Wordless Wednesday 80

Watched in 2009

This was an interesting exercise, as there isn't one place where I've recorded all the films I've seen in 2009. I had to look through notebooks, diaries and Excel spreadsheets, hunt for ticket stubs in pockets and handbags, and when all else failed, use my memory. This is the list I've come up with:

Watched on the big screen:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Informant!
The Ugly Truth
Eden is West
Twilight
New Moon
The Proposal
Slumdog Millionnaire
The Reader
Confessions of a Shopaholic
In the Loop
Star Trek
Angels and Demons
My Life in Ruins
State of Play

Watched on DVD for the first time:

The Darjeeling Limited
Reservation Road
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The Thomas Crown Affair (original)
Changeling
Arizona Dream
Grand Torino
The Painted Veil
The Good Shepherd
Night at the Museum
Easy Virtue
Taken
Firelight
Run, Fat Boy, Run
WALL-E
The Shawshank Redemption
Rosetta
Jersey Girl
Yes Man

My favourite new movie was without doubt The Reader, closely followed by Twilight, Eden is West and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Of the chick flicks, The Proposal gets my thumbs up.

As for the films I watched on DVD, I liked Reservation Road, Changeling, The Painted Veil, The Shawshank Redemption and Easy Virtue.

The wooden spoons go to My Life in Ruins, which was laughably bad, and The Darjeeling Limited, which was unbearable. In fact, The Darjeeling Limited deserves special mention as the only film that I've not managed to watch to the end. As someone easily mesmerised by the moving image, this is quite an achievement.

In 2010, I'm looking forward to watching The Girl Who Played with Fire, Eclipse and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part I (sequels, respectively, to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Twilight saga and the HP series), as well as Remember Me, for no other reason than I happened to see the trailer and liked it. The fact that Pierce Brosnan and Lena Olin are in it, is totally coincidental :-)



I'm looking for the movie equivalent of librarything.com or goodreads.com. If you know of any such websites, please leave a comment!

Read in 2009

I don't usually bother with past year reviews and new year resolutions, but I thought it'd be a good idea to put together a list of the books I've read and films I've watched over a certain period (in this case, 2009) for future reminiscing.

So, here are the books I've read between January and December 2009, grouped in three categories depending on the impression they made on me. Movies to follow.

Books I enjoyed very much and might read again sometime:

The Twilight Saga: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn and Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer
Chasing Daisy - Paige Toon
Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson
The Godmother - Carrie Adams
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
Stephenie Plum series: Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich
The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy

Books that I liked, but reading them once was enough:

Rumour Has It - Jill Mansell
In Death Series: Naked in Death and Glory in Death - Nora Roberts
This Charming Man - Marian Keyes
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
The Associate - John Grisham
Shame and Daughters of Shame - Jasvinder Sanghera

Books that I didn't like much or left unfinished:

One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed - Melissa Parente
Q & A - Vikas Swarup
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
Shame on You - Clara Salaman
True Blood Series: Dead Until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris

Do you ever wonder what it is that makes you like a book? Is it the quality of the writing, the believability of the characters, the excitement of the story, a combination of all three or something else entirely? If a book is part of a longer or ongoing story, does this make you more or less likely to want to read it?

Looking back at the books in my top list, I can remember the characters in each book very vividly, not just the main ones but the secondary ones too. I can remember what they looked like, what they behaved like and even some of their names, which is surprising as my memory for names is sieve-like at best. The storylines are an eclectic mix - romance, crime/thriller, chick-lit, literary fiction, comedy and mystery are all represented, so obviously I'm not loyal to one genre. The literary quality of the writing doesn't seem to be important either, otherwise Twilight wouldn't be in my top group, and Sophie's World wouldn't be in the bottom.

Interestingly enough, I seem to have got acquainted with a number of series for the first time this year - Twilight, Millennium, True Blood and In Death. Up until last year, the only series I was into were Stephanie Plum and Harry Potter. I guess my reading habits must be changing.

As for what 2010 might have in store, I'm looking forward to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (part 3 of the Millennium Trilogy coming out in paperback in April and not a day too soon), more books from the In Death series and last but by no means least, Finger Lickin' Fifteen, the next episode in the Stephanie Plum series. Roll on, 2010!

Guess who...

