Raven

A bowl of chicken noodle soup and then off to bed, my never ending cold has surfaced for a third bout . . .

Can't stand them! (btw, aren't options one and five in the poll the same thing?!)

Not as bad as the misleading Apple ones that spawned them though . . .

Well Windows 7 has just entered the beta test cycle so you should have an alternative to Vista later this year (whether that is any good of course, remains to be seen!).

Sounds a lot like Cornwell herself, if reports are accurate. Can I ask a favour, that should this turns into a discussion on the later novels spoiler tags be used? I've not read any of her books for a while, but I do have a couple of unread ones here that I will probably get around to one day and once someone has told me who did something, I have an annoying habit of not forgetting it! Now where did I put my keys?

I think I've seen this set, and I think it was

Excellent! Welcome to the forum!

'lo! Another one from the south coast, this truly is the bestest place to be!

Hur, hur, hur - provided all the drivers re-install correctly when everything comes back up again, and then you have the endless hours of fun downloading all the MS updates and installing them as well . . . If you don't know what you are doing, make sure you have someone on hand that can help you. If you are feeling brave, and do decide to have a go, the most important thing to do when re-installing Windows is to get your internet connection* back up again as soon as possible, as that gives you access to drivers from the internet should Windows not recognise components, and you can also shout for help on here! *Be sure to make a note of your internet connection settings before you start the re-install, it makes things a lot easier!

If memory serves, From Potter's Field was her best story, after that she started to sniff the movie rights money and things started to get a bit silly . . .

PvP At Large, by Scott Kurtz I've been reading PvP, an on-line comic strip that generally specialises in commenting on films, comics and the gaming industry, for the last few years, and I stumbled upon this in Forbidden Planet in London just before Christmas. Coming to it well after it started, I had missed a lot of the early strips, so this has filled in a lot of the back story for me. It has also reminded me that it used to be a lot funnier, and worked a lot better, when it stuck to making genre references (something it doesn't do much of today - although, ironically, today's strip does feature the TARDIS!).

If I can ask, why do those who have said they don't like Nineteen Eighty-Four not like it? I know it isn't a light read, but I'm fascinated by the concepts in it and the bleak future Orwell envisaged, I'm wondering if it is the latter that put people off?

*Slaps Charm as well*

I think Angels and Demons comes before The Da Vinci Code (they certainly reference the former in the latter, anyway). Baed on what I've read of his work, I don't think so! Never read any of her books so I can't comment! *Slaps DPrice* For shame sir, for shame!

I remeber you mentioning that before. I wouldn't worry about it too much, I suspect a 15-year old who doesn't read much will think they are really good!

Oh yes . . . I've tried reading it twice, and never made it past 60 pages either time. It's not the story that put me off, it‘s Dan Brown's writing - it's terrible!

I wasn't planning on writing reviews, or posting comments, on the books I read last year, but since you asked . . . I can't say I was too keen on them either, but having read the first I wanted to see how the series ended. In my experience Warcraft lore is basically a rambling mess, which isn't surprising when it was originally written to support on going computer game series, and not to be a story in its own right. It's certainly not like Lord of the Rings, where you have a game based on an established mythology, it's someone saying: "Right, years ago there were titans and they seeded this world . . ." before eventually getting to "and that's why the Alliance and the Horde don't like each other very much." Of course, as the sequels came out it mutated into "Three years after the battle of X, a new threat has arisen, and now the races of Azeroth must join together once again . . ." Blizzard have pretty much stolen story points and plot ideas from across the fantasy board, and although it doesn

That is a good idea! Quite often when I'm reading I'll think "I must remember that!" and, of course, two pages later, I can't even remember having thought "I must remember that!" - sounds like a good way of not forgetting, and it would help with reviews.

I think those days are behind me, no matter how good the film, but I do intend to watch it soon!

I've only ever seen the first film (I got the second for Christmas, but have yet to watch it!), but I'm tempted to give that - and the animated DVDs - a try.

Being in IT I spend a lot of time working with computers, and I don't help that when I come home and end up surfing the net for an hour or two or playing computer games. I also like to watch films and cult TV programs, so I find reading to be a refreshing alternative - something low-tech that requires no batteries and no hum of machinery. I also enjoy the process of discovery that you are involved in when reading a book, it is something you don't quite get with any other form of story telling. What's going to happen over the next page? Who knows?! It could be anything! Brilliant!

JPod, by Douglas Coupland JPod is a black comedy that tells the story of a group of software developers who struggle with the daily grind of their jobs, whilst trying to meet the ever more surreal demands of their marketing team. Throw in a drug dealing mother, a Chinese people smuggling ring, some ballroom dancing and Douglas Coupland himself, and things get truly bizarre . . . Having read Microserfs last year, this is a novel I was really looking forward to reading, especially as it has been talked up a lot by several friends of mine. In some ways this is more of the same - Coupland takes the basic format of Microserfs and updates it to today’s Google powered age - but at the same time the story is much more surreal. Both books are a commentary on working within the corporate structure, and on geekdom in general, but where Microserfs was grounded in the everyday and familiar, JPod is firmly set in the weird and fantastical. Everything seems to be slightly over-egged, and as a result I didn't find it as rewarding or enjoyable as I did Microserfs. There are some brilliantly observed comments and sequences in the book, but as it went on I couldn't shake the feeling that Coupland was being a bit too clever for his own good, especially when he started to appear in the book himself. If you work in IT, an office of any kind or are a bit of a geek then you will probably find quite a lot to like in JPod, but you will probably find a lot more in Microserfs, provided you are old enough to remember the mid-90s!

I prefer classical music and film scores, but I have been known to buy the odd contemporary album or two. I quite often listen to classical music, or film scores that don

I can't say I've never been tempted, but it's not something I've done in recent memory.

Yeah, but to be fair, you don't really need to be able to act to play Ron, you just have to be able to do prat falls and say "What?" occasionally!