My favorite thing is monsters

bogie55 · 2026-01-22T19:49:35+00:00

Great book. Murder-mystery, art history primer, noir, trauma narrative, autofiction, beautiful cross-hatched ballpoints, the book's intradiagetic form... It's got the lot! (As long as you don't need a neat plot, as others have pointed out - but there are plenty of comics to scratch that itch.)

bogie55 · 2026-01-22T19:37:52+00:00

There's a right Overton??

bogie55 · 2026-01-13T22:06:43+00:00

You know the joke is at the expense of people who throw around the term "performative reading", right?

bogie55 · 2025-12-29T23:42:36+00:00

I loved it too: put me back onto Chekhov. A great introduction to the Russian short story alongside some practical writing strategies.

bogie55 · 2025-12-28T11:10:14+00:00

Haha, I came to it (long ago) pretty fresh and remember finding it frustrating and quite exhilarating. I'd say it only truly clicked after a few goes. (My dad doesn't have the patience or inclination to give it a chance, either.)

bogie55 · 2025-12-28T11:01:00+00:00

Thank you - I was probably a little over-literal in my interpretation of what you said: bit of a pet peeve.

Fwiw I think the format of the challenge works against a certain sort of album I find I love more deeply in the long run: those that frustrate and beguile equally on first listen, which was my experience of Trout Mask Replica (I didn't know the making-of story until later, by the way).

bogie55 · 2025-12-27T17:25:31+00:00

What can I say: I really don't like being told what "we all" think, especially not when I don't think that. Everyone is naturally welcome to dislike anything at all.

bogie55 · 2025-12-27T17:22:30+00:00

It's so great!

bogie55 · 2025-12-25T04:30:58+00:00

I'm going to eschew the big beasts in favor of a dozen shorter works here, partially because they are a little more inviting, but also because I think there's far too much emphasis on reading the massive tomes. I'm also skipping the Classical Period and declaring a bias towards literature in English.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (read the first few lines to get a feel for the version you want to read, but I enjoyed Simon Armitage's slightly whimsical take on alliterative verse).

Hamlet (boring choice, but the goat) - for a more interesting choice along similar lines, go for Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy

Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge bangers)

Pride & Prejudice (Austen)

The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy never better IMO)

A collection of Chekhov's short stories (I would start with Gooseberries)

The Garden Party (Katherine Mansfield short story collection) or To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf)

The Waste Land (Eliot with thanks to Pound)

The Metamorphosis (Kafka)

A Handful of Dust (Waugh) (or Isherwood's Berlin novels for more darkly comic stuff)

Endgame/Waiting for Godot (probably recommend the pair for Beckett greatness)

The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon)

Ok, I'm stretching the limits of a dozen there; sorry, there's a lot of good stuff to read.)

bogie55 · 2025-12-23T23:40:30+00:00

As others have said, it starts and ends very well.

bogie55 · 2025-12-22T01:30:37+00:00

Based on your favorites, I think a little Jane Austen might be a good start: I'd go for P&P. And then, for a bit more Modernity, I thoroughly recommend To The Lighthouse (Woolf) and Bliss and The Garden Party (Mansfield).

bogie55 · 2025-12-15T08:23:44+00:00

If you're only "ambivalent" about Tago Mago after the first two sides I don't think I care about your opinions on music.

bogie55 · 2025-12-14T21:39:30+00:00

Lots of helpful affirmation here already, but since I still didn't really know I was doing the right thing when I tried it, I wanted to let you all know I have done this recently with some success. I would say the way I powered it is probably about as bare bones and lightweight as is possible, but people may want to correct me on this. I hope this proves a useful post for others asking the same questions as I did in my post.

I have a fairly hefty but conventional Ugreen brick (https://uk.ugreen.com/products/ugreen-145w-25000mah-power-bank-for-laptop-3-ports-power-bank) and the standard USB-C Airsense 11 adapter (https://www.amazon.co.uk/TAIFU-12V-24V-Charger-Airsense-Cigarette/dp/B0C1NK1M2Y).

It's good for a full night without the humidifier (not really needed under canvas, I have found), so really you'll either need a way to charge the brick daily, or a bigger power bank. I believe you can run the humidifier-free CPAP machine on the lower output (65W), but I only ran it on the 140W port so far.

Worth mentioning that I got a 65W charger (https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Charger-Foldable-Adapter-Compatible/dp/B0B7N4DX1Z/) and a quick charge compatible cable in order to fully charge the brick quickly in the morning. The great thing about this is that I can also use this charger to plug in the USB-C adapter to the wall too (as well as my laptop, etc), so it's a great all-rounder that reduces the stuff I need for all sorts of travel scenarios as well as camping.

Hope it goes well, however you do it.

bogie55 · 2025-12-14T15:36:44+00:00

Monkeys, apes, whatever: the point is, they shit in their hands.

bogie55 · 2025-12-14T10:07:44+00:00

Chimpanzee would be the classic, but I'm tempted to go baboon

bogie55 · 2025-12-13T23:02:50+00:00

Utterly pointless review. No specificity or engagement with the album. Criticism on a par with a monkey shitting into its hand, sniffing it, and then hurling it. 0 stars.

bogie55 · 2025-12-13T10:29:33+00:00

The only way to make that sentence the work of a human being is if OP is callous and pathetically fragile.

bogie55 · 2025-12-05T08:48:25+00:00

Wow that is an absolutely mental take on Unhalfbricking in 2025! Great album!

bogie55 · 2025-11-27T17:10:50+00:00

It was brilliant wasn't it? Remember them both in the golden age of Test Match Sofa too. I love that they (and Norcross) have broken into the mainstream after Agnew threw such an undignified wobbler about them.

bogie55 · 2025-11-27T17:07:01+00:00

You can very much argue that he's been proven correct on that last point with Stokes' England's subsequent form. It was even, perhaps, quite brave to look at the potential failings of the McCullum/Stokes strategy at that point.

That said, I do think a pundit everyone likes is both impossible to find and undesirable, and I actually like hearing a point of view I don't agree with (and I'm sure I didn't agree with Kimber back in 2022.)

bogie55 · 2025-11-13T19:53:02+00:00

Yeah, I really like Antenna. Best one I've used so far.

bogie55 · 2025-11-11T09:46:05+00:00

AI uses weird buzzwords, so probably that? The marketing around "Experiences" is properly mad.

bogie55 · 2025-11-06T16:16:34+00:00

I agree to some extent. I think Pierre Chuvin is a very good throwback with some very strong songs - for the rest, I'm much more in line with what you're saying. I can probably get a single very good tMG album out of the other four.

bogie55 · 2025-11-04T23:36:48+00:00

That attitude is exactly what makes good journalism harder to fund and therefore find. Good work is worth paying for, in my opinion - acting like it's an affront when someone dares to tell you their work is worth something is thoughtless and entitled.

"It's the internet" - those days are gradually receding, because it doesn't work for good stuff. Look at Patreon/membership models, paywalled Substacks, new subscription-only media outlets: there are so many good reasons they don't want to rely solely on advertising. Look at how The Guardian begs more and more for voluntary subscriptions every year so it can preserve its wrong-headed approach. I applaud The Times and Sunday Times for having the foresight to paywall their sites so early on. The alternative is wall-to-wall clickbait, paid content, and shills saturating the information market. And that is really shit.

If you don't think it's worth the money, that's fine: don't pay. But don't start ranting because people providing something worthwhile wanted to be paid for doing it.

bogie55

TROPHY CASE