My little book that is most definitely not a diary

I was at the glorious Belfast Continental Market a few weeks ago. I think I'll go find a picture of it. I'm going to start posting much more multimedia on this little blog. The technological age and all this hoohah. So... here we go...

Aw, would you look at that? Absolutely beautiful. The Belfast Continental Market is a glorious little gem of attempted culture in our great capital where various stalls from various different countries are set up ie. crepes, weird meat burgers et cetera...

That was quite cynical. I adore the Continental Market and I shouldn't be so harsh about it. So, on my annual galavant around the block this time, I bought a delightful pair of... Polish (?) slippers (I should probably upload a picture in the new spirit of things but I don't want to) and, what this post is really about, my glorious little leather-bound book.

It's my book log book - which I keep accidentally referring to as my log book log. Which makes no sense.

My book log book is my log book where I log books! This means that I record the date and opening thoughts of whatever book I happen to be starting, note down a few thoughts throughout if I feel the need, and then a short summary/review plus the date whenever I finish the book.

Glorious! It will be an absolute asset when I start cramming literature into my tiny mind for university interviews.

I'm writing this post because I made the first step today. I wrote in the little book (should I name it? - I name quite a few inanimate objects...) for the very first time - apart from when I wrote my name it, which doesn't count because it was boring. And in my glorious little leather-bound book I wrote:

Monday 27th December

The Odyssey

Homer 

There was some little comment following that but I've forgotten what it was now.

Isn't that exciting? Doesn't it fill your heart with glee? Written recordings of every book I'm going to read until the end of time! Exhilarating!

I'm reading Homer's 'Odyssey', in case the little quotation (multimedia!-ish) above didn't give it away. It's the Penguin Rieu prose translation. I had a little rant about this in my glorious little leather-bound book earlier because how are you possibly supposed to understand Greek epic poetry if you are reading a prose translation of Greek poetry? Then I realised that even if I had been reading a poetry translation it would have been meaningless because there is simply no way that a translation could have preserved the original meter and structure of Homer's millenia-old Greek verse.

Or could they?

I don't know. I'm too tired to contemplate it.

Digression. I deeply, deeply like 'The Odyssey'. It's written in an 'oral' style that I believe essentially means it was written to be spoken in verse - like a story. This leads to many very hilarious repeated words, phrases, paragraphs and scenes in my icky prose translation that were originally necessary to keep rhythm in the Greek verse and are now just strange. For example, at the start of every single day, we receive the nice little phrase - "As Dawn arose, fresh and rosy-fingered". Menelaus is "auburn-haired", Odysseus is "resourceful", Athene is "The Goddess of the shining eyes". Every. Single. Page.

PICTURE INTERLUDE.

That's good old Menelaus looking less than auburn-haired in his grey, grey bust.

But yes, I am thoroughly enjoying 'The Odyssey'. Further updates as I progress.

Ohayo gozaimasu!

Trials

The most frustrating thing about learning to play an instrument is that sometimes you suck. Right now (right, right now - I'm procrastinating) I'm learning to play Massenet's 'Meditation' and I want to bloody throw my viola on the ground and stand on it. Because I was better last week.

Why? It's frustrating. If I was just awful and I stayed awful all the time that would be absolutely fine, but that glimmer of musical credibility that I hear once in a while just makes it so infuriating when I sink back into the doldrums.

Matthew is self-deprecating today. It's a good thing because ninety-nine times out of a hundred he is pompous.

Book update: finished one 'young adult' fantasy novel for the library club. It's called 'The Keeper's Daughter' by Gill Arbuthnot. Enjoyable. A solid 7.8. I have to read another young adult fantasy novel and then I'm going to back to my darling littérature. Currently debating between Matthew Lewis's 'The Monk' (Gothic Romanticism -- ah!) and Vladimir Nabkov's 'Lolita' (infamous twentieth century Russian sexcapade - ah!) The life of a teenager is a difficult one.

Poetry!

"If one really truly does indeed want to go to Cambridge then one really does have to begin studying poetry."

