Neil Cake > Recent Status Updates

Can't help feeling this book is fucking stupid.

Huh. It's turned into a Clive Barker story or something - a real life man and a boy unfolding from a small package? Fuck off. I'm not sure how much of this type of bullshit I'm prepared to stand for.

Bit confused: Grace says she doesn't remember the events of the murders, but she describes everything in terrific detail. The only bits she can't remember are where she's unconscious. And she remembers all her dreams too.

Aw man, this is horrible. And i know what's coming. Kinda scared to read any further.

The lack of awareness of some people... at the beginning of this our author laments his lack of success in the field of scientific research and having to make do with writing popular science books. Aw, poor guy.

Not much of a thriller. I mean, we don't know what's going on, but reviews suggest we aren't going to know. What we do know however is that the uninvited guests have arrived for the exact reason they say they have. So there isn't much to get excited about there. It could be the opening scene of a low intensity sitcom at this stage. One that only gets funny in season 4.

"The singing of the National Anthem was always a ragged affair, the good people of Ankh-Morpork feeling that it was unpatriotic to sing songs about how patriotic you were, taking the view that someone singing a song about how patriotic they were was either up to something or a Head of State [I.e up to something]."

Something pertinent for potential Reform voters to remember.

What?

"Liverpool's new idol scored twice in a 2-1 win to send the north African nation to the World Cup finals for the first time since 1990, when the tournament was held in Egypt."

That is such a confusing error. How can "Britain's number 1 sports biographer" get that wrong? Everyone knows the 1990 World Cup was held in Italy.

Roth, you're a writer. You should be able to articulate yourself without these unfeasibly long sentences that no one can make sense of. You probably think you're doing a guitar solo or something, but if you are, it's a shit one.

And where did the bit about the Swede passionately kissing his 11 year old daughter come from? Ew.

Sorry but no, I am not going to read your self-indulgent "sound poem".

I love it when Americans tell us what we do. According to Diane Ackerman, the British still sometimes use the Saxon word, "swyve" for fucking.

I think someone was having her on.

In an entirely imagined picnic with an alien:

"The English cousin asks for a small platter of potted ox tongues..."

I guarantee you, there's no fucking way that's what an English person request above everything else. You mad fucking fantasist.

I could have missed something, but it seems our American friend is too embarrassed to request anything, and presumably finds everything tasteless for lack of bbq sauce.

'Virginia Woolf reminds us in her essay "On Being Ill": "English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet... has no words for the shiver and the headache..."

That's just not true is it?

Honestly, this is word salad. So much of it is just her making stuff up.

"Why we love to bask isn't hard to fathom. Evolution, that haute couturier of ingenious patterns, probably designed the sensation so that animals would search for climates conducive to good health."

I don't think you're a scientist.

"Science fiction stories often involve an astronaut whose body temperature has been lowered, sleeping in suspended animation like a..."

Wait for it...

"naked bear in a glass den."

This reads like a list of non sequiturs.

"If we ever get a say-so in evolution, one of the things I'd vote for is whiskerlike feelers to keep us from bumping into furniture, friends, or raccoons in the dark."

Yes, raccoons.

Fuckin nutjob.

"When we touch something on purpose - our lover, the fender of a new car, the tongue of a penguin..."

I get that it was tough, but complaining that the NHS won't give you a souped up electric wheelchair when you're sending your son to private school and end up being able to get one anyway... is a bit rich.

Well here's a lady that takes a lot of pleasure in sensing things. It is pretty amazing, but calm down; you're making it weird.

Hm. Struggling to understand who or what she's talking about from one moment to the next.

Might not be the best choice for reading while the kids watch telly...

This is fucking grim.

Lol, a paragraph later it's all a fantasy. I am such a fool.

"Sham made bread."

Oh, ok. Wait; no. My wife makes bread. It isn't so simple that you can just do it when you find yourself stranded on an island. Especially when there has been zero mention of any previous experience of bread making.

Sorry, that bit really jarred with me.

I don't know, man. How can there be a sea of rails? It doesn't really make sense.

This is alright, but I know it was never finished. So now it's like it's point has already long been made and there's 200 more pages to go.

Bit annoying how the characters talk like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.

I kinda hate this book. It's so grubby and unpleasant. Only thing that keeps me going is that it's so easy to read at the same time.

Yawn.

what? you're going to send the actual Baby Nicole to Gilead, where someone will know who she is, for the promise of some documents that will fix everything? That's a terrible idea. That's a truly terrible idea.