New Apple Reader

Geeks are all wound up about the iSlate, iPad or whatever the new reading device from Apple is going to be called. Will it affect book publishing as the iPod impacted the music industry? We'll know by the end of the day. It will probably resemble a book in the same way the iPhone resembles the bakelite telephone of the fifties.

Computers are thick

Don't accept this wanky notion put out by geeks that computers are clever. No they're not: they're dumb. For instance, as I look at the page of this blog now there's an ad for teeth whitening - which may well be gone when you read this. Although now that I've mentioned the words again, the ad might become a fixture. The reason it appeared was because I mentioned the writer Zadie Smith, whose first and most famous - though not her best (that was On Beauty) was White Teeth. So the dumb logic of the system says Zadie Smith - White Teeth - right we need to sell the readers teeth whitening. No they don't. They need to have a link to first novelists or to books or movies with a similar theme as Ms Smith's work. The human brain is just so far ahead of these glorified abacuses in any form of nuance. A lot more interesting too. That's why I'm into humanities and not boring mechanical clunking 'information technology'. Sadly that's where governments want to steer 'education' these days. Rant ends.

Well ,Hello again

Haven't been here much. In fact it's the first time this year. The day job and Uni have kept me busy. Lame excuse, I know. Of course it is. Passed a professional exam in the New Year. That was a pleasant surprise. Now doing Playwriting module in Birkbeck. Great tutor - a northsider. Reading O'Casey's 'Juno and the Paycock'. Wonderful stuff: dialogue rich and as a Dub I feel it is a part of the heritage. I've even got hooked on Samuel Beckett. Sublime. So much brilliant Irish writing around. New stuff too. I haven't forgotten the rest of the world either...

Claire Keegan

I've picked up Claire Keegan's two books of short stories, 'Antarctica' and 'Walk the Blue Fields'. The first won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Treat yourself.

A Gender Thing

All six finanlists in this year's National Short Story Competition are female. I will never have a story published in MSLexiaMagazine and I will never be allowed enter for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Why does having a penis bar me from all these literary endeavours?

Perhaps I do a literary 'Tootsie'.

Zadie Smith

I've ordered Zadie's new book of essays Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays from Amazon. I'm sure I've read them all before, although her mum insists I couldn't have. Anyway, it'll be nice to have them all in the one volume.

Cormac McCarthy

I took another look at that Oprah interview with Cormac McCarthy. He is a great role model for a writer but I think I'd prefer Mark Lawson doing the interviewing. His interview with Alan Bennett on Front Row last week was a cracker.