That is my inner scholar. He is very annoying but very correct. For that reason I bought the most beautiful little collection of poetry books a couple of days ago. It included:

• W.B. Yeats
• T.S. Eliot
• Sylvia Plath
• Ted Hughes
• W.H. Auden
• John Betjeman

I'll admit that before I bought the collection I had heard of four out of those six poets. But that's why I read! To learn! To that end I have started with Yeats. I have thus far read the very long introduction and about four poems, methinks. I'm not really feeling proper analysis, however.

In other news I have read the first book of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy, and I am in LOVE. I am convinced that it is indeed 'proper' literature, even though it doesn't have 'social context' or anything of the sort. I mean, it has endured more than fifty years in print. And what it does have is themes, and character, and motive, and macabre description!

I need to up the ante with my reading schedule or else no one will ever believe I'm smart.

I've Gotten Over My Fear of Woolf Quite Completely

I've been frantically googling Virginia Woolf for the past hour. I want 'The Waves' in my life. I will STORM through 'David Copperfield' so the spree can begin. Erk. One should never storm through Dickens.

Bad self.

I Forgot To Give It A Title Again - Oh Wait That's Not Very Interesting So I Suppose I'll have to Call It 'BA BA BAH PROGRESSSSS'

Whoopsies. Almost two months have passed by, and in that time something truly very exciting has happened.

I FINISHED LES MISERABLES.

And it was so incredibly good. Unfortunately I have a suspicion that this feeling of adoration is akin to Stockholm Syndrome: I had spent so long in custody of this book that it became a major part of my life; I read so much about the characters that I became almost forcefully involved with them. Maybe. That's one theory - the other is that it's just a truly spectacular book and everybody should read it.

A bit of both?

I have also read... 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf (LOVE.), 'My Antonia' by Willa Cather (how 20th century American writing really should be), and 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje (really very good and I could have enjoyed it a lot more if I had focused more).

Right now I'm reading 'David Copperfield' and I just want to swear my love for Charles Dickens. I mean, he does for literature what Taylor Swift does for country music: he makes it enjoyable, accessible and vivid. Nobody else describes a character or a scene quite like him, with his varied and distinctive similes, wonky personal traits etc. etc. This is my second Charles Dickens novel - I read 'Great Expectations' a few months ago. So far it's better than GE in one way and worse in one way.

BETTER: Pip is a horrible person. It's probably not very 'intellectual' of me to have qualms with a novel for hating the protagonist, but he just really winds me up. In contrast David Copperfield is recognisable and lovable. 1-0.

WORSE: Being semi-autobiographical, 'David Copperfield' tends to completely change everything once in about every thirty pages. First he's at home, then he's at Peggotty's (I LOVE YOU PEGGOTTY), then he's at school, then he's at work. BAM BAM BAM. The pace is too fast. We're not given enough time to acquaint with the characters and the period fully. It keeps the novel entertaining, for sure, but I'm quite sure it could be entertaining if a little more time was spent on each section.

That being said I'm only 200 pages through the 900. I'll have to read the rest to make up my mind properly.

After this I'm going on a Virginia Woolf spree. University interview and all that. Ta-rah!

I Like Your Mom's Books

I'm actually only writing this since it's been a week since my last update.

I was at my friend's house a few days ago. This particular friend happens to have a mother who studied English at university, and we all know what that means: BOOKS. For years now I have looked at the cornucopia of books and wanted so badly to take them home and read them. Unfortunately my friend always said I wasn't allowed to. This time, however, PATRICIA (his mother) came into the room while I was gazing longingly at the bookcase. We launched into an enormous, digressive conversation about this and that author while she enthusiastically thrust books into my hands to read this summer. I have to say I'm very excited. So, without further adieu, Matthew's Summer Reading List:

• 'My Antonia' my Willa Cather
• 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf
• 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf'
• 'A Farewell to Arms' by Ernest Hemingway'
• A book of short stories by Chekov
• 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje
• 'The Glass Menagerie', 'Sweet Bird of Youth', 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams
• 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Hansbury
• The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

That's the general rough order of when I'm going to read them, although it's highly dependent on how taxing each book is. I might add in some mind-numbing tweeny books along the way. For comfort, you see.

And, of course, there's Les Mis. The less said of my 'progress' the better.

