Sit down and be counted

A few years ago, The Bob asked his friends for their favourite five books. It generated a month or so of debate/slander between pals and strangers alike, much of it regarding 'If On A Winter's Night PISS OFF PISS OFF PISS OFF'. I think Paul Auster was the top authorial dog, but it might have been Tolkein. I've been chatting with Banks about 'books to read before you die' - we both had lengthy lists but it was interesting and in the spirit of clarity I'm resurrecting the 'Top 5' challenge to ask the same of you chumps.

The good thing about commenting on the blog, rather than email, is that your Top 5s will be out in the open rather than huddled away in the sweaty recesses of The Bob's Gmail account, and he won't be able to diddle the results: I still can't believe that many people read Calvino and actually enjoyed it. So there you have it; depending on how it goes, future weeks may bring about requests for Top 5 films of the 1980s, debut records, cartoon characters, vegetable soups and Scottish bouldering venues. Who knows? Chances are we can leave it at books, which will save the hassle of proving by consensus that the answers are The Goonies, Weezer: Weezer, Wile E. Coyote, leek and potato and Applecross (when it's windy).

In no order:

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Fiesta, or The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Proud Highway/Fear And Loathing In America by Hunter S. Thompson

This really hurts. I've had to leave out Phillip Pullman and Roald Dahl; no showing for that sprawling monster House Of Leaves or the ice of The Bell Jar. I've gone with American Psycho but I was THIS close to Lunar Park. Chatwin pushed New York Trilogy out but it was a bloody fight, and scraps of paper are still drifting in the air-con like clowns in a regional Russian circus.

No Great Gatsby!
No Cloud Atlas!
No Walking On Glass!

I'm allowed two books by the Doctor because they are companion volumes of his letters - in the same vein, Lord of the Rings will count for one choice, rather than Fellowship Of The Ring, Two Towers and Return Of The King counting as three. Magazines don't count, Tim, so you're not allowed FHM for November-March. Plays and collections of poems do count. Anthologies do not count because they are a cop-out and you should be accountable, see.

The Bob: if you still have them, email me the old results and I'll add them in somewhere.

Arcade Fire Neon Bible is as mysterious and uplifting and quietly compelling as the night sky over Cornwall I can see satellites an orgasm in the right company morning sea mist on the Western lochs camping out and in the morning drinking tea with friends finding an old scrapbook where there are photos of people you love and they are not aware of the camera.

Inday and me are still bound for Ningaloo. That 'hippy' tourguide job - a seasonal vacancy - was denied me because I do not have permanent residency. Boo! And I could almost manage the 400 metres without getting twinges in my left arm. But the population of Exmouth explodes from 2,500 to 6,000 over the four month whale shark season and there will be work.

A film for Agent Blue - the Japanese movie Versus, regarded by enthusiasts as "...the only film which manages to mix swords, guns, gangsters, zombies, zombies with guns and swords, zombie gangsters with guns and swords, god-like super-beings, martial arts, assassins and police officers into one film set entirely in a forest on a timeline that spans millennia." It's crazy but beautifully shot, and it also features samurai, sniper rifles and tributes to Evil Dead.

Hot Fuzz is out over here soon, and I expect it to be funny, if slightly long... hey Banks, did Ric keep his job? We also watched Thank You For Smoking which is rather clever and tonight we're off to see Blood Diamond at the open air cinema. I like the nights over here. They are mild and pleasant after the broiling by day. I was told with some authority that should you (by which I mean me) come from a cold climate (Scotland) it takes about 18 months for your blood (my blood) to thin to the point where you are (I am) comfortable in a hot climate (Australia). I am still not sure if I'm being taken for a sucker. Professor Barndad will have the answers!

Outside, the sky is smudged with platypi, with longships and matadors, swans, dinosaurs, rockets. The sails dissolve in the sun and drift away, away.

Thou art a villain

I have it on good authority that my last blog was rubbish - thanks, Tim, for letting me know - and that I am absolutely not allowed to write about climbing again. Which is a shame, because I was feeling very pleased with myself for getting free entry to the Hangout after setting a new route. Named after some cartoon from some website from some link that someone sent me, 'I AM STILL AFRAID OF VELOCIRAPTORS' is Aussie grade 19 and no-one - including me - has climbed it first time yet, which makes me very happy. But you don't want to know about that, do you? So never mind.

This is the plan, comrades - lovely girlfriend Inday and I are heading north up the coast to a place called Ningaloo Reef at the start of April. Inday has landed a job working onboard the tourist charter boats as videographer, filming the punters splashing around the annual whale shark migration. These bus-sized monsters pass Ningaloo every year between April and July, quaffing plankton and sea gubbins, coated with remoras and trailed by an entourage of other marine life. They look amazing. We'll be staying barely a hundred kilometres from the Tropic of Capricorn in a small town called Exmouth which is famous for not having a wet season; I'll share the editing and film the days Inday can't, and I'm looking for a job for me, too - the best bet cropped up yesterday with an eco-resort looking for tour guides. Tim will be pleased to know that they did everything short of specify 'hippy' on the vacancy notice. Part of the interview is a 400-metre swimming 'test', so I'm trying to get down to the beach every day and practice, practice...

Yesterday morning, while drinking coffee in Inday's kitchen:

"Dad, what's that game where you flip things down?"
"Othello?" It's been thirty years but Dennis still has a broad Yorkshire accent.
"Othello, that's it. We should play that. Did you ever read the play?"
"No," I said. "Not that one."
"Call yourself a literature student? Hah!"

We drink coffee.

"What was the phrase in there?"
"Which phrase?"
"You know, that phrase. 'The beast... the beast with two backs'. That's it. 'The beast with two backs'. What does that mean again?"

I never before this moment appreciated the meaning of 'my blood froze in my veins'.

"Umm, I'm not sure."
"Oh, come on! 'The beast with two backs'! It's in Othello. 'The beast with two backs'. Isn't that what Othello says when he's angry, Dad? 'The beast with two backs'?"

Dennis is silent and I am winking frantically at Inday.

"I think it's when he's angry. He says 'The beast with two backs'... Why are you looking at me like that, babe? What? 'The beast with two backs'... and you call yourself a literature student... 'The beast with two backs'. 'The beast with two backs... two backs'..."

Inday is struck with a sudden look of horror and she stops talking. Dennis has still not said anything. We leave.

Othello 1,1:

IAGO I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
BRABANTIO Thou art a villain.

New music! Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire have both released astonishing new albums, and that idiot Banks has finally got around to putting up new songs on 'My Friend Otto', and not before time, too.

Yesterday I found a small scorpion. I put him in an old coffee jar and called him Boris but he didn't do much so I let him go.

The paving is going well in the back garden.