books – University & Unicorns

22 August 2023

Libraries And Learning

I feel I need to write a little more here. It seems it should be a natural progression that while my Priptona Weird blog is on its downwards trajectory that the University & Unicorns blog should be on the ascent – at least in terms of the frequency of my posts and interactions with said blogs, right?

I’ve certainly been more focused on the aspect of my creative writing and uni study than I have with music and more to the point, Simple Minds music.

*A sign of things to come (a street traversed heading to the university library. It was missing an R though…)*

Certain other struggles abound. I find my mood fluctuating wildly at present. Mostly I feel incredibly insular and I rarely seek the company of others. I have always been pretty comfortable in my own company which makes it very weird that I should find myself permanently craving the attention of one person in particular and I don’t seem to be able to shut this desire off. That I just don’t have enough self-esteem or self-belief to banish that desire and get away from it. I get eternally angry with myself for not being able to let this desire go because I KNOW how unhealthy it is and I know that this person really couldn’t give a flying fig about me….and yet. And yet.

I just needed to air that thing here.

I haven’t been writing any fictional prose over the past 10 days. I’ve entered two writing comps and want to enter a few more before my new uni module starts. I had intentions of writing for much longer entries for a couple of writing comps – ones with entries that required a minimum of 2000 words written but I haven’t started on any of them. I’m not going to pressure myself. The fact that I have actually entered comps is good and I definitely will be entering a few more before uni starts back up.

As well as making sure I am continuing to write I am making sure that I am reading as well.

Last Monday (14 August), I took myself to Possilpark library (my most local branch of Glasgow libraries to my home) with an application form that I had picked up a few days before from the Hillhead branch that I had since filled out – and got myself a library card – AT LAST. Because Covid had struck barely three months after we moved to Glasgow (and also bearing in mind I was in Sydney for a month around Christmas of 2019), we hadn’t had the chance to get signed up to the library when the first lockdown happened. We did get temporary access to the library’s online resources but then the branches were closed for extended periods of time, etc, etc. When restrictions finally lifted and life went slowly back to normal, I was in the middle of study and had other things going on and I just didn’t find the time to get membership to Glasgow libraries sorted. Until now.

*It feels very surreal to have this. Hate my photo. My head is shaped like a bell(end), but hey ho. Lol. I never wanted to win a beauty prize.*

So now, not only am I FINALLY a cardholder of Glasgow libraries and have an ASTONISHING 32 branches across Glasgow at my choosing to visit (with Possilpark, Springburn, Milton, Woodside, Maryhill, the GoMA, The Mitchell and Hillhead branches all within my most immediate proximity for visitation and use) – over the past week I applied to have access to the University of Glasgow library under the UK universities SCONUL scheme. SCONUL access allows students from one particular university to gain access to the libraries of other universities around the country. So, I as an Open University student applied for SCONUL access. With that access granted, I was then able to apply to the University of Glasgow for access to their library – all TWELVE FLOORS of it. I was granted a card, which I collected from the library yesterday. I then spent a few hours investigating the library space. Checking out the various floors, the books on offer, the study spaces and…the views of Glasgow therein. OMG – the views from the upper levels of the library! There is almost a 360* view of the Glasgow skyline from there. And a lot of the study spaces face the window, so…you have that amazing panorama spread out in front of you. Okay, you might have your head buried in books for the most part while you’re studying – but when you need to take a breather, there is Glasgow right out there in front of you.

I began my exploration on Level 9. That’s where the English and English bibliography books were. I had no sense of scale from the floor plan of the library. It seemed as if it was going to not be a very big space with not that many books but OH MY WORD! There are THOUSANDS of books in there. I mean, the majority of books on the shelves are from authors and writers considered to be “in the canon”, with several copies of books of their work. Some of them are very, very old! I used up a good hour just on this floor, scouring the rows and rows of books.

From there I went down to Level 6 – this is where the Russian and East European books were meant to be but I got lost trying to find where they were, despite looking at the floor plan. I just could not find where they were. I decided to try again another time. Or to wait until I can book a guided tour of the library (they do guided tours twice a day at 11am and 2.15pm).