I always forget to give posts a title

It's never a good idea to start writing a blog post when you have absolutely no idea what you're going to say. It inevitably leads to rambling. Oh well.

So, my one-year anniversary of reading Les Miserables is coming up in a little over a month. Yes, I have been reading it for over eleven months. On and off. While reading many other books. And generally having a life. There are two very clear reasons why this book is taking me so long to read:

• It's ENORMOUS. There are just so many pages to this book. It requires such immense willpower to just consider reading it.
• No writer that has ever lived will digress quite as prosaically as Victor Hugo. Les Mis is absolutely excellent when he's directing the plot, themes or character. However, every few hundred pages Hugo just launches into a rant about something not entirely irrelevant, but so insignificant that one could easily grasp the scene without a sixty-page rant about a convent. This just makes the former point even more difficult. Just keep to the actual point and we'll get along fine, Monsieur Hugo.

That's all that I'm going to say on Les Mis. It's SUMMER VAYCAY, as I've heard said in various American TV programmes. Unfortunately everybody is leaving me this summer. Enormous holidays in New Zealand and Japan do not make me happy. What are you supposed to do without people around you?

(You could write...)

HUSH. That is most definitely on the agenda for this summer. Just leave it to me. I'm doing nothing tomorrow. I'll brainstorm. I'll hunt for plot bunnies. I will ride the wave of creative...wonder.

I hate the way advertisements make you want things.

Deeper Understanding

I read 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald for the second time yesterday, and I have to say that I enjoyed it much more the second time around.

Quick digression: THE KEYBOARD/MOUSE IS BEING SO UNHELPFUL TODAY.

Anyway, I think the only reason I disliked it upon first reading was because I was young, and speed reading. Never a good combination. For example, I didn't realise that Jay Gatsby was in a criminal syndicate. Obviously I cannot speed read.

This time however, it was very enjoyable, although I still wanted to slap Daisy. But it's a lovely little book all the same. I would have to disagree that it's one of the 'three perfect examples of American Literature.

Here in Northern Ireland we study 'The Great Gatsby' in English Literature during Year 14, but not everybody in this country does. I've heard that every single student in America is forced to read it, though. That sounds fun.

The enthusiasm/grammar isn't flowing today.

Boring Update

Since my last post I have finished ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy, and ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger. Unfortunately, I really don’t feel like writing a review D:

I suppose this is just a quick little post to make sure everything’s up to date. I went shopping in the capital of Northern Ireland today! I made that sound rather grandiose; Belfast is a nice place, though. I bought a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Cool.

I’m dong the GCSEs (uh…General Certificate of Standard Education) at the moment. They’re the first serious exams I’ve ever done in my life. It means that I don’t have to go to school unless I’m sitting an exam! It’s wonderful – lots of reading, sleeping and laptop-ing.

Those damned novelists are being clever for the sake of it

Hello Blog. I'm sorry I was away for so long. I'm only using you now as a procrastinating tool. I hope you don't mind.

I have heard bad things about 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy. One such quote is "That's an awful book", coming from my absurdly knowledgeable librarian as I took it out. I just finished the first 'phase' this morning and so far I don't really see what they're complaining about. So far my only qualm is that the narrative is a bit jumpy and hard to follow: lots of really important things seem to happen in the time between chapters. Another irksome thing is that damned 19th century prudishness. It is really very difficult to discern when anything of a sexual nature is happening in the book, despite it dealing centrally with the theme of sexuality! Humbug.

Since my last post I also finished 'The Sea, The Sea' by Iris Murdoch. It took me so very long to read.

'The Sea, The Sea' is very much a novel of the brain. First and foremost, it is written in the first person - diary entries; you can never trust diaries - you learn about the protagonist by reading between the lines, and learn nothing about other characters because they're coloured by the protagonist! Standard first-person isn't quite so bad, even when it's heavy on the interior monologue - you can understand other characters by dialogue, movement. In a diary, however, the only things you can pick up on are the central character, and themes.

