Lord_Vetinari | maandag 3 augustus 2009 @ 21:08 |
Eerdere topics: Terry Pratchett. Terry Pratchett (2) Terry Pratchett (3) Terry heeft, naar aanleiding van het debat over "assisted suicide" zoals dat momenteel woedt in GB, een duidelijk standpunt laten horen: I'll die before the endgame, says Terry Pratchett in call for law to allow assisted suicides in UK By Terry Pratchett Last updated at 1:29 AM on 03rd August 2009 Pledge: Terry Pratchett revealed his views on 'assisted death' by saying he hopes to be 'helped across the step' Sir Terry Pratchett has made an emotional plea for the right to take his own life, saying: 'I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed.' The fantasy novelist gave his views following last week's landmark House of Lords controversial judgment in the case of Debbie Purdy. 'I believe that if the burden gets too great, those who wish should be allowed to be shown the door,' he said. 'In my case, in the fullness of time, I hope it will be in the garden under an English sky. Or, if wet, the library.' Sir Terry, 61, author of the hugely successful Discworld books, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's diseasein 2007. He said that no one has a duty to suffer the extremes of terminal illness and set down his admiration for the sick and dying who have travelled to Switzerland to die in legal suicide clinics. They have displayed ' furious sanity', he said. The Lords ruled on Thursday that the Director of Public Prosecutions must give Mrs Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, guidance on whether her husband will face prosecution - and a possible 14-year prison sentence - if he helps her travel to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich to die. The judgment means the DPP is likely to set down rules which will clear those who do not have selfish motives from the threat of prosecution - a major step towards legalisation. Sir Terry, who was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours, said in an article in the Mail on Sunday: 'I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. 'Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, "If wet, in the library". Who could say that this is bad?' Sir Terry said he would be happy to accept help from the medical profession. He said he had no doubt that there were people with a 'passion for caring', but asked them to accept there are people 'who have a burning passion not to need to be cared for'. The author rejected the idea that allowing assisted suicide would amount to legalising euthanasia, in which those unwilling to die would be killed off. He said some ways of looking after those with chronic illnesses, including forcible or 'peg' feeding of Alzheimer's sufferers, were degradpulsorying and painful. 'I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.' Sir Terry added: 'I have seen people profess to fear that the existence of a formalised approach to assisted dying could lead to it somehow becoming part of national health policy. 'I very much doubt this could be the case. We are a democracy and no democratic government is going to get anywhere with a policy of comor even recommended euthanasia. 'If we were ever to end up with such a government, we would be in so much trouble that the problem would become the least of our worries. But neither do I believe in a duty to suffer the worst ravages of terminal illness.' Peers voted heavily against a parliamentary move to allow assisted suicide last month. Sir Terry backed the reform, put forward by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, which would have allowed relatives or friends to escort dying relatives to a suicide in Switzerland with the approval of two doctors. However since then the main nursing union, the Royal College of Nursing, has withdrawn its opposition to assisted suicide. More than 100 Britons have died at the Dignitas clinic, taking advantage of Swiss tolerance of suicide. Most recently conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died in Zurich, in the presence of their two children. Lady Downes was dying of cancer but Sir Edward, while frail, was not suffering from a terminal illness. Point me to heaven when the final chapter comes... Terry Pratchett's deeply personal plea We are being stupid. We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still. At least, that is what I thought until last week. Now, however, I live in hope - hope that before the disease in my brain finally wipes it clean, I can jump before I am pushed and drag my evil Nemesis to its doom, like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty locked in combat as they go over the waterfall. In any case, such thinking bestows a wonderful feeling of power; the enemy might win but it won't triumph. Plea: Things like pride, self-respect and human dignity are worthy of preservation, says Discworld author Terry Pratchett Last week a poll revealed that more than three-quarters of people in Britain approve of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. On Thursday, the Law Lords delivered the landmark judgment in a case brought by multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, who feared her husband would be prosecuted if he accompanied her to die abroad. She wanted the law on assisted dying to be clarified and the Law Lords have now ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to draw up policy spelling out when prosecutions would and would not be pursued. It looks as though the baby boomers have spoken and some of them, at least, hope they die before they get old - well, too old. Some have seen what happened to their parents or grandparents, and they don't like it. Every day I remember my own father's death. The nurses were kind, but there was something very wrong about it. The poll result arrived at about the same time as the Royal College of Nursing announced that it was ending its opposition to assisted dying. Other signs indicate that the medical profession as a whole is at least prepared to face the issue. I hate the term 'assisted suicide'. I have witnessed the aftermath of two suicides, and as a journalist I attended far too many coroners' inquests, where I was amazed and appalled at the many ways that desperate people find to end their lives. Suicide is fear, shame, despair and grief. It is madness. Those brave souls lately seeking death abroad seem to me, on the other hand, to be gifted with a furious sanity. They have seen their future, and they don't want to be part of it. But for me, the scandal has not been solely that innocent people have had the threat of murder hanging over their heads for committing a clear act of mercy. It is that