Ice cubes in the fire

Oxford

So. The more perceptive among you may have noticed that there hasn't been much action up on this blog recently. However, something quite big happened to me, recently. Something that I've been waiting/hoping for for a good long time.

I've been accepted to read English at Oxford University.

And in case you're in any doubt, that's THE Oxford University. Not Oxford Brookes. Or some Oxford Uni in the USA. Or anywhere else, in fact.

I'm very, very happy. I found out five days ago, and I'm still very, very happy.

Now I just need to get 3As in my A-levels. Meh.

Yay! Yay yay yay!

It looks like the UK launch of Apple's iTunes Music Store will be the day after my last exam. Oh I am so very, very excited right now. I've been waiting for this day for so very long!

So New Media

One of my favouritest of all blogs, Blog of a Bookslut is currently being... blogged by the wonderful Ben Brown, publisher:

Someone wrote in yesterday asking for more of a look into the life of a ultra-micr-mini publisher, so I thought I'd illustrate the sort of thing I do on a daily basis.

Yesterday, I flew back to Austin from San Francisco on a (delayed) red-eye flight. I had been in SF, theoretically, to work on my novel and a collection of short stories. In reality, I spent most of my time drinking Chimay in a bar where they played electronica.

I arrived at 10:45 in the morning. I rushed home from the airport so that I could get online and start my day job -- I am a consultant for an interactive media firm in Chicago. The work I do for this firm pays my bills, and pays for most of what So New Media does. My job is boring, and I will not go into any more detail, except to say that when people ask me what I do, I say "Computer stuff."

At noon, I went to the post office to collect the So New Media orders that had arrived while I was gone. There were two -- one from the Midwest Library Service for one copy of one book, and another from a book wholesaler for 2 copies of the same book. After the shipping supplies and postage, SNM will net about $1 per book.

Sales are, obviously, booming.

Now I really want to become an ultra-micro-mini-publisher too, when I'm grown up. Damn. I think I'm in love.

Das Lied von der Brad

There's a wonderful piece up on (the New Yorker Music Critic) Alex Ross's blog analysing the soundtrack to that awful, awful film, Troy:

Horner is presenting us with a kind of musical meta-narrative of deconstructive requotation—a postmodern tour-de-force on par with the Pierre Menard Don Quixote. Notice the emphasis on Shostakovich and Prokofiev, two composers who served unwillingly as mouthpieces for totalitarian terror. We are being told that the hero Achilles has let himself become a figurehead for the tyrannical Agamemnon. The citation of Britten, meanwhile, is a sly acknowledgement of the story’s homoerotic subtext, which was evidently omitted for fear of persecution by the Bush regime.

It's a great laugh, so go read the whole thing.

As you can see, I've just added a 'Currently Reading' list on the right, so that you can see... what I'm currently reading. Obviously enough. As you've probably noticed, I'm on a major biography kick right now.

This is shameless self-promotion

(You have been warned)

There's quite a cool article about me on my school website, about this little writing prize which I was award on Thursday. When I get the photos from the event, I'll post them.

Andrew Motion is, for those of you who don't know, the Poet Laureate.
And pretend the grammatical mistake isn't there... They've promised me it'll be corrected soon...

Because I can never resist a bandwagon

From now on, 'Ice cubes in the fire' can also be accessed via www.sceefy.tk. Isn't that easy to remember?

Oh, by the way, Mailinator is the best thing in the world. Ever. After sliced bread.

Now that we're having an EU referendum...

From The Friday Thing:

Reasons for voting 'Non' - We've always hated the French. It's that simple... German translates badly into English, making them all sound like Nazis. For example, by a quirk of translation, 'Would you like a slice of cake?' becomes 'ACHTUNG! The cake you will be having NOW!'... Have you seen what the Spaniards do to those poor little bulls?... Some Germans consider Kevin Keegan perms, leather pantaloons (worn with enormous white Air Jordans) and check pattern blazers to be the height of fashion... Voting 'no' will spite Tony Blair...