For no other reason than to have something to blog at the end of the year, I kept a list of films I've seen and books I've read from Jan 1st 2008 until the end of the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order)

1. I Am Legend
2. Sie, Jie (Lust, Caution)
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
5. Sweeney Todd
6. Cloverfield
7. The Savages
8. Juno
9. There Will Be Blood
10. Be Kind Rewind
11. My Blueberry Nights
12. 10,000 BC
13. El Orfanato
14. Funny Games U.S.
15. [Rec]
16. In Bruges
17. Deception
18. Iron Man
19. Smart People
20. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
21. Gone Baby Gone
22. The Incredible Hulk
23. Kung Fu Panda
24. WALL-E
25. The Dark Knight
26. Elegy
27. Persepolis
28. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
29. The Strangers
30. Pineapple Express
31. Taken
32. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
33. Burn After Reading
34. Easy Virtue
35. Choke
36. What Just Happened?
37. The Fall
38. The Day The Earth Stood Still
39. The Reader
40. Blindness

Favourites:

Least favourites (or just plain terrible films):

The Day The Earth Stood Still deserves special mention. I was willing to give this film a chance if it stood up as a film in it's own right, rather than as a remake, since they couldn't really make an accurate one set in today's world. Such an utter disappointment.

This film is remarkably not ruined by Keanu Reeves. He actually suits his role. The film is ruined by an incredibly bad screenplay that makes half-hearted references to the amazing original, includes terrible dialog and unbelievable situations which lead all the main characters to constantly and whimsically change their allegiances so as to suit the ridiculous "human beings are wonderful" love-fest and unnecessary patriotism. Oh, and the CGI sucks too.

Books (fiction and non, plus some graphic novels - in finished order):

1. The Unteleported Man / The Mind Monsters - Philip K. Dick / Howard L. Cory
2. Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 - Bryan O'Mally
3. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
4. Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
5. The Penultimate Truth - Philip K Dick
6. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
7. A Handful of Darkness - Philip K Dick*
8. Dr Bloodmoney - Philip K Dick
9. Love and Limerence - Dorothy Tennov
10. Ubik - Philip K Dick*
11. Dark Stars - ed. Robert Silverberg
12. Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan**
13. Lost at Sea - Bryan O'Mally
14. Through a Glass, Clearly - Isaac Asimov*
15. The Gryb (and other stories) - E. A. van Vogt
16. Fear and Trembling - Søren Kierkegaard
17. The Game Players of Titan - Philip K Dick**
18. On The Genealogy of Morals - Friedrich Nietzsche
19. Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons***
20. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck****

I've certainly been on a short-stories kick this year, having read 5 collections. I really like the medium, actually, and it's a shame that the form seems to be dying. I only tend to come across good short stories, especially of the sci-fi variety, in now out-of-print editions in musty second-hand bookshops. The Blackwells and Foyles seem to push and stock mostly the latest full-length pop novels and not a whole lot else. Shame.

The other clear trend is my continuing appreciation for Philip K Dick. The man was prolific, but I find almost all of his books interesting to read. I really do recommend him if you're interested in concepts of alternative realities, trust and philosophy of the mind.

I wanted to read as much as I saw, but, as pointed out to me, a film is just a couple hours out of the day, but a book is a lot more. Maybe next year I'll do better (or watch less).

Happy 2009!

One of the exciting things about being on the internet is the ability to quickly and anonymously send messages. Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to receive all kinds of interesting emails and notes - some of which border on the stalker.

I got one today, which I hope the sender will take as a light-hearted joke and not an invitation to send me a dead sparrow, that I would like to use as an example and also to make a point or two. I'm not suggesting that everyone who sends emails like this necessarily intends to come across as a stalker, but they don't do themselves any favours and shouldn't be surprised when I don't reply.

Excuse the intrusion, but I stumbled upon your profile, and then was drawn in to your blog, and then got drawn in to your vast web presence.

I now feel like I know way too much about a complete stranger.

Have a nice time in Helston and (later) Petersfield.

My web presence extends to facebook and lastfm. That is it. I have no reason to be on anything else, simply because nobody would ever look.

Also, you would be the first person called Frances I've ever known. Actually NO. No you wouldn't. I once worked at a summer play group in York with lots of little kids, and one of the little girls there was called Frances, and she was absolutely gorgeous and every day would make a big magic wand out of lego and pretend to be an elf. She would say "I'm a leeedle elvy".

Feel free to ignore this message, I won't be in the least offended.

You know too much

I've talked to people who work on the web about this before. Most of us have been using the internet for a pretty long time now, and have, in theory, learnt what is safe and not safe to put on the internet. We get concerned for "newbies" on the internet, our parents and children who are such "fools" for putting more than they should do on the internet about themselves and act very condescending towards them as if they're doing things that we would never do.

We've all heard stories now of people losing their jobs over some drunkard photos of them on facebook, or status-updating that they're not really sick - they're just skiving, or people who are found out for cheating on their spouses. We think only internet novices do these things, because they don't appreciate the difference between what should be private and public information.

