Author Archive: Lesley Jakobsen
Ubik (by Philip K. Dick)
Philip K Dick's android head on the subway
Mr Philip K. Dick does not need our praise, but he’s going to get it anyway. Written in 1969, Ubik envisages a 1992 in which there is no internet (thank goodness, it would have only slowed things down) but there are “Psis”, (telepaths, precogs, animators, para-kineticists) and their nullifiers, called “inertials”. A powerful telepath (S, Dole Melipone (don’t bother, it’s not an anagram)) is no longer on Terra and does not appear to be on any of the world colonies, either. The counter-Psis employed by Glen Runciter, of Runciter Associates (an “anti-psi prudence organisation”) lurch and lope into action. It is their job to know where every one…
Continue Reading →The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
See "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" instead.
(by Umberto Eco). Umberto Eco may have been a gift from God (Ex Caelis Oblatus) but this novel is not divinely inspired. Yambo (Giambattista Bodoni), the narrator, is fog-bound. Following an ‘incident’ (a stroke?), he loses his episodic memory. His doctor explains, “It’s episodic memory that establishes a link between who we are today and who we have been, and without it, when we say ‘I’, we’re referring only to what we’re feeling now, not to what we felt before, which gets lost, as you say, in the fog.” This concept is applied rather loosely by Eco in the service of allowing Yambo, now in his sixties, to…
Continue Reading →Crochet Cabaret
BIG REVEAL TIME! I have finished the blue Juliet Jacket The buttons are little clear ones with blue flowers. Problem is, I decided to crochet only one buttonhole because I was too lazy at that time to bother with measuring for placement. I also thought that I would not do up the buttons. But now that I see it finished, I think it needs to be done up. So one day I must be very brave and get out the seam ripper, carefully cut buttonholes and then buttonhole stich around the cut quickly. Eeep! Can anyone think of a better way…
Continue Reading →10 Things We Hate About Shops and Salons
The conversation-starters which clothes sales assistants and hairdressers learn by rote. “Is it still windy/hot/raining out there?” “On your lunch break?” “Got much on this weekend?” “Do you live/work around here?” “Got a special occasion coming up?”… but…nail technicians won’t, or can’t speak English and they’ve got your hands imprisoned for an hour. “Do you have our special loyalty card? No? Would you like to join our loyalty programme? No? You should because you can get 2 percent off and endless emails from us. No? It’ll only take a minute to sign you up. No? Do you collect our special stickers?” “Have you taken…
Continue Reading →10 Things We Hate About Non-Readers
(SNOB WARNING) As Howard Beale might have opined in Network: We hate, or at least deprecate folks who say, or maintain, – 1. “Have you read all these books?” 2. “I had a whole set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when I was a kid”. 3. “I don’t read much but I’m reading The Road and it’s beautifully written.” 4. “I don’t read much but I’m reading the Harry Potter books and they’re great for adults.” 5. Houses in which the books obviously serve only as décor. 6. “Have you read Warnie’s life?” 7. Books as furniture. 8. (Quiz show genius) “I’m…
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