It’s the silent week so I choose to remain relatively silent. I’ll post several pictures instead, of me and The Loved One setting her paintings on display at the Kaisaniemi metro station. Some of her works can be seen on her webpage too.

Here’s me supervising the hanging up of the pictures and delighting the commuters and other passers-by with my unsurpassable impression of a retarded orangutan in an open glass cage. O how I laughed and o how everyone else pretended not to notice me at all.


RECENT BOOKS OF CHOICE:
”The Somnambulist” by Jonathan Barnes, a kind of a spy novel set in Victorian age London. I picked this up from a clearance sale in London, mainly because the cover looked enticing. It was a gripping read although now that I’ve finished it my feelings are very mixed and I can’t decide whether I really liked the book or just enjoyed the language. The plot certainly leaves a lot to be desired for, with an endless amount of loose ends left flapping about as the story progresses at an breathtaking pace. Virtually every character is introduced in a haphazard way and most of them remain very thin and one-dimensional. On the other hand, a lot of them die, refreshingly I might add, compared to the way many writers seem to cling on to every single character they create and never let them expire completely, or if they do, it’s all very sentimental and exaggerated.

But not here. Hastily outlined people keep popping up, making a brief and unconvincing spectacle of themselves before getting killed. The story goes here and there and twists unexpectedly and incredibly. The use of an unreliable narrator (explained interestingly and in depth here) is particularly clumsy and implausible once the identity of the narrator is revealed. Many ideas remain largely undeveloped, sometimes frustratingly and sometimes mercifully so, but the overall quirkiness and whimsicality make it all rather entertaining so the points I’ve made aren’t necessarily negative. And I learned some 50 new words while reading this book, or at least looked them up and then quickly forgot their meanings again.

It’s the authors’ debut novel so that might explain why it lacks its’ own voice at times and leans a bit too heavily towards Neil Gaiman´s “Neverwhere” and Alan Moore’s “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen”.
All in all, it started very promising and went gradually downhill all the way to the lame ending but was worth reading anyway. A review in this blog sums it up much in a way I would if I were able to write as well and think as analytically as I’d like to.

As it happens, I accidentally stumbled upon the film “The Illusionist”, mentioned on the above blog, the other day on TV, watched it and enjoyed it enormously. I hardly ever watch any movies so I didn’t know this even existed but now I’m very glad it does since it is a wonderful film and a beautiful story. Here’s some background information of it. Sometimes it’s worth the trouble, taking your chances in front of a television. Usually not, though.

RECENT BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Me and The Loved One have lately come to share a bottle of sparkling wine on Thursday evenings to mark the official beginning of a weekend in our household and this weeks’ choice was Lindauer Brut from New Zealand, recommended by the editor of a Finnish champagne magazine as a good substitute if you’re not prepared to buy actual champagne. It lacked the yeasty flavour some cavas have, which is a positive point, but it also somehow lacked in depth, lenght, the amount of bubbles and the indefinable spirit, the all-round and overall presence. So the general impression was one positive point and numerous negative points. The taste was smooth and quite pleasant and the effects of the wine were the lightness of head and increased quickness of tongue I associate with quality sparkling wines. Yet it still somehow failed to reach any kind of spectacularity in my books and won’t be purchased again.

Alamos Malbec is a very average red wine from Argentina. Overpriced in relation to its’ quality and overstated when described as extra full-bodied. It couldn’t keep up with a peppery filet mignon and oven-baked potatoes and it wasn’t very shattering with extra-dark chocolate. It was ok when sipped without food but the oppressing heaviness and thickness of it doesn’t make it an ideal choice to be drunk on its’ own either. Disappointing and won’t be bought again. There are lots and lots of better Malbecs around, some of them a lot more inexpensive too.

Dashwood Sauvignon Blanc is a white wine from New Zealand. I bought it from Oddbins London, mostly because the bottle looked nice but also because I wanted to taste a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and there aren’t many available in Finland. It was delicious, very crisp, fruity in an unidentified, maybe peachy kind of way, and vaguely green-tasting (probably the “freshly cut grass” given in its’ description). Went very well as an aperitif and with smoked salmon casserole. I even tried a little glass of it on midnight, after an act two people who are in love sometimes engage themselves in and it was ok but not excellent, in a way the Italian Lamberti Pinot Grigio was on similar occasion a while ago. But it’s still a very good wine and if it were available in Finland I might buy it again. But it isn’t and so I won’t.

Carrington Vintage Brut is sparkling wine from Australia, consumed in a somewhat compromised situation on a Saturday evening after having returned from a lenghty dinner in a nice restaurant. The Loved One said it was very good and better-tasting than the above-mentioned Lindauer but I found it quite unremarkable and run-of-the-mill. Then again, I’d already had champagne, red wine and sweet Tokaji at the dinner, all of them very nice, so it was all a bit compromised and maybe I should give Carrington another go at another time because it was promising and, well, the bottle looked quite fancy too.