I've decided the next fiction book I'm going to read is Mrs. Dalloway. And in honor of Viginia Woolf, I present you with this magnificent quote from To the Lighthouse:

"The great revalation had never come. The great revalations perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark."

Songs I love

Two years ago during my first time being an expat in England my darling friend Sharif played Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights for me. I was like wtf is this, is this real? I then later on told my friend Dave, a fan of pretty obscure music and he had me listen to Kate's songs Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love (sorry if I'm getting this story wrong... I credit both Sharif and Dave with introducing me to Kate). My life changed. Hearing Kate Bush was like a gigantic musical hole being filled in my life. She's amazing and honestly in my mind the greatest female artist probably ever. Her songs are creative, well written with depth and her voice is amazing. Also she wrote a song about Joyce's Ulysses (The Sensual World). Here are my two fav Kate Bush songs (both, with amazing music videos), I hope you love them as much as I do:

The Remains of the Day

I just finished Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day. What a heartbreaking triumph of a novel. Thank you Lianne for suggesting it to me. It was one of those books where a lot happened within very little concrete space, I guess in that sense it was very joycean, which is probably why I liked it so much. I won't write an analysis like the sorts Lianne writes on her fantastic blog, but I think it's sufficient to say that it was a phenomenal book and I definitely want to read more of Ishiguro's novels.

Daylight Savings

I totally forgot that it was daylights saving time here today until a friend kindly informed me. It totally threw off my day. So now, it's not even five pm and in an hour it will be fully dark outside. I just checked the forecast and sunset was right when I took this picture, 445. Ahhhh. And each day the hours of sunlight will keep decreasing and decreasing until it's dark at like three. But at least that means Christmas is approaching...

Also, in unrelated news, The Times was brilliant today. I love my Sunday morning routine of buying The Times and reading it over an americano at Cafe Nero. Wonderful.

Brilliant night last night of friends, pumpkins, chocolate and wine.

ME when I should be doing work

And yes... I did take this photo using photo booth.

The Garden of Sin aka St. Andrew's Garden

Culture

After the craziest night of my life last night (aka Pamela and I made grilled cheese), I woke up this morning and decided to venture out and seek culture. I went to the National Gallery with the intention of seeing the new exhibit about Spanish religious sculptures, but I just ended up walking through the galleries. But, before I went there I decided to cut through Soho instead of the more direct Oxford circus, Charing Cross Road route. I'm definitely glad I did because I got to see streets that have more character than Tottenham Court Road, Oxford St, or even my beloved Gray's Inn Road. I'm not saying Soho is in any way a big secret, that would be akin to being like "I discovered the best cafe the other day, it's called Starbucks!" but it was still a nice change. And I found lots of eating options for when I have money (probably never).

And the National Gallery is overwhelming in the sense that I kept seeing a bulk of the paintings I studied wayyy back in AP. However, the gallery is smaller than I imagined it would be. I mean, it's huge but I reckon the US National Gallery is bigger. Also, while I appreciate the Italian masters, it's the Flemish artists who really hit the spot for me. I went to the best Flemish art gallery in Brugges when Lianne and I travelled there and while the National Gallery has a lot of Flemish art, it didn't hit me like so many of the paintings in that gallery. But, one day I want to be rich and buy old Flemish paintings.