Cat sitting with wireless broadband. Yipee! Currently reading Journey to the end of the night by Celine and Straw Dogs by John Gray.

What can I say about the author Dan Brown? His books (I’ve read The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons) are both exciting if perhaps slightly predictable – but they are written like shite. I know how hard it is to write decent prose, I have a 20,000 word novel draft gathering dust on my hard drive. I can’t even bring myself to look at it. But this guy is a professional right? There’s a noticeable difference between The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons – Mr Brown may have been attending a writing course. Ms Natasha recognised the similarity between Da Vinci code and The Genesis Code. Does that mean if I can pay ‘homage’ to a story by referencing it in the title I can change some of the names around and use it for my own novel?

I’ve just about finished reading my debut amazon purchase, ‘Joel on Software’ . It has changed some of my work habits (which were pretty bad to start with) and made me think about development in a new way. It is also easy to read and f-ing funny. We’re about to interview for a temp at work, so I found this article of interest. Joel elaborates a little more in the book and offers this gem:

The worst kind of interviewer is the blowhard. That’s the kind who blabs the whole time and barely leaves the candidate time to say, “yes, that’s so true, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

Hmmm, seems familiar to me for some reason.

I’ve just read Eats, Shoots & Leaves . There’s no excuse for my poor punctuation now. I was really impressed by the writing style of Lynne Truss who is bloody funny (I didn’t realise that a book on punctuation could be funny) and it really was a joy to read. And now I also know what an Oxford comma is (among many other things). You should read it – we have to take action before written english is permanently damaged.