• London: A Biography - because I'm turning into an avowed London nerd. The best thing I've ever learnt from Doctor Who was that there used to be a menagerie in the Exchange building on the Strand. I remember it every time I bus down there. I'd like to learn more, and this book runs like chatting with the most well informed gossip in the city. It's larger than Gormenghast, and plays out in short three-page chapters, excellent for dipping in. So there'll be one about examples of graffiti. One about those-eccentric-people-you-see-every-day-until-one-day-they-just-vanish. Funny that's a phenomenon not only shared by other people now, but other people throughout time. As if to confirm the anecdotal nature of the book, in this chapter P.A. lists his own eccentrics he regularly saw in the 80s as the modern example. In a book this chatty, it even seems fitting - his perceptions are as valid as anyone else.



• The London Underworld - nope, not out of my Jack the Ripper phase yet. But officially, I'm facthunting to make Lord M.'s novel more accurate. Did you know that Newgate Gaol was burnt down in 1780? Which is funny, because we're sure that we burnt it down in my unresearched fiction. The years don't quite tally up, it's true - I think we torched the place in about 1800 - but the coincidence is still creepy.



• Road to Perdition - the graphic novel, greedily devoured in an hour and a half, and quite splendid. It was a really nice readable size - A5 - and the art was lovely. Even if you couldn't always tell who was shooting who in the vicious bits. Although you can usually work it out - was Mike Sullivan as much of a one-man-massacre in the film? In which I adored Paul Newman, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig - the extras, and crime-epic trappings which fill in the corners of the story. But couldn't care about the father-son story at the centre. In the graphic novel, I heartily enjoyed both, and their story moved me far more than in the film. Where my tears were mostly for the great Newman. He just soars.


• Doctor Who: The Eyeless - the 90s book range had several total darlings, whose feet are still regularly kissed wherever you go. Lance Parkin is among them, and he's certainly my favourite author of the lot - having written Cold Fusion, Dying Days and Just War. Books which, frankly, just show you how it's done. Naturally everyone's been anticipating his Tenth Doctor novel with baited breath, and even snob-fans who criticise the new series books for being aimed at children (What, for a children's show?! Call the mayor!) despite never having read one, have been descending in their droves to read it. It's also interesting because he's companion-free, on his own, and also because Mr. Parkin has been keeping a great blog about the writing process. Am I excited? Well, I did go to the library soley to find this book, although I'm having difficulty getting past the first page. The TARDIS lands. I've read some 30 Doctor Who novels now, and I am seriously bored of the wheezings, groanings, ancient-light, rip-in-spacetime, blue-box descriptions of the damn thing landing. Every author tries to do it in an exciting, arty fashion, and none succeed save in Matrix last week. They successfully wrote it from the point of an innocent onlooker, and actually managed to make the experience terrifying for the reader. Genius! Do it well, or just typed "The TARDIS landed" please.


• Velvet Goldmine soundtrack - because it is awesomes.


Smoothies and Shakes and Power Juices - last night, Calypso and I almost made a great smoothie. It was good enough to sell, certainly. But it was the sort you'd buy and think "OK, but disappointing". Two oranges, two strawberries, half a lime, lemonade, ginger wine, mulled wine spices and ice cream if you want to recreate it. Frustratingly, neither book has instructions for what to do with my remaning two oranges. But I expect my smoothie making may improve from now on. Power Juices is the inferior work, evidently aimed at sporty schoolkids, with pages of trash about which juices to drink for which sports. Smoothies and Shakes is a little more fun, and I'm dying to reproduce the chocolate and cherries one.

• Prisoner File 1 - soundtrack for the first three episodes. It's only 40p taking things out at the library, and the music is kitchily fun. It just makes me want to cook, clean and do all those other things perfect housewyfs do. *pauses for riotous guffawing at the image of Unmutual: the perfect housewyf*.

I was disappointed to find no good books on vegitarianism - only four cookbooks of tasty meals sans meat. I'd never cook a meal that pretentious, under any circumstances - I can just about handle pasta with sausage and cheese on top. What I really wanted was a book of sensible alternate-choices, packed with protein. I've started to worry about my health, as I've really very little idea of adequate protein substitute. I never really paid attention to it before, and everything seemed to work OK - but actively cutting meat out of my diet may produce strange results.

In addition, everyone is lending me books this week:

• I've got On Liberty by John Stewart Mills, from . He's won't stop praising this philosopher, and he seems to have interesting things to say.


• Neverwhere from Vapilla. Neil Gaiman is a minor deity. It's great stuff - everyone always suggests there might be lions and clowns at Oxford Circus, either when young and uninformed, or smart and sarky. He's taken the concept, applied it to the whole city (Shepherds at Shepherd's Bush! An Earl's Court! An Angel called Islington etc), and created London Below - inhabited by people and things who have fallen through the cracks, inhabited by Dickensian weirdos and brilliant concepts. This surely is going to exacerbate my getting-randomly-excited-about-London-architecture. Pity, then, that he's a decent author not a worthless hack, because the idea's such a good one you could have extended it to nine books without it getting tired. And I'd have been there to read every one.


• Battle Royale from Rosencrantz. I really wanted to read it at the start of last term. Now I'm not so sure, as now it depresses me. But I'm making a board game based on it, so that can only help.


• Kissing the Witch and The Bloody Chamber, from Calypso. One is the source material for the divine Company of Wolves, the other a book along the same lines by a different author, but still worth reading.

The Virginia Companion - and this was the other reason I took the afternoon off. Locking myself in the music room with this Dresden Dolls songbook and having a bash.

Despite a bit of trouble in said fast part, my Modern Moonlight sounds brilliant; I'm working on Backstabber, My Alcoholic Friends and Me and the Minibar. I can play Lonesome Organist, but it sounds totally wrong. And not entirely because I can't sing it either - something sounds too heavy and thick in my piano part. Listening to the song again, it's definitely a piano. But the Music Room piano has a very muzzy feel, one I rather like for other songs. But I might have to give Lonesome Organist up for now, or try it on a keyboard for that harsh mechanical feel.