We'll start with character. That's a bit easier. 'The Sea, The Sea' begins with ninety pages of uninterrupted musings. That might sound awful, but it really was fascinating. Charles Arrowby, the protagonist, is a playwright who retires to the sea for peace and solitude. For a while he revels, playing the part of the hermit with obvious grandeur. His writing is lavish and descriptive, incredibly romantic. However, in complete contrast with his writing, his actions show discontent - hallucinations, injuries etc. It seemed to me that he was searching for a kind of solitude he was never going to find. Furthermore, he was trying to deceive himself with romantic imagery and endless philosophy.

As the novel progresses so too does Arrowby's view of the sea. Things become chaotic, people come to visit him, and the sea once again becomes an effigy of peace. I thought it was a rather cyclical novel, but that would give away a lot of the plot.

Oh! It's important to not that Arrowby is a horrible, horrible person and if you can't get past that you won't enjoy the book.

This review is horrible. It has no structure.

THEMES. Actually, I should go do some proper work. Themes will come later.

The scariest kind of shopping

I'm going viola-shopping tomorrow. It will be terrifying.

There are a number of reasons why this outing will be terrifying. The first is that I will have to test out numerous violas on the shop floor with people watching and listening and judging me. The second is that I've heard the man at the music shop is terrifying. The third is that I will be spending many hundreds of pounds on an instrument which might be secretly terrible and I just can't tell.

Scary.

Oops

The internet was broken. I swear. It really was.

Anyway, the last book I read was...um...The Grapes of Wrath? REALLY? That long ago? Oh dear. I'm doing exams. It's not my fault.

It's Terrifying

I have just spent the past hour researching Cambridge University. From this I have learned two things:

1. I am not a normal teenager.
2. IT'S SO SCARY.

First things first, I need to attain A's or preferably A*'s in every exam for the rest of my time in secondary school. I also need to write fantastic, provocative exams for submission to Cambridge. I need to begin reading the newspapers so that I know what's happening in the world.

Most importantly, I need to START READING. This is how I envision my interview would go in my current situation:

"Are you interested in a particular period of literature?"

"Oh, yes. I adore Victorian literature."

"Ah, Victorian! What are your thoughts on [enter the name of an obscure Victorian author]?"

"Um...what? I liked Great Expectations..."

"Right. NEEEEXT."

Terrified. I'm off to read some contemporary literature that doesn't help my case in the slightest.

Drama Drama Drama!

I had such an excellent day today. It began with Drama, in which our group is putting on an extract from Nikolai Gogol's 'The Government Inspector' for moderation. Today we sorted out our set (complete with an AMAZING door set piece) and rehearsed the first scene. I don't actually have a role in this scene (though I'm the government inspector himself in the next one - so. Many. LINES.) so I just sat around shouting 'suggestions' to people and eating sweets. It was such a wonderful rehearsal.

The rest of the day was just pleasant: Geography, English, swimming in games. After school I had another drama rehearsal, which was equally as fun as the first.

Good day. I'm incredibly tired now, however. Oh well.

An Abnormal Attraction to Japanese Authors

Have I ever talked about Haruki Murakami on this blog? Well, I adore him.

The first novel I read was 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle', which is an abstract sort of novel full of confusing symbolism, but was ultimately excellent due to its strange, wonderful characterisation and scantly elegant writing style. It also made me appreciate wells like I never had before.

Then I read 'After Dark' - 500 pages shorter, and arguably better. It was much more understandable but retained the elegant writing style and rich characters, without beginning to drag or inflict migraine. It was like a 180-page window into a square kilometer of Tokyo at night. Splendid.

Continuing my love affair with Murakami, I recently got 'Norwegian Wood' from the public library. I've been told that Murakami writes two distinct types of novel: the bizarre, otherwordly 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' variety, and the stable, flash-back type 'Norwegian Wood' variety. So far I've only read his strange novels, so I'm very excited to see what Murakami does in the real world.

Excited!

Other things to read:

• 'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo
• 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare
• 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck
• 'The Sea, The Sea' by Iris Murdoch
• 'Finding Cassie Crazy' by Jaclyn Moriarty

The last one is a silly little teen tale that I'll read when my brain is melting.

Monday

I DIDN'T POST ANYTHING YESTERDAY. The world is going to fall apart.

The laptop is about to hibernate so this is just a quick little up date.

