Cracking story in The Mirror yesterday. I am so delighted by this news!
If you are almost sick with anticipation already and don't know how you'll be able to wait until this story goes to air you could bide your time by doing a bit of background reading - and this is such a great storyline that you get two novels for the price of one! Not just any old novels, but two great literary works: Misery and Wuthering Heights.
If anyone would like to provide book reviews of either or both I would be most appreciative. Come to think of it, if you're planning to buy your own copy of either title you might want to get in early - we have already seen how Corrie inflates book prices on Amazon.
Myself, I am too giddy to read. Giddy giddy giddy. As Voxra says, it's good to be giddy.
Hi Dishwasher Crab,
ReplyDeleteBefore I comment on this post, I forgot to compliment you on that beautiful Rick Astley pie chart in your last post. And truly, before that post, I had no idea who Rick Astley was -- then I recognized the familiar tune I'd been hearing and not giving a second thought towards until now! Where was I all this time??? Obvious a good chunk of my pop culture sensitivities must have been buried underneath a rock. But as I said before, your blog is truly excellent -- I learn things even when I don't intend to -- if only my past experience at school was like that!
Oh, I've done plenty of my share of pie charts, tables, graphs -- in 2D and then in 3D. I've been around long enough to remember Harvard Graphics, then Lotus, Symphony, and finally Excel and probably various other versions in between... each trying to outdo the capabilities of the one before. People at the office got caught up with the technicality of the visuals over what exactly they were trying to portray or communicate underneath with these visuals. And the final insult came with Microsoft invented a bulky difficult program called Powerpoint ...as far as I'm concerned that's when the bottom truly fell out... yes, I've also done my fair share of preparing and presenting 'decks' -- the term used by high-priced consultants to refer to their wonderful visuals with photos, sounds, graphs and graphics --- all the obscure the true state of affairs and the facts, but to vow the audience so that they could come around again next year and charge a huge chunk of money to the operating/project budget to fly in, stay in expensive hotels in town, charge expensive meals while they're on your dime. Interview you and everyone on stuff you already know...then they get all their notes together and then compile them into motherhood statements about 'change', innovation, strategy/leadership -- i.e. the powerpoint slides...well, I'm sure you know where I'm going...so it goes...and finally, the bosses have such a great time with these 'hired experts' that the boss winds up joining the consultancy... or one or a few of their guys wind up becoming YOUR boss...after you've spilled to them everything YOU know....{sigh}. Now you know why I just LOVE pie charts! Oh, if you want to read the inside story on consultants -- I recommend a funny book titled, "The Witchdoctors". It's been around for at least a decade and out in paperback. It's written by consultants or ex-consultants from some of the top firms like Bain and Co., Boston Consulting, and McKinsey or somewhere like that.
Actually, I don't mean to diss all such modern day witchdoctors for the body corporate...I'm personally acquainted with some very good ones, but like most professions, there are really only a few very good ones and they are not necessarily the ones who get all the "press" and scads of books published.
...to be continued below...
...continued from above (Sorry, I signed in with the wrong Moniker! --- It's me, Snacking on Corrie. "Dirty Dishes" is the other Moniker I use on a Corrie blog elsewhere -- wow, it's like having multiple personalities -- can't even keep track of two of them... I know, I know...I promised myself NO more long Comments...sorry, I find myself lying at the moment... sigh!)
ReplyDeleteBut back to this WONDERFUL story about a future plotline on Coronation street! Yes, I am truly giddy now. I did watch the movie Misery back then --- Kathy Bates and James Caan, right? Based on a Stephen King novel.Yes, I always suspected that Mary was Mad Mary. I was a bit suspicious about her coming back to the Cobbles Anyway, another kidnap caper after the John Stapes/Dozie Rosie affair, eh? This time in the reverse -- woman captures the man. She's truly scary and Norris -- well, to tell the truth -- a Norris type or archetype --a gnome of a man who has an exaggerated sense of his own importance, nosy, spreads gossip, hypocritical, hard-hearted (remember his brother Ramsey?) and a terrible cheapskate to boot (remember during the Summer street party he opted to give out one lousy lemon drop? And Rita comes in and asks something to the effect, "who are you giving these out to? The Borrowers? That line was so funny because I'd forgotten about The Borrowers for ages! Did you ever read them? It's series of stories about tiny people who live unkown with humans and they survive by 'borrowing' things like food, materials, etc...I think it's a UK story...)
