brother-in-law?)

Despite having lived here for well over a year now, it was only this week that we went to the baths for the first time. We’d been to the Roman ruins a couple of times before, but this was out first visit to the new Thermae Bath Spa. It. Was. Idyllic. The rooftop pool is paradisal, and by lying on your back with your ankles tucked over the side and one of the big floaty foam tubes wrapped around you, you can soak up the sun in near-silent bliss.
No dog walking today as some manner of sporting event prevented us from find anywhere to park up at the university. Never fear: the relentless, pitiless and pointless stream of pictures-of-dogs-you-don’t-know-taken-by-someone-you-probably-only-know-a-little will resume next week. Stay tuned!