Advent calendar day 18

Sorry peeps - been playing at being the Domestic Godless today, what with making our Xmas cake, cooking up a korma, soaking fruit in rum for making stollen tomorrow, mending Vee's schoolbag (as part of the economy drive, so we don't have to get her a new one for next term) and generally being festive. We had planned today to go and do our Xmas food shop after me corralling the tribe yesterday and making them come up with 2 meal ideas each. For the next week and a bit our menu looks like this -
Monday - Pasta a la Siracusana
Tuesday - Welsh Rarebit on Baked Potatoes
Wednesday - Solstice Nut Roast and Roasted Veg
Thursday - Savoury Pancakes
Friday - Lentil Shepherd's Pie
Xmas Eve - Pea and Lentil Soup
Xmas Day - Broccoli & Gorgonzola Pie with Mash & Veg
Boxing Day - Mini Calzone
Tuesday - Potatoes Nicoise
- plus all the drinkies and nibbles. However the pavements round these here parts look like tryouts for Prancing On Ice so we stayed home. I almost fainted when Gee started hoovering unbidden "so that it doesn't get all messy like before"!
My "Beast of..." list today says that today I should be recommending my favourite books of the past year. As ever, i feel like I have read so many and yet so few. I have a personal mantra that says "life is too short for crappy books and crappy movies" so I'm afraid that there were quite a few started and soon discarded. But from those I did finish, here are a few I particularly enjoyed.
I do like me a vampire novel. I have read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris (the basis for the "True Blood" series including the latest one "Dead Reckoning") and I liked the early Anita Blake ones before it got to be all about the shagging and less about the staking. I'm also a huge fan of Buffy but I despair of the sparkly residents of Forks (I have actually read the whole Twilight series because a younger Vee wanted to and I must say, they are a damn sight better than the awful films but still too wimpy). So I was pleased to come across the Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill. Similar to the House of Night books by PC and Kristin Cast in that the vampires live in "houses" and although living openly follow strict codes, "Some Girls Bite" tells of of a student called Merit who is attacked by a rogue bloodsucker and saved but turned by another. It's certainly more adult and also quite sexy. I have read the next one "Friday Night Bites" and am waiting for the next ones to be available from the library.
I'm quite well known in our library - if you have one locally, use it. I can order books from libraries all across the city as well as CDs and DVDs. Use them or lose them and I guarantee, you'll miss them.
I came across "The Mistress Of The Art Of Death" by accident - but what a happy accident. Written under the pseudonym Ariana Franklin by Diana Norman (wife of Barry Norman the film critic), these medieval/ forensic mysteries tell of a woman from Italy who has been trained as a doctor is sent to England to assist Henry I in avoiding more uproar after the death of Thomas Beckett. The world Diana created and the character of Adelia and all those she comes across are rich and un-put-downable. I read all of the sequels in quick succession only to discover that sadly Diana died thsi year and there is only one left to read.
I re-read "War Horse" by Michael Morpurgo. I am dying to see the movie that is coming out next month and would kill to see the staged version. however, I would urge you to read the book - it's only a slim novel and can be read in a day but if it doesn't have you finding some tears in your eyes, you have a heart of stone.
I was pleasantly surprised that I liked "How To Be A Woman" by Caitlin Moran. It was fresh, funny and feisty while still being at its core staunchly feminist. A true book for the modern woman. Read it, even more so if you are a man.
I also enjoyed "The Elephant To Hollywood" by Michael Caine. I seldom read autobiographies of famous peeps - the only others one I ever enjoyed was Kathleen Turner's "Send Yourself Roses" and Janey Godley's "Handstands In The Dark", both of which I highly recommend - but I loved this tale as much as I loved his movies. That was right up to the last chapter, which was a wee bit name-droppy but apart from that, it was fab.
I can't say I enjoyed "Where There Is Evil" by Sandra Brown but if Peter Mullan tells you to read a book, you read it! It was really powerful but a hard read as Sandra tells of how she searched and researched to find out whether the truth about her father was as awful as she imagined.
Another tale of a strong woman, "Theodora - Actress, Empress, Whore" by Stella Duffy is the well-crafted tale of how the daughter of a circus man in Byzantium rises to unimaginable (for her) heights. Not a period of history I am familiar with but earthy and modern as well as being deeply researched and therefore a richly layered world, I can't wait for the sequel which Stella herself promised for next year.
Lastly, "The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex" is an excellent and well put argument by the good doctor Mark Kermode (my "go to" man for the best movie recommendations) against not only the movie studios' obsession with doing everything now in 3D (and making us pay for it) but also the stranglehold of the crappy Hollywood blockbusters, sequels and pointless remakes of good foreign languages films for the US market and the decline of the independent cinema and the skilled projectionist.
That's your lot - if you find something of interest there, all well and good but whatever you do - KEEP READING!
Onto today's song, which I think I chose because the band's name makes me think of the mandarin oranges you used to get in the foot of your Xmas stocking even though it's Mandolin Orange. Enjoy and remember, one week and it'll all be over - Xmas, not my lists xxx