A Ship With A View

[nameandnature]

The Lakes were lovely. We had excellent weather, and the scenery was beautiful. S and I took many, many photographs. We walked up Cat Bells, went to the Sellafield Visitors Centre (which, disappointingly, does not sell fluorescent T-shirts saying "I've been to Sellafield"), went on a boat trip, and also managed to do a bit of reading in the evenings.

At Brantwood, John Ruskin's former home, we happened across a performance of The Tempest by Illyria, who were excellent: a company of 5 actors, a simple set and a rollicking performance, in the best tradition of traveling players (being a Pratchett geek, I thought of Vitoller's Men in Wyrd Sisters).

We also happened across a "3 for £10" deal on SF classics in a bookshop, so I bought Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowiz. I've read Canticle, so that's gone to S. The Forever War's grinding tale of the pointlessness of war came to mind when I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on Sunday night. My favourite was The Left Hand of Darkness, though, for the evocative and touching description of an alien society. Recommended.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was biased and polemical and relied too much on pathos (or do I mean bathos?), but was quite terrifying for all that. I hope lots of Americans are watching it.

Comments

Pathos and bathos

[(Anonymous)]

I expect I'm missing a joke here (what with not having seen Moore's film myself yet), but just in case I'm not: Pathos is

look at all these grieving mothers and heartbroken families and poor injured kittens, boo-hoo

and bathos is

My fellow Americans! Now is a great hour in our noble nation's history, the opportunity for us to make a great sacrifice that will ring out down the halls of posterity, to make our nation truly great once again, to save the world from a peril the like of which it has never known before. So, please, give generously to the Snugglebunnies Appeal for Slightly Unhappy Children. Thank you.