Brother Ken on Scotland

"Scotland's streets and mountains, lochs and rain have shaped my own mind just as geological processes have carved the landscape itself. This land I live in is still the place I visit in dreams. I owe it that forming, that weathering, that uplift."

Great essay by a great writer.

Misogynist Garbage - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I'd been meaning to say that the gigantically over-rated novel by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is hilariously mocked in the Shouts and Murmurs column in the New Yorker, by Nora Ephron. It's great to see someone taking the piss out of it. That book drove me nuts - sexist, misogynist, monotonous, ugly and gratuitous crap masquerading as literature. Why the chattering classes are in love with Larsson's writing beats me.