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Literature
Jan. 22nd, 2004 07:44 pmJust a quick note to say that I finished reading Koushun Takami's Battle Royale today, which as many will know was made into a film. I had only seen half the film but knew what it was roughly about. However, the book pads out the story and the characters much further than the film ever touched on. It's excellently translated from it's native Japanese, in fact would be hard to imagine that it started out in anything other than English if it wasn't for the Japanese named characters. Great suspense, great suprises, great gore and a great twist! I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys alternative views on the future but also doesn't mind a bit of ultraviolence along the way :)
Now I'm on to one of the books I bought in a recent Amazon order, the latest from Red Dwarf co-creator, Rob Grant called Incompetence. A story based in the near future where governments have passed legislation that no-one can be prejudiced from employment due to incompetence. I'm 2 chapters in and it seems rather silly, in true Rob Grant style. Things seem to go wrong everywhere due to the general incompetence of everyone. Seems rather unfeasable but I'll give it a chance.
In other paperback related news, as I'm a frequent visitor of London Waterloo where marketing companies tend to give out stuff free to busy commuters to help increase awareness of their products, I have been able to sample the two new weekly mens magazines, Nuts and Zoo Weekly (who thinks up these names?). Anyway, Nuts came first last Thursday which turned out to be an entertaining mish mash of quirky stories, silly photos, gadgets, girls, film and TV reviews. Thought it wasn't bad and would check out the following weeks issue. Zoo Weekly came out yesterday and was disappointed to find that it was primarily football and tit photos. It still had some silly photos and reviews but the emphasis was definitley on football, something I have no interest in what-so-ever. What clinched my opinion on the two magazines was their review of Big Fish. Zoo gave it 2/5 while Nuts gave it 5/5. From that, I much respected Nuts' opinion over Zoo.
Doubt many people care about this new weekly mens magazine business but I picked up the new issue of Nuts today and again was entertained by the content and didn't feel like I was just having football and tits shoved in my face. I guess they are in fact aimed at different target audiences with different people preferring the different magazines. Zoo is quite frankly aimed at the townie stereotyope while Nuts treats it's readers with more respect for their intelligence... even if it does have a shit name (while at the same time not being as odd as 'Zoo').
Now I'm on to one of the books I bought in a recent Amazon order, the latest from Red Dwarf co-creator, Rob Grant called Incompetence. A story based in the near future where governments have passed legislation that no-one can be prejudiced from employment due to incompetence. I'm 2 chapters in and it seems rather silly, in true Rob Grant style. Things seem to go wrong everywhere due to the general incompetence of everyone. Seems rather unfeasable but I'll give it a chance.
In other paperback related news, as I'm a frequent visitor of London Waterloo where marketing companies tend to give out stuff free to busy commuters to help increase awareness of their products, I have been able to sample the two new weekly mens magazines, Nuts and Zoo Weekly (who thinks up these names?). Anyway, Nuts came first last Thursday which turned out to be an entertaining mish mash of quirky stories, silly photos, gadgets, girls, film and TV reviews. Thought it wasn't bad and would check out the following weeks issue. Zoo Weekly came out yesterday and was disappointed to find that it was primarily football and tit photos. It still had some silly photos and reviews but the emphasis was definitley on football, something I have no interest in what-so-ever. What clinched my opinion on the two magazines was their review of Big Fish. Zoo gave it 2/5 while Nuts gave it 5/5. From that, I much respected Nuts' opinion over Zoo.
Doubt many people care about this new weekly mens magazine business but I picked up the new issue of Nuts today and again was entertained by the content and didn't feel like I was just having football and tits shoved in my face. I guess they are in fact aimed at different target audiences with different people preferring the different magazines. Zoo is quite frankly aimed at the townie stereotyope while Nuts treats it's readers with more respect for their intelligence... even if it does have a shit name (while at the same time not being as odd as 'Zoo').
