Iain Banks' new novel

I had been so distracted by the similarity to 'Palimpsest' by Charles Stross and the Luther Arkwright comics by Brian Talbot that it wasn't until page 244 of 'Transition' and Banks was just explaining solipsism that I realised he was also aping, mirroring, homaging or plagarising his own earlier work 'The Bridge'. Or perhaps it was a slight of hand and the patient in bed was only tipping his figurative hat in the direction of that novel to make the reader think that it is all just a dream or delusion and none of it really happened. That would be a disappointing ending to a slightly disappointing book. In that it owes so much to Stross and Talbot.

Also, the clumsy plot holes are annoying. This novel definately needed heavier editing.

I'm still alive

Not that anyone reads this anyway, but I am alive even though I've not posted for 18 months. I'll need to update some of the links on the sidebar and I may be linking to Twitter posts or linking Twitter posts to here. So there.

My best friend's table

I love this picture of one of my best friend's kitchen table. I especially like how she has inadvertently juxtaposed a large bottle of bleach, a pot and 'How to Seduce any Man in the Zodiac'. Would you date this girl?

It would be wrong not to see them this weekend in Glasgow

Here come the warm jets

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I did a LOLcat

I submitted this LOcat to I Can Has Cheezburger. Hope they post it. I borrowed the pic from a myspace friend called Lesley, who has a famous brother and does stand up and sings and is writing a book about her eccentric family.

My other favorite Vancouver pic

This is my other favorite picture of Vancouver, although not definitive at all. It's a detail of the Ting in the Dr Sun Yat Sen memorial garden in Chinatown.