Next I went up to Level 12 as there is a viewing platform up there and I wanted to look at the views of Glasgow. When I got up there though, it seemed as if access was via appointment only which seemed odd – but I think it was the archival section of the library that was only accessible by appointment only and the viewing platform was accessible around the other side – I just didn’t know how to get there. Bugger! I’ll try again another time.

Down to Level 3 next and to the “high demand” area and group study areas – as well as the cafe. The cafe had just closed, so my plan to get myself a coffee and take a breather was scuppered. The “high demand” section is CRAZY! These books are deemed to be in such … high demand … that you can only loan them for 24 hours and some of them for as little as FOUR HOURS! Can you imagine? Being able to borrow a book for only 4 hours?!

Lastly, I decided I’d check out Level 4 – which I thought rather strangely, for a university, has junior fiction and non-fiction sections as well as the music section. Well, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked down one of the music book shelves and there were archival folders stuffed with copies of Sounds magazine dating back from 1981! I nearly died of excitement stumbling upon this pot of gold! I turn the corner to walk down the next row of shelves and there’s only bloody NME and Melody Maker mags archived as well! Neither of them date quite as far back as the Sounds archive but still. I was stunned! I even found a little bit in one of them that seemed very appropriate and timely. Little did I think I’d be stumbling across Jim at the University of Glasgow library…in a manner of speaking.

*The Sounds archive and the man himself in the pages of a copy*

Did I borrow a book? No. I was a little too intimidated by it all yesterday. Overall it was quite the jaw-dropping experience and I will DEFINITELY be frequenting the uni’s library as often as I can.

Before heading to the UofG’s library, I popped into Hillhead library. I had a book to return that I had borrowed from the Possilpark branch that I had just finished reading. I know! I read the book in just TWO sessions! I KNOW! It was only 160 pages long – but yes! Hark at me and my “speedy reading”. Lol

I promised myself I wouldn’t borrow too many books – even though you can borrow up to 12 books at any time with Glasgow libraries, we all know I don’t read that fast! I couldn’t help myself though and came away with 4 books. Two books by Jean Rhys. I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea so much that when I saw two of her novels on the shelf, I had to borrow them. The other two I was taken with their titles initially – for very differing reasons. But then they both reeled me in with their synopses. The photo below shows the titles. How could I walk past a title like The Pheasant Plucker – I mean, come on! Lol

So now I have much reading to do!

*The views of Glasgow from various floors of the university library*

5 August 2023

The Russians

A good friend suggested that I read the Russians (reading is as much a part of the process of writing as anything else). Although I’ve read Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I’ve not read anything else by any other Russian author. The idea of reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, et al scares me. I’ve been recommended to read Nabokov, which I will do – as he might just be a little more accessible than the other two. If for no other reason than length and volume of dialogue. I’d like to read other Bulgakov works too at some point.

Myself and the OH went to Milngavie yesterday and we ended up perusing an Oxfam shop there. It had a decent book section. I have come to the idea of trying to pick up at least one book from a charity shop each time I am near one and so yesterday I was determined to leave Milngavie’s Oxfam shop with one book in my hands.

Well, blow me down. I found this! I’ve never heard of this author, but their name is obviously Russian. I checked out the details of the book and was taken with it being a collection of short stories. That appealed to me. The price also appealed as most other books I looked at with some initial interest to purchase were selling for £2.99. Mr Turgenev’s offering was a more appealingly priced £1.99. So, Mr Turgenev came back with me from Milngavie. I’m looking forward to diving into its pages.

6 July 2023

How’s That Summer Break Going?

Hello! It’s been a wee while. I was hoping that I would be posting here a little more than I have during the summer break away from uni.

I guess June was kinda crazy. Busy here and there. A few gigs and one that I couldn’t make due to Glasgow receiving a downpour of biblical proportions. I set out to go and made it as far as Buchanan Street then spent 45 minutes sheltered under a shop frontage before trying to continue on to the venue before finally and swiftly admitting defeat and heading home.