I think the alpha-nerds can actually be much more vulnerable as they use ever more sophisticated technologies to keep internet up to date with who they are and where/what they do. We should all be taking a lot more care of ourselves, if we really believe that too much information is public.

Safety in transparency?

Incidentally, I did receive an anonymous email a couple of weeks ago (this one I did reply to, actually) that seems like a good place to stop:

First time mailer, long time reader. Your blog (http://fberriman.com/) has completely dried up. Are you OK?

Blogging can be cathartic, I hear. Let's have a go.

Delivery companies. All a bunch of muppets, or is it just me?

I ordered myself a new computer recently from Dell. I also picked out a shiny new monitor from OverClockers. Both delivered via a different company. Both, apparently, completely incompetent.

Dell first. They delivered my box via DHL. Dell offer a snazzy "this is how far your order has got" type page. On this page, at the last stage, it states that when your order is ready and has been passed to the delivery company, the page will update within 24 hours to let you know who that company is and a tracking number, so you can see it's on the way. Did that happen? Nope. I was under the impression that the order hadn't been shipped yet, so imagine my surprise when I find a card letting me know that I'd missed my delivery. Annoyed. So, okay, I'll arrange to work from home on a Tuesday, and they can deliver it then. DHL say "no problem, Tuesday is fine.. we probably couldn't have got it to you on Monday anyway." Coolios! So, what do they do? They deliver it on Monday. Fantastic, idiots. Thanks for listening to my request. Fortunately, my ever-thoughtful flatmate was home and signed for the box and I have that now. Slightly miffed that they ignored me, but a happy Frances is a Frances with new toys and I'll forget about it for now.

OverClockers and City Link have been far worse. I ordered the monitor on a Friday and thought I'd like to reduce my amount of work-at-home time and I'll pay the premium for a Saturday delivery. Did it show up? Did it hell. The tracking notified me that a delivery had been attempted and no one was home. No - only 4 people with their hearing still intact were in the premises that morning. Apparently we must not have heard our very loud intercom buzzer that morning and the card he was supposed to have left must have mysteriously vanished into the ether.

I phoned OverClockers that Saturday afternoon, because City Link was closed at noon, and was rudely told by the girl on the phone that there was nothing she could do until Monday. At which point, rather than taking my name and order number, or evening apologising, she simply hung up without another word. Beautiful.

Pretty annoyed at this, I arrange for them to deliver the parcel for Tuesday on the Monday morning, since I've already arranged to stay home for the Dell delivery (read up, those with short attention spans).

Tuesday morning, and I sit patiently in my pyjamas, doing some documentation jobs, and I think I'll just have a look at the tracking and see where my parcel is (this is at 9:30am). Oh, lovely. Apparently delivery was attempted at 9.03am and I wasn't home. Did I die or something? Am I actually in the after-life and I just think I'm living, but to the rest of the world, this is but a ghost-flat?

So I phone OverClockers who phone City Link. Apparently the driver is "very good" and wouldn't have left a card if someone had been there (well no, he'd have delivered the parcel I'd hope, and also note the distinct lack of said card). I state I'm slightly concerned that this driver is lost and has the wrong address, but I'm assured it's okay, but at this point I'm assuming by "very good" they mean "can't operate a doorbell". She gives me the number for City Link, and I phone them. City Link inform me that the driver doesn't have a phone, but they're sending him a message some other way (carrier pigeon? smoke signals?) and that if I don't have my parcel by around noon, I should phone back. Any one want to roll the odds on me being on the phone at noon?

What gets me the most is how on Earth is it beneficial for these companies to be so bad? It's not like they get to keep everything they fail to deliver. It costs them more time, more money (petrol, man-hours etc.) and they have companies and customers calling them all the time to ask them why they're so incompetent.

Additional: 2 phone calls to City Link later (one of which involved a very sarcastic lad who was adamant my husband had phoned earlier and told them I'd "popped out" - hint: my salutation is "Miss") and another to OverClockers and the parcel finally arrived at just after 4pm. The cardboard box was a bit bruised, but fortunately the monitor works a charm. OverClockers are also refunding my Saturday delivery charge. Well, it's the least they can do, right?

Additional Two: OverclockersUK have failed to refund postage and are no longer responding to my emails. Lovely!

Dananananaykroyd

Second time I've seen them, and just as much fun. Running around in the audience, screaming vocals, tons of energy and drumming to die for.

The Mae Shi

Hugely entertaining and very crowd-pleasing. Slight hints of math rock with 8-bit backdrops.

Bonus entertainment points for Calum Gunn's comedy raffle at the end.

The Mae Shi at The Old Blue Last, 4th August 2008

Styrofoam

Indie-electronica with a dash of 80s synth. Pretty upbeat and good fun and reminiscent of Postal Service, making them an obvious support act. I also dig that they're Belgian.

Death Cab for Cutie

Difficult to be objective about a band you're sentimentally attached to, but they were a good show. To play to the big crowd, they stuck to the favourites and played them as-is from the recordings. I prefer live shows to give something a little unique and varied from their releases, but it's a minor complaint. I just won't need to see them in the flesh again.

Death Cab for Cutie at Brixton Academy, 17th July 2008