H is for Hornby

There must be some kind of zeigesty thing going on as my friend Owen wrote a blog this week on High Fidelity. Either that or he’s just nicking my ideas…

I’ve read this before, and obviously seen the film a few times, but I felt like reading something familiar. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the tale of Rob Gordon, a man recently dumped by his long term, live in girlfriend. It’s a single focus story which means, as with all first persons, that you can’t quite trust the protagonist. In this case, however, you feel that he’s more honest than most. Be warned, there might be spoilers ahead.

Rob’s not a very likeable person, but like any normal human being he has good and bad points in his character. He owns a record shop, Championship Vinyl. A quick google turns up about 60,000 hits for ‘Championship Vinyl shop’, and one site lists it as ‘the greatest record shop that never was’. Other than that, he’s in his mid thirties and still thinks he’s a student. He’s also obsessed with the past, and quite a large part of the book’s taken up with him tracking down all of his ex-girlfriends in an effort to prove that he’s blameless for his recent break up with Laura. Perhaps I’m being harsh, but that’s just the way I see it.

Despite this, though, I still like Rob Gordon. If I met him, I’d probably have a drink with him (not in that way) although he’d no doubt bore me to tears within about twenty minutes, talking about his top 5 songs not to drive to (Number One: Leader of The Pack) or quizzing me on my five first gigs, then cringing at choices I made more than a decade ago.

Music is a big part of the book, and it’s satisfying when you recognise the song being discussed, although it’s equally dissatisfying when you don’t. It’s the same with everything, I suppose – books, food, film… You’re part of a club when you know the reference, and when you’re not, you nod along and pretend you know what’s going on.

Another big part of the book is the location in London. Not the square mile, but the Zone 6 areas. It’s dingy and rundown but it grounds it in a reality that I felt the film lacked with an American setting. Don’t get me wrong – they did a good job transferring it, but everything was made a bit more shiny, glossy, hopeful. Marie LaSalle in the book is peaches and cream, slightly rounded, whereas in the film she’s Lisa Bonet – lithe, sexy and more coffee and cream. To be honest, these are minor gripes and I think both the book and the film stand up well to scrutiny. I have to wonder though, how happy Nick Hornby is at least two of his London based books being transferred across the Atlantic, the other one being Fever Pitch, which morphed from a football focussed book into The Perfect Catch, a baseball loving Jimmy Fallon wooing Drew Barrymore. I think the rights money probably eased that pain a little.

I’ve read a few of Nick Hornby’s books now, and High Fidelity is the most appealing one to me, probably down to the amount of music and the effect it has on Rob’s life, from teenager to middle-age. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s found themselves arranging their music in chronological order, or their films by director’s chronological order.

Modern day addictions

Another week, another... dollar? I can never remember how the saying is meant to go.
Anyway, my point is, it’s Monday. The rain is still falling from the sky and I am still neglecting to wear a jacket or even carry an umbrella.

I’m pretty happy today as the engineering work has officially finished, which means my journey now takes an hour and twenty minutes instead of two hours and multiple changes. Huzzah.
The train was disconcertingly full this morning though. Other people actually had to sit next to me. My favourite was the man who sat down across the table from me and proceeded to actually kick my feet out of the way. When I protested (by saying “Ouch”) he barked at me to move my bag, which was nestling happily between my feet, to the rack. As if, upon seeing a fairly young girl alone he deduced he could be the boss of me. I replied with “It’s fine where it is, actually” and then he tried to start a foot war, which I politely ignored. I don’t understand some people. There isn’t a lot of room, granted, but I try to stick to my side of the table as much as possible. I do have long legs though, so I’m aware that I take up more room than people would expect me to.

This month has to be the slowest month in the world. Fact. I’m sure I last got paid about six weeks ago, and yet here I am, with another week to go. This month has been tremendously busy though – in a time span of a fortnight there has been no less than six birthdays, that I can think of off the top of my head. Darn winter, making everyone go to bed earlier. Oh, winter. I can feel it already – let’s face it, our summer happened somewhere around mid-May. Our grass is already out of control again, but it’s never dry for long enough so we can cut it properly. I say we. I mean Mr Charming.

Oh, and I’d just like to say. Hello. My name is Suzanne, and I’m a scrabulous addict. It’s like a disease. If I get beaten and my score diminishes rapidly, I sulk. If I win, my score never increases by enough. I check scrabulous every ten minutes or so, to see if anyone has moved since I checked it last. I think I need help. Well, maybe just a bit more willpower. Or I may have to self-block facebook at work. But then I wouldn’t be able to play Scrabulous, which may mean that I think about it all of the time and get no work done anyway.... In fact, if any of the people who might be reading this fancy a game – feel free to click on my scrabulous link. I play SOWPODS regular games and normally score over 300. I sometimes use an anagram helper but never use words I don’t understand, or board generators.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to urge everyone to read my friend’s film review blog. He’s going to be writing for the NME pretty soon, so catch him before he’s catapulted into the mainstream and leaves all of us lowly bloggers behind... Also, he said he’d read my blog as I read his, so maybe he’ll be more interested with a bona fide mention.

I've been thinking about a conversation we had this morning at work. One of my colleagues commented on a new breed of commuter in this area - that of the business lady with trainers on. Personally, I hate this 'look', and said so in my usual subtle way. My other (male) colleague then told me that I didn't 'get' it and people who do that are trying to be comfortable. I replied that there are flats for this purpose, which means that you don't look like a moron. The conversation was terminated there, which I think was a bit of a shame because there could have been some interesting discussion. My office is about 99% male, so the view would have been different. It still got me thinking though - is it just sensible to wear trainers with your work outfit and then slip on heels at work (especially if you're visiting the gym during the day) or is it plain fugly?

Of course, it's a moot point for us really. We wear jeans and t-shirts.