Towards the end of June I started getting my teeth into writing. I’ve taken out a subscription to a writing magazine and an online membership to their website. I’ve compiled a list of writing competitions that I am interested in entering over the next few months and have already been busying myself with researching and writing down ideas and actual fictional content and short stories.

I’m also reading as well. I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and am currently around a quarter of the way through reading Thackery’s Vanity Fair.

I am also still a consumer of podcasts and have recently been enjoying series two of Uncanny, as well as a few documentary style podcasts – one called Shiny Bob about the Edinburgh judicial system. Another titled A Very British Cult, about a life coaching ‘company’ called Lighthouse – which I’m quite bloody scared to mention here to be honest, given how they were portrayed.

Currently I am nearing the end of a podcast on the K-pop sex scandal. It’s called Burning Sun and is a series aired as part of the Intrigue podcast series on BBC Sounds. It’s really a very disturbing listen. The systemic sexual abuse of women in South Korea is absolutely abhorrent. And the fact that these outwardly looking ‘shiny, clean’ male K-pop stars behaved this criminally and disgustingly behind closed doors is beyond alarming. It’s truly frightening what lurks behind some country’s cultures – how we believe we see them and how they outwardly project themselves to be compared to how they truly are. How these kinds of behaviours can somehow be regarded as mere “cultural differences” is shocking.

If you can deal with the darkness of this podcast – for there are very stressing details on sexual assults and incidences of suicide discussed – then I recommend you listen to Burning Sun. You can find it on BBC Sounds – Link to the podcast HERE

I have another couple of weeks to wait before I get the result for my previous module and find out how well (or otherwise!) I did on my final assignment. Of course, I will let you know here (as much as I can) about it – bearing in mind that I will need to be careful just how much I can share about my mark and pass.

I’m also hoping to write here a little bit more often, in between writing work for the writing comps I’d like to enter.

For now, take care.

17 January 2023

Now The Hard Part Starts!

Yesterday I completed reading Jane Eyre and started on the course material. There is a lot to work through and it will pretty much have me reading the book all over again. It also has me fearing that I am going to struggle with the essays now.

My two previous results had lulled me into some moderate level of confidence which plummeted over the course of yesterday afternoon as I began to work through the course book and see how much I have to write in discussing the context and plot, etc, of Jane Eyre itself. Let alone what is to come with writing out a 600 word essay on both it AND Twelfth Night.

I slept well despite my misgivings, but a new dawn has brought renewed waves of misgivings. The doubt and concern continues into thinking about Creative Writing. I feel as though I need to be moderately good at English Literature and understand how I need to be able to deconstruct novels to potentially make my own writing good…and that scares me because I don’t feel as though I am not that good with close-reading and the skill of studying and analysing text.

I don’t want to spend the next three weeks feeling uneasy but I am not sure how to abate it and how to quell this attack of the modicum of self-confidence I had gained from my enjoyment of the past few weeks of study and from my assignment results so far in module A112.

I guess I need to just …. Breathe and take it a day at a time…

29 December 2022

Seasonal ‘No Mans Land” – Yet Study Waits For No Man

You know that period I mean? The time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day when you’re not sure what day it is and time seems to both crawl and travel at the speed of light at the same time. There’s so much food in the house that you feel obliged to eat it and feel like a permanent beached whale. That.

Well…today is Kerrsday (aka Thursday for the non-Jim Kerr obsessives – you lucky bunch!) – 29 Dec. It’s the penultimate day of my Christmas break from uni study. And although I’ve not been looking at any of the course work since I handed in my assignment, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been studying! Oh, no.

For the past few days I have been tackling Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, as both it and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre are literary pieces we need to read for the English Literature block of study we have coming up.

I’d read the 80 page introduction to the play and are now starting to read the play itself. I’ve just read Act I and about to start Act II. I’m reading through without the notation and will then read it again with the notation. I was apprehensive to start it but it feels okay at the moment. I feel as though I actually have a handle on what’s going on even if the ‘olde English’ phraseology is a tad intimidating to get to grips with.

