Mostly just an update to go with my poem. This poem has been floating about in my head for a week as a couple of images - the prayer flags under the bright blue sky and the stone on the ice. Last night the story came to me and then the poem:
Like a Stone on the Ice (HTML)
Watching the Versace documentary earlier this week and also listening to Ulrika Johnsson on Radio 4 it occurred to me - why on earth are we so fascinated by celebrity. We take the most insecure vacuous people our society has to offer and elevate them to this "star" status. The question is though - are we worshiping them or is it like watching monkeys in the zoo?
I've been rereading the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials Trilogy. This really is an excellent set of books. Much better than Harry Potter which although they are damm good stories are very traditional. The Dark Materials books are very inventive and have a much darker edge to them. Well recomended. Also I have been reading the book Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About that goes with the website (and it turns out very famous newspaper column :-) but I don't do newspapers anymore). Not a good book for reading late at night in a quiet house - last night I had to keep hiding under the bed covers to have a good laugh out loud. Very funny though.
Posted by Mark at October 24, 2002 04:11 PM