I just watched 'The September Issue'. It was very good. I'm not sceptical on the topic of fashion, so I didn't really need persuaded to see the 'serious side' of fashion. Grace Coddington is a fantastic human being - full of romanticism and creativity. Anna Wintour is...admirable.

Must dash. Skins!

Saturday's Thoughts

Oh dear. My neurotic friend has become increasingly neurotic because I go places without him. There's a whole big story that I don't really want to tell.

It will be Sunday in thirty-one minutes! I love Sundays. They're so slow and lazy. And the best part is the Sunday Times. Style! Culture! News Review! Travel! Home! Other sections! The paper takes an absolute week to read, and I'm in love with it.

Just a small post. Goodbye Blogger.

"Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

I've recently fallen in love with the idea of blogging - sharing yourself with the world, via the internet. It's fascinating. Snippets of somebody's life far away in another country, which give me a feeling of how...stuff is there. For this reason I'm going to make an impossible pledge to post something on my blog every single day, even if it is about three words long.

Today I got more exam results back. That's not very interesting. What is interesting is that I'm going to Belfast (the capital city of Northern Ireland) for a little shopping trip tomorrow. There is one particular shop that I must always visit when I go to Belfast: Hollister.

"But Matthew! Boring, thoughtless, prosaic people shop at Hollister! Why would you want to buy clothes from a shop as dull and uninteresting as Hollister?"

Reasons for my love of Hollister:

• IT SMELLS AMAZING. There is not a font large enough to describe that immersing scent. I am in love with it.
• The clothes are bright, nice, easy to wear and the hoodies in particular are fantastic for throwing on whenever you feel like it.
• I am completely and utterly in love with this 'SoCal' lifestyle. Yes, feel free to hate me. In fact, a little part of myself died when I typed that. I apologise. I've been told by my friends and schoolmates that nobody likes Hollister any more because everybody loved it for a month (we got the shop in November 2009, I think) and now it's just old and plain, but there's just something about it that is endlessly pleasing to me.
• The shop is heaven to me (apart from the crowds - not so pleasant). Good music, warmth, luscious smell, hot shop assistants. I even love the pretentious low lighting that so many people complain about. It's beach-y. And my favourite part is the TWIN SCREEN LIVE FEED OF MISSION BEACH. Coolest. Thing. Ever

So that's why I'm a clone.

I'm about to start reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' for my book club. My friend assures me that it is sublime. High hopes.

Introspection

After over two weeks of intermittently sitting exams and revising for them, I finally started getting some results back today. I'm doing well, as I expected. I won't say any actual statistics, but there are lots of A's and A*'s flying around. It's terribly exciting.

This next paragraph is going to sound like I'm bullied or something, which I'm not. So immediately stop thinking that. In my year group I'm famously good at English Literature and French, to the extend that my classmates will eat me alive if I do anything less than outstandingly in tests and exams. French wasn't a problem, because I got 100%.

Brief moment of ecstasy.

WHEE. YAY. YAHZAH.

It's probably important to mention that I'm also a massive braggart. Unfortunately this was cut short in French today because my perpetual linguistic rival was...somewhere else. It was therefore impossible to point out that although we both got 100% MY RESULT WAS STATISTICALLY 0.3% BETTER THAN HIS.

I'm sorry for being obsessive compulsive.

So French turned out beautifully and I will be elated if I can do that well in my GCSE in June. English, however, was another matter. In my first Language paper I got 52/60 which is probably quite good by a sane person's standards, but since I'm a crazy elitist this was not good enough, especially since my friend Ruth got FIFTY-THREE. I could bear that, but Literature was just tortuous. I got 82/105 (three shy of an A* which is unacceptable in a subject that I want to PLACE IN THE COUNTRY IN), whilst Ruth and my other friend Ben got 83. Ruth was kind - she understands my neurosis. She assured me that in the actual exam I would smite her (which in a bizarre, narcissistic way made me feel better), but Ben was merciless. It was painful.