people are having to go to another country to die; it should be possible to die with benign assistance here. You do not have to read much social history, or move in medical circles, to reach the conclusion that the profession has long seen it as part of its remit to help the dying die more comfortably. Victorians expected to die at home, undoubtedly assisted by the medical profession. In those days there was no such thing as drug control - just as there was no gun control. Laudanum and opiates were widespread and everyone knew you could get your hands on them. Sherlock Holmes was one of them! As a young journalist I once listened in awe as a 90-year-old former nurse told me how she helped a dying cancer patient into the great beyond with the help of a pillow. Consolation: Terry in his Wiltshire garden with a brandy - the way he would like to be able to spend his final conscious moments In the absence of any better medication in that time and place, and with his wife in hysterics at the pain he was forced to endure, death was going to be a friend; it was life, life gone wild, that was killing him. 'We called it "pointing them to Heaven",' she told me. Decades later, I mentioned this to another, younger nurse, who gave me a blank look, and then said: 'We used to call it "showing them the way".' Then she walked off quickly, aware that she had left a hostage to fortune. I have been told that doctors do not like patients to worry that, theoretically, their GP has the expertise to kill them. Really? I suspect that even my dentist has the means to kill me. It does not worry me in the slightest, and I imagine that, like many other people, I would be very happy for the medical profession to help me over the step. I have written a living will to that effect, and indeed this article in The Mail on Sunday will be evidence of my determination in this matter. I cannot make the laws but you have no idea how much I hope those in a position to do so will listen. In the course of the past few years, I have met some delightful people who say they have a passion for caring and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt them. Can they accept, however, that there are some people who have a burning passion not to need to be cared for? It appears to be an item of faith with many people I have spoken to that both doctors and nurses, at least in hospital, still have 'things they can do' when the patient is in extremis. I certainly hope this is true, but I wish we could blow away the clouds obscuring the issue and embrace the idea of ending, at their request, the life of a terminally ill person at a time and, if possible, a place of their choosing. I write this as someone who has, regrettably, become famous for having Alzheimer's. Although being famous is all the rage these days, it's fame I could do without. I know enough to realise there will not be a cure within my lifetime and I know the later stages of the disease can be very unpleasant. Indeed, it's the most feared disease among the over-65s. Naturally, I turn my attention to the future. There used to be a term known as 'mercy killing'. I cannot believe it ever had any force in law but it did, and still does, persist in the public consciousness, and in general the public consciousness gets it right. We would not walk away from a man being attacked by a monster, and if we couldn't get the ravening beast off him we might well conclude that some instant means of less painful death would be preferable before the monster ate him alive. Family man: Terry Pratchett with his daughter Rhianna in 1998 And certainly we wouldn't tuck it up in bed with him and try to carry on the fight from there, which is a pretty good metaphor for what we do now, particularly with 'old-timers' disease. (My speech-to-text programme persists in transcribing Alzheimer's as 'old-timers'. In fact, I've heard many people absent-mindedly doing the same thing, and as a writer, I cannot help wondering if the perception of the disease might be a little kinder without that sharp, Germanic intonation.) My father was a man well tuned to the public consciousness. The day before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer he told me: 'If you ever see me in a hospital bed with tubes and pipes all over me, then tell them to turn me off.' There was no chance of that a year later, when medicine's defences had been used up and he was becoming a battleground between the cancer and the morphine. I have no idea what might have been going through his head, but why did we have to go through with this? He had been told he had a year to live, the year was up, and he was a practical man; he knew why he had been taken to the hospice. Why could we not have had the Victorian finale, perhaps just a week or so earlier, with time for words of love and good advice, and tears just before the end? It would have made something human and understandable out of what instead became surreal. It was not the fault of the staff; they were, like us, prisoners of a system. At least my father's problem was pain, and pain can be controlled right until the end. But I do not know how you control a sense of loss and the slow slipping of the mind away from the living body - the kind that old-timer's disease causes. I know my father was the sort of man who didn't make a fuss, and perhaps I would not, either, if pain were the only issue for me. But it isn't. I am enjoying my life to the full, and hope to continue for quite some time. But I also intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod - the latter because Thomas's music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to Heaven - and perhaps a second brandy if there is time. Oh, and since this is England I had better add: 'If wet, in the library.' Who could say that is bad? Where is the evil here? But, of course, important points are being made in this debate. Currently, people say they are worried about the possibility of old people being 'urged' by greedy relatives into taking an early death. If we cannot come up with a means of identifying this, I would be very surprised. Legal first: MS victim Debbie Purdy, pictured with husband Omar Puente, has persuaded the Law Lords to call for clarification of the law on assisted suicide In any case, in my experience it is pretty impossible to get an elderly person to do something they do not wish to do. They tend to know their own mind like the back of their hand, and quite probably would object to this being questioned. There needs to be, for the safety of all concerned, some kind of gentle tribunal, to make certain that requests for assisted death are bona fide and not perhaps due to gentle persuasