Notting Hell indeed

Well, I finished Notting Hell, the book I've been reading over the weekend - for reasons of "self improvement" I have set myself a rota for reading which is that I must read one modern book and one classic before I can read a crap one (i.e. chick lit/mum lit that I secretly love so much and which my book most definitely falls into the genre of). If I didn't do this, I would read nothing but trash and my brain would melt.

So anyway, Notting Hell was indeed fairly hellish, I'm not sure whether the horrendously frequent mentions of private schools, the wonder of living in W11 with a communal garden and inumerable name checks of every designer item possible were meant to be a satiric reflection of the shallow narrow mindedness of the two protagonists, or were simply a reflection of the authors own views. I suspect the latter but wish the former. What particularly irked me was the fact the book (the author?) made the assumption that the only place to be in the world was W11 and that the rest of the world ought to be a. jealous and b. respectful of those who had attained such greatness. I have to say though, by the end of the book I was extremely glad not to live surrounded by such vapid, money and celebrity obsessed individuals.

Having said all that, it was a pretty compulsive and enjoyable way of whiling away a few hours without straining the grey matter too much. And I must also point out that as she is Boris Jonson's sister and clearly equally posh/wealthy, everything she's written clearly comes from first hand experience and perhaps it's just the way she sees the world because she's never had to sweat it like us proles.

I read this review of it in the Guardian online and thought it was fairly accurate (now a small interlude while I try and work out how to upload a link onto this sodding blog! Ok, it's added at the bottom in the "Links" bit - this is obviously not the optimum way of doing things but I MUST go!)

And I still haven't written anything about the far more wonderful "A Room of One's Own". That will have to wait till tomorrow as I have to go to a meeting now (and still no news from The Flying Dutchman re meeting re film - pah)