That's really just the background to this post. I had really wanted to discuss the high standards I set for myself. Now, ordinarily, since I'm so fond of shoving words where they don't belong I would have said 'impossibly high standards' just for a little added oomph. But they're not really impossible. I have a very porous mind and I'm naturally intelligent, and I'm meeting my goals in most other subjects, so if I had bothered to do any Literature revision I definitely would have come out with a better mark. I know for a fact that Ben re-read the two set texts before our Lit exam, which would have given him the advantage, for sure.

Oh dear. I'm being insane again. Why aren't I satisfied with a good mark in Literature? Probably something about literature being my 'identity' and if I don't have my high grades I have nothing. Oh well.

I just finished reading composed entirely of diary entries and letters. It made me want to blog.

Dickens lives up to my Great Expectations

I sincerely apologise for what can only be described as the worst pun in living memory. It was just so obvious, and I jumped. I'm sorry, but it was inevitable.

'Great Expectations' has me, unfortunately, in two minds. The first one says, "This novel was FANTASTIC. I defy you to find more personalised, intriguing characters and description so lush you'd might as well be inhaling factory smog through your very own lungs."

The other side of me says, "Don't be fooled by the astounding few segments that this novel had to offer; you waded through countless irrelevant passages praying frantically for Pip to do something interesting. STOP TALKING TO MR. WEMMICK."

So, yes. My thoughts on 'Great Expectations' fall into those two distinct camps. Overall I think I'll have to side with the former just because the last couple of chapters were jaw-droppingly excellent (I'm a sucker for endings - they can be happy or sad as long as they leave a lasting effect) and the characters truly were extraordinary. Miss Havisham, especially, is one of the only characters I can think who, from the very first description of her rotten wedding dress and bitter demeanour, gave me a profoundly affecting visual image of her character. Herbert, Estella, Joe, Magwitch - all perfectly developed, perfectly unique characters. Even Pip, whom I despised for being so selfish and ungrateful was fascinating to learn about, even if i did want to punch him in the face.

Taking a step back, I'm going to discuss one of my absolute favourite elements of the novel. Let's be clear: Volume One mopped the floor with the other two volumes. One particular reason for this was Pip's fascinating narration as an adult who uses a diverse vocabulary and often quite complex syntax to convey the younger Pip's thoughts and actions. It may be a stretch to say that there was dramatic irony at work, but it was fascinating from two perspectives: the first is the later Pip's reflection on his younger self's actions, which always leads to a lot of self-deprecation et cetera, and the second was the omnipresent thought in my mind that the younger Pip, yearning and striving to be educated and successful, would one day reach that goal (well, partially) and reflect on his earlier actions. It's almost paradoxical, isn't it?

So, die Vorteilen:

• Absolutely fascinating characters
• Strangely brilliant writing style in the first volume (which does admittedly continue throughout the second and third volumes, but to a lesser effect)

That's actually only two things, but it made this novel very interesting indeed.

Now for the negatives. One of the main drawbacks of this novel to me was, that although Dickens could provide a beautiful, sensory description of one distinct scene (often a pivotal one), his description of more ambiguous places and lesser scenes was, frankly, shocking. I find it quite hard to visualise many of the places that he was talking about, especially in one of the last chapters when they are on the boat together. This caused me to not enjoy the final exciting climax of the novel, which was actually quite irritating.

I have brought this second point upon myself. Having read the title of 'Great Expectations' and nothing else by Charles Dickens, I quite foolishly prepared myself for a thematic work filled with nothing more than contemplation of dreams and expectation. I was quite annoyed then, when the plot of the novel veered off in other directions other than Pip's "great expectation", but, as I say, this is really my own fault. Since I had presumed it to be largely thematic, I found myself quite unwilling to enjoy the simple adventurous plot that took reign for a large portion of the novel, and to an extent it even stopped me from enjoying the fascinating characters in the novel because I couldn't stop thinking about their representations. I'm really quite angry with myself.

So, there you have it. I love and loathe 'Great Expectations'. And, most importantly, I have learned not to assume anything about a novel before I actually read it, because it invariably makes the experience less enjoyable.

I have been more than that since my absence, although I've kind of forgotten everything by now. There was 'Macbeth', and 'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton (I really do think I prefer English literature to American) and probably some other ones that I've completely forgotten. Oh well. C'est la vie.

It's 11:39. I'm off to watch a BBC documentary!