Anyway, I best crack on!

Happy New Year!

18 December 2022

First 79, Now 80!

I received my mark for my assignment this afternoon. I honestly was not expecting it until the New Year. I always feel ssoooo nervous when the email notification comes in letting me know that my mark is ready for collection.

I can see the mark before I actually collect my tutor’s assessment and feedback. Again, as I arrived to the page to collect, I see a score of 80 and I’m just bloody stunned!

I can’t really go into any more detail than that. I have to be careful with what I discuss. Once again I am incredibly happy with my mark and fully understand and realise why I was deducted marks – or not scored as highly – for certain things I didn’t do right or shouldn’t have done.

Overall my result is really good and I got very positive feedback.

The tough stuff is to come next year. Tough in that these are the subjects I am doing my diploma for – English Literature and Creative Writing. I have William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre to tackle next with 600 word essays to write on each one of them.

In the meantime, there is some stuff happening with the house that’s going pretty crappy. When one part of your life seems to be going okay, other areas will be crap. It’s always the way!

I must apologise for the disruption to the blog today. I was sorting out my domain linking and changing over the blog’s theme to something I liked more. I hope you like it too.

Lastly, here’s another bit of Kerr Christmas fun. Yes…Jim will feature here now and again…he’s unavoidable. I’m more comfortable with him featuring here than my personal stuff and uni stuff featuring on the Simple Minds/Music blog.

15 February 2012

Biting Off More Than You Can Chew?

Here is my current ‘to-read’ list figure…

But this is where I currently stand with my book-reading challenge…

Yes, there is a discrepancy between the number of books in my to-read list and what I’ve set myself in the challenge – and thankfully so! I’d NEVER get through 53 books in 12 months! I swore I’d never load my Kindle up with far more books than I could read. But here I am, nearly 12 months into Kindle ownership and the proof I failed is there in black and white.

Kindle books are TOO easy to purchase…

28 September 2011

Goodie, Goodie, Yum, Yum!

Today was “Goodies” Day!

We were awoken to the sound of a pummel on the door. The parcel postie had arrived with a box of goodies sent to us by my mum. A rude awakening, but a welcome one!

And WHAT a treasure trove!

Full of lovely surprises as well.

The list is:

4 x Cheese Twisties

4 x Chicken Twisties

3 x Soya Chips

2 x Cadbuy Snack block

2 x Cadbury Caramello block

2 x Cadbury Marble block

1 x Cadbury Top Deck block

1 x Cadbury Dream block

2 x Whittaker’s Dark Chocolate 50% cocoa Rum ‘n’ Raisin

1 x Whittaker’s bite size coconut slab bag

1 x Whittaker’s bite size Almond Gold bag

2 x Twix share bags

2 x Snickers share bag

2 x Bounty share bags

1 x Raspberry liquorice bag

I have been particularly hankering after some raspberry liquorice of late, so to see a bag in the box was brilliant. The raspberry flavour of liquorice is harder to source over here than the standard aniseed flavour for some reason.

The goodies didn’t end there. My mum had sent a second, smaller box over. It arrived later in the afternoon. It contained a book I had bought on my last visit to Oz back in 2007 – which I had desperately wanted to bring back home with me – but I just had NO room to pack it in my luggage.

But wait, there’s more! (as Tim Shaw from the Demtel ads used to say).

My mother-in-law Mozzy (real name Rita, but family call her Mozzy, a nickname) knows I’m a Whovian and collects things for me from the papers and stuff and had got these for me…

Goodies!!! Goodies!!!! Goodie, Goodie, yum, yum!!!

26 April 2011

The Weaverfields Heir by David Bridger

Cover Blurb

A new love… an old evil…

When Kate Richards inherits a dilapidated English estate from her estranged grandfather, she finds herself thrust into a world full of hostile new family members, mysterious Romany tenants, and strange visions of “the net” – an invisible web that connects everything in the universe. Kate thinks she’s losing her sanity, but the odd family stories and disturbing tales of the locals convince her that something sinister is going on at Weaverfields, while the inescapable pull of the net draws her deeper into the secrets of her new home.

