"Gerry fucking Anderson" vs "Ronco Woo-Matic"

I only managed to read one book last month. Well, three if you count two stories from an anthology of four. And those two stories were 300 and 180 pages respectively, and the whole book is 930 pages long, so maybe I will count them as separate books?

Anyway, the first book of this post - the fifth read this year - I found in a cupboard in our spare bedroom. It's one of SP's. I only picked it up because the cover was brightly coloured (just call me magpie), but, as I had actually picked it up, I thought I might as well read it, because I didn't have any other books to read that I hadn't read before. Well, that's a lie: I've got two in the loft, but that would have meant going up there to get them, and we all know how lazy I am, so that didn't happen.

I'm not going to review this book (when do I ever do reviews?). Instead, I'm going to leave you with some of my favourite quotes:

5. T-Shirt and Genes, by Richard Asplin

"'Well then,' I said with a heartiness that would make Brian Blessed look like Beaker from The Muppet Show." Page 134 - That must have been a VERY hearty "Well then" then!

"I could see screaming behind her eyes the white-knuckle restraint of a YOU FUCKING SPAZMO DURRRR! pulling at its lead." Page 169 - I know this one. I'm constantly restraining this particular beast when I'm at work. Or navigating around useless pedestrians. Or driving The list goes on...

"Smiling on cue, curtseying to the royal box, nodding away benignly like I had Gerry fucking Anderson at the controls." Pages 189-190 - I nearly widdled myself with laughter when I read this.

"Two children, barely eight months old, were strapped slightly into the chairs - as if at any moment Houston might finish the countdown and fire them off into the stratosphere." Page 262 - The best place for children as far as I'm concerned. Unless they end up in my flight path.

"This is was I was up against.
That smug face. That smug chiselled face which was, I checked my watch quickly, probably at this very moment being gazed into lovingly by my ex, all the while his mouth going ten to the dozen. Like a Ronco Woo-Matic, more coffee, sweetheart? I've got a nice wine in the fridge if you like I love what you've done to your hair I've got us tickets for this no no let me pick you up my treat mmm you smell gorgeous c'mere. All the arms in his olive-green romantic arsenal deployed. The Oozing 9mm, the Surface to Hair complimenting missile.
This is what I was up against.
I threw the photograph across the room with a card sharp's wrist flick.
And then promptly tutted, got up and fetched it from behind the telly, still murmuring away to itself. Because I could whine and stamp the floor and beat my fists and thcream and thcream and thcream until I wath thick about it not being fair." Page 286 - I just love the Oozing 9mm Surface to Hair complimenting missile. So much!

So. They were excerpts from T-Shirt and Genes, a story about a man who loses his girlfriend and his hapless plotting and scheming to win her back, along the way trying to work out the science behind love. Well, he is, or was, should I say, a science teacher.


Aaaaannd onto the second & third book, or just half a book if you're pernickety: 6.1 & 6.2. Stephen King's Four Past Midnight.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that I'm not a Stephen King fan - As regular readers will have noticed, what with the lack of posts about Stephen King books I've read. I found, after three or four books (or were they the film/TV movie adaptions?), that the stories were all a bit same-y. Good concepts but dulled by their similarities and by their sheer buried-under-an-avalanch-of-them number. Prior to this book, I don't think I'd read one of his books in years. And if I remember rightly, it was Carrie (a fantastic book, actually).

Anyway, this was another of SP's books, but I didn't just find this one laying around: SP handed it over and said I should read it. Albeit almost a year ago. And now I'm reading it, but only because - as I stated above - I don't have anything else to read.

The first story in the book is: The Langoliers. Rather than me try and tell you what it's about, you can just watch the trailer for the (inevitable) TV movie. It looks shockingly cheap and badly acted, and the comments on You Tube seem to support this. Don't get your hopes up.



The second story from Four Past Midnight is Secret Window, Secret Garden. Luckily for me, this has also been made into a movie. Although, I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it's true to the original story. Quite frankly, I don't care. If it's anything like the story, it'll be obvious what the twist is.



So that's it for another month. Next month (or at the end of this one), I'll post about the last two stories from Four Past Midnight plus, hopefully, at least a couple more books I've read.