...went to work in black trousers and a navy-blue jacket yesterday?

Yep, it was me.

No, I wasn't making a fashion statement, just chose my outfit in a hurry during the hours of early morning semi-darkness. It appears that 8 Watt energy-saving light bulbs aren't much help when there's virtually no light coming in through the windows.

Yes, my colleagues noticed - all except Gina, who claimed she was colourblind (but I suspect she was just too kind to laugh). It was impossible to miss really. If you place black and navy side-by-side under fluorescent lights, you'll know what I mean.

I also had a massive toe hole on my ladder-resist tights. I guess the packet didn't make any claims regarding toe holes, just ladders.

At least I had matching shoes on, both in excellent condition (no visible scuffs, heels attached etc.).

I kept the jacket off and shoes on all day long, and thanked my lucky stars that those were the only mishaps of Day 3 in the office.

Day 4 went without a hitch. Maybe, hopefully, I'm getting the knack of it.

Too eager or what?

For the next ten days or so I'll be temporarily joining the local workforce, which, you may remember, I left 11 months ago. I've not yet started looking for a proper job (I admit I'm enjoying life in the slow lane way too much) but occasionally a little bit of work comes my way, and I don't like to say no to some extra $$.

Today was supposed to be my first day.

What did I do yesterday morning? Why, I got up, showered, put on my power suit and went to work. Yep, you've guessed it, I got my dates mixed up and went in a day early.

This has got to be one of the most embarrassing things ever - it certainly makes my personal Top 10 of idiotic moments. I mean, I know some people are too early for appointments and stuff (BTW I hate these people) but whoever heard of reporting for work a day early?

Luckily, I was saved from total mortification by someone else's bad planning: the project I'm supposed to be helping with went majorly wrong yesterday morning and they needed all hands on deck. Just as well I turned up nice and early at 8:55 AM. I was welcomed with a puzzled look and a sigh of relief by my boss, and no one else stood still long enough to wonder what I was doing there. After all, who questions the presence of an extra lifeboat when they're sinking?

So, as of yesterday, I'm a worker, and the project is back on track.

A belated new year's eve party

You may recall that last Saturday we celebrated new year's eve... a few days late. Here is photographic evidence of a very enjoyable evening.


The Christmas decorations came out in force... We didn't have time to put up our XL Christmas tree, so we settled for our compact Greek Christmas boat, complete with a small army of Santas - because in Greece Santa comes on new year's eve, not Christmas day. The orangey thing with the tassel is a pomegranate. It symbolises prosperity for the coming year.


This is our drinks station. In case you're wondering, these weren't all the drinks we had. Everything that needed to be kept cold (white wine, rose wine, aquavit, beer and soft drinks) we left outside on the balcony, as it was colder outdoors than inside the fridge.

I bought the festive tablecloth and matching napkins and paper plates half price at the post-Xmas sale. There are definitely advantages to celebrating late :-)


Mini millionaire shortbread squares, mini cappuccino brownie bites and glazed cinnamon stars (zimtstern) were also half price.


Loops made the vasilopita, traditional Greek new year's cake with a hidden coin, to be cut and shared out amongst those present. He or she who finds the coin is supposed to enjoy good luck for the next 12 months.


We also had traditional English Christmas cake (half price), gingerbread Santas (BOGOF) and a selection of Greek "syrup sweets", like kantaifi, touloumba and ravani (not discounted).

Needless to say, we had a lot of food too. No one thought to take any pictures.


We ate, linked hands and did the Auld Lang Syne thing (no photos either), then we cut the vasilopita.


Manni found the coin in her piece and is now looking forward to a good 2010. The rest of us just ate cake.


As we weren't sure if the the vasilopita would turn out OK (neither Loops nor I had ever made one before) we'd ordered a new year cake from a bakery. This one we had for dessert.

Looking at these photos, you may jump to the conclusion that our new year's party was all about eating cake. We did however also have a lot of food and drink, and we danced a bit too. But yes, we ate a lot of cake. In fact, even though most guests took food and cake home with them (Chris and Owen even took a whole veggie pizza), and our neighbour Jenny came round again the next day to help us finish off the leftovers, there is still party food in the house.

Anyone care for a slice of Christmas cake? Or a mini sausage?

Wordless Wednesday 79