Excerpt

But with those secrets come danger, and an old evil that refuses to let go of its hold on the net — or on Weaverfields. The only person who seems to understand is Joe, a Romany street artist with his own ties to the land. Kate and Joe must master the net before the past intrudes upon the present… in very ugly ways…

The northbound traffic clogged up to a fuming jam that stuttered past the airport. Kate leaned back against the headrest and stared down her nose at the car in front. One more day. One more day. One more day…

After Roborough, the traffic jam dissolved and she took her place in the synchronised escape from the city. She was up on the moor, five minutes past Princetown, when she suddenly felt very ill. She pulled into a lay-by and opened her door slightly in case she had to throw up, thinking it must be the heat. She turned the engine off and closed her eyes.

Dizziness left her unable to move, as if a big net kept twisting and tangling her up, tighter and tighter. A hot flush spread through her chest, and her mouth tasted sour. Her heart throbbed in heavy, painful waves, making her arms ache and her fingertips prickle. Her neck stiffened. Darkness gathered on the edges of her vision and raced inward.

She panted in pain and panic. She was dying.

She saw her dream home in dappled sunlight. The pool water chuckled and hiccupped over the dam. A big fish swam placidly just below the surface, watching her, and deer grazed the lawn in front of her big house. She was dying and she didn’t care because she was going home.

Her chest exploded. She wet herself and her world faded to black.

* * *

Slowly, a lifetime later, she became aware that she was still alive. Her vision cleared, and she saw blue sky, purple moor, grey sheep and dusty black tarmac.

She saw everything in everything: the tiniest molecules in whatever she looked at. She looked into her windscreen, into the glass, saw every flaw, every colour. The liquid glass flowed in an intricate pattern. She retreated from the windscreen and saw her eyes, saw their colours, saw the cells through which she saw. She looked into her heart. Good grief, she could see her heart, beating her back into the outside world.

A web of gossamer threads covered everything in sight. Kate blinked hard to clear her vision, but it was still there when she opened her eyes. The web was everywhere, like a net, linking everything. Golden traces glowed and stretched to infinity in every direction. She looked through it, concentrated on the moorland, and the everyday world returned to its normal focus. She relaxed and let the net glow again and saw deep into everything.

A nearby gorse bush gleamed and pulsed with life. Patterns spread and contracted within its frame. The moor behind it remained three-dimensional while her gorse bush became its own vibrant world, tiny models of itself forming intricate combinations and multiplying throughout the whole: smaller and sharper, smaller and sharper.

She shut her eyes and fought her fear. What could it be? Epilepsy? A brain tumour? Madness? She filed these possibilities away for later. All she needed to do now was gain enough control to drive safely. A wet seat was the least of her problems.

It was dark before she managed it. Her phone rang, but she couldn’t spare any attention to answer it. Finally, she was able to start the car and ease it back onto the road. She wanted to go home, but she didn’t know where that was, so she headed for Bag End Cottage. It seemed to be in roughly the same direction.

Mum was at the door, watching for her. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick!”

She managed to climb out of the car and stagger halfway to the front door before the ground tilted violently. Blackness swirled through her mind and she heard Mum’s voice from a long way away.

“Kevin, call the doctor! Kate’s ill!”

via etopia-press.net

I new novel written by a dear Twitter friend which I have just purchased. Click the link above to buy a copy.

24 July 2008

Who’s Who?

Mozzy gave Em an audio CD of a Doctor Who story read by Mr T. Thought I’d just have a quick listen, was intrigued if he’d read it in Scots or English. He reads it in Scots (ooh la la – although slightly flattened and not so Paisley) , but does the voices, so goes back to Estuary English for The Doctor and even tries to imitate Rose’s Eastend accent – very funny! Nice to hear the Scots drawl though, albeit a bit subdued.

He starts his run of Hamlet today at Stratford-upon-Avon, wonder how he’ll play that?