-- a character like that (Nosy, annoying Norris) deserves to squirm a little! He strung poor, lovesick Mad Mary along for too long, I thought. Oh yes, I'm getting very giddy,....giddy, giddy, giddy! Mary will probably be thrown in jail, however,...I wonder if she and Gail will both spend time together at one point in Her Majesty's Free Room and Board Hotel.
I wish I could provide a review of either or both works, but these days, I'm not getting that much reading time in -- esp. the serious (!!) literary kind. I do recall reading at least bits of Wuthering Heights...I'm not sure I actually wound up reading the entire novel but earlier, I had finished and enjoyed very much the work of the author's sibling -- Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". After I read this, I found reading anything written by the other Brontes or Jane Austen quite difficult -- they were just a little too boring (sorry to all Jane Austen fans!).
I will have to look up who Voxra is. And there's that lovely scarf again...on that bird. Can you tell me if the bird is special? A team mascot or maybe a motif/graphic from a beer company? It's lovely -- the two mugs of beer on the huge beak -- the whole thing could be one of those cardboard coasters at your local pub...
Thanks again DWC for another clever post. I hope over the weekend you were able to find a worthy and/or worthwhile activity within which to fulfill your desire to sing, swear, and laugh... and possibly more... along the lines of Mr. Ramses Shaffy's "value for money" recommendation.
---Cheers, all the best to you DWC and your blog friends,
"Snacking" a.k.a. Dirty Dishes
For those not wanting to read Wuthering Heights in its entirety then may I suggest listening to the song of the same name by Kate Bush; a sort-of potted version of it...but then again, not.
ReplyDeleteDoe voorzichtig!
Hello Mr Ghost. While you are correct that Kate Bush's rendition of Wuthering Heights is quick it is certainly not painless. I'm not sure how accurate it is either: "I hated you, I loved you too, Kakadu Kakadu". Did Emily Brontë really write that?
ReplyDeleteHi Snacky. The toucan is from the Guinness ads of old, although I believe Voxra added the scarf - hence the credit. I would credit all the stuff I nick off the web except I usually have no idea who the original creator was - most things on the web have been nicked and reused many, many times over.
I'm not much of one for Jane Austen either, except for that time Colin Firth chucked himself in the lake at Lyme Park. That was pretty funny.
Hi DWC,
ReplyDeleteI've just taken a look at your profile and I noticed that you list Bladerunner as one of your favourite movies. I remember watching it way, way back when it first came out and just being blown away and also being really, really disturbed by the darkness of it all despite the reasonably "happy" ending. It was the same kind of effect that the "Chrysalids" had on me when it was required reading in school...
Then you must have read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". If you haven't, you'll like it I'm sure!
I also noticed you listed Hundred Years of Solitude...I've heard of it Gabriel Marquez or something like that. I've read (or tried to) his other book "Love in the Time of cholera" from a recommendation by a consultant...and I HATED it. And come to think of it, he wasn't much good as a consultant, either. Oh I found it so slow-moving, tedious...just awful. But then what do I know - it was;is enjoyed by millions and it's probably just not getting it... but I tried. I finished the book, but I still don't have much of a memory of the characters or what went on...or what the point of the book was. No one flings himself into a lake, but I think one of the characters chases an escaped pet parrot up a tree, falls down, dies and then this starts the romance between two soulmates who had been waiting for so long to hook up but could not due to social/societal pressures, misunderstandings, etc... come to think of it, it might be comparable to a Jane Austen-type novel...oh {yawn}.
All the best,
Snacky
"One Hundred Years ..." moves along at a much brisker pace than "Love in the Time of the Cholera" and a LOT of stuff happens. Also I think the opening sentence is intriguing:
ReplyDelete"Many years later as he faced the firing squad Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It certainly got me hooked the first time I read it.
Here's another great opening sentence:
"She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't."
Wow! Did I make the wrong choice of book!
ReplyDelete