Torchwood Season Two Premiere in....

Um. One hour?

The forums have quietened down, except for the faithful core who are inseparable from the internet anyway will linger to the very last minute. There is a feeling that I might liken to a pre-game tension, if I actually watched games. Even those of us who are not in the UK are a bit subdued, by which I mean that we are very quietly doing the internet equivalent of bouncing off walls in each other's blogs and online journals.

Pretty soon, the fandom will go quiet. And though we who are left to twiddle our thumbs in wait may grumble and throw envious looks, the British fans have truly waited a painfully long time for this day, so we don't begrudge them the chance to see it first. Much.

The ride begins again tonight!

"The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett [book]

THE WEE FREE MEN
by Terry Pratchett

The wonderful thing about Terry Pratchett is that even when he writes a book intended for young readers, he doesn't patronize with simplified vocabulary or formulaic plots. The Discworld came into being as a parody of conventional fantasy literature, and this carries right into the story of nine-year-old Tiffany.

After all, fairy tales are just another form of fantasy.

From the start, I was enchanted by Tiffany Aching. An exceedingly sensible girl who has a way with cheese, Tiffany deals with a monster that jumps out at her from a stream by going at it with her mother's frying pan. She wants to know why the handsome prince and beautiful princess in the stories are what it says they are. She is able to identify a witch on sight, though perhaps the talking toad was a bit of a clue. Above all, she wants to find Granny Aching.

Great read, had me in tears the first time, and now I reread it at least once every year. It's also where I first came across the word "susurrus". There's also a cameo by certain characters from the main Discworld novels. Fits in best with the Witches' storyline, but the character of Tiffany reminds me a lot of Susan from the Death storyline. Highly recommended to readers of all ages, and especially to fans of Pratchett's other works.

2K8, or so my countrymen call it

Hello 2008! You look a mighty lot like 2007, but it's only been a week. How time marches on. Friends of mine will be finishing their final stint at university in the coming months, at least in the undergraduate level.

On the other hand, the start of the second season of Torchwood next week has hyped up branches of the Doctor Who Forum and LiveJournal communities to an almost amusing degree. But those are fandom matters, which I have resolved to try and keep out of this blog, at least.

Speaking of which... I still haven't decided what to do with this blog. Certainly not something that needs constant updating.

Starting with the easy, usual choices- books. Movies are good, too, though dear RC is doing a stellar job with those in her blog, because your life isn't interesting. Yes, what just passed before your eyes was a not-so-subtle pimp of her blog. Because a healthy regimen of sarcasm is good for the intellectual soul, don't you know?

So we'll start with books. Maybe food? Not necessarily recipes, but new dishes or eating establishments, perhaps the odd kitchen experiment. Poetry? Interesting geography? What about umbrellas?

We'll go with the books and see what follows on from there. I also want to try completing the 50 books challenge over at LJ (which involves, of course, reading 50 books, in the space of 1 year) so this'll be hitting humanely accosting two birds with one stone. First up will be a reread... Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett.