I’ve just finished The Handmaid’s Tale, which now takes its place as the twelfth and almost certainly the last fiction book I’ll read this year. One a month: it’s not bad, I suppose, even if it doesn’t feel like much. And they were good books!
I don’t have time to write loads, because (a) I have to begin my review of the year before there is no year any more and (b) – the ‘normal’ option – I’ve got to dash off later to rendezvous with Abi, Oliver, Owen (& further unknowns) to see a Christmas show at the Globe, which should be fun fun fun. (Or ‘a family feast of carnival, comedy and Christmas cheer’, if you’d prefer.) So, briefly, two fun festive events! The first was a pub gig this Thursday past with Joshua, Niamh and Simon – situated in Archway, in the middle of a mysteriously byzantine road system and surrounded at the time by a snowstorm – which ended, as you can see, in some inspired dancing:
Looksee, a rival college scarf
Rage not against the machine, but rather against co-ordination itself
On the way home, after a chip/pita bread detour (tssht, Niamh, hummus is no match for ketchup), a momentous turning-of-the-tectonic-plate-tables took place, wherein the route of the last bus got me home before the Kilburn/Queens Park-dwellers. Mwha! And in fact, the buses were also relatively kind to us coming back from Secret Vegetarian Festive Dinner (Mach II) on Saturday night / Sunday morning. This was a most worthy sequel to last year’s event, once again very generously hosted by Abbi considering the level of carpet destruction which takes place, with another round of Secret Tikoloshe in which I acquired a pleasingly large box of Celebrations from Alice. (Thanks!) I have rather a lot of photos I’d like to include, which normally draws complaints, but please be assured that I could have posted pictures that were a lot, lot worse 
OtherEmily and Robert
Jakov and Robot
More modelling of Cambridge clothing!
Shiny happy people
Snow!
I think this is cute…
Rage against the machine x2
Christmas is coming, breakfast is at Jack’s
Merlin freed a dragon and Bill Compton’s coming back
Christian’s a space scientist, so here’s a Paradox for you
How are we going to hope without Tennant in Doctor Who?!
I am happy with your selection of photos. It shows me with the guitar of joy.
Also, cute little poem there! xxxxx
My brain is going, "Yeah, that’s really a paradox. It’s a friggin’ riddle at best. Paradoxes aren’t questions," but that’s too pedantic, even for me, isn’t it?
A Handmaid’s Tale is very good indeed. I love Atwood! She’s great.
You’re absolutely right, but my pre-prepared answer (that I thought of at the time) is that Paradox (the show) isn’t really about real paradoxes either
(What’s your favourite? I probably won’t get around to it for a while – with my limited reading I need to branch out! – but I’ll add it to the long-term mental list.)
Robert!
Jakov!
Hurrah!
Love the purple hat- can’t say I’ve ever seen a hat suit you more.
I have those pans…er…what was in that one?
Tennant as Hamlet any consolation (boxing day – also with Patrick)?
Anyone else find Atwood oddly ‘unreal’? As in her characters never seem to me to be proper people, just to inhabit some world curiously divorced from mine where everything is clipped and sort-of considered.
Dom, thanks for another year of great blogging. Many highlights – be good to see what you pick.
best wishes for 2010 to all who drink at this heady trough. Bit early I know, but I may not be sane, sensible or sober for much longer
xx
So?
(Oryx and Crake, definitely, as well as Year of the Flood, but since I just finished that this morning, I might be a little biased. I’d say "I’ll lend it to you!" but I think I’ve already lent it out (although to whom I do not know) and also, you have access to the Super Library King of Libraries.)
And unreal? Not really. I’ve always loved the thought processes of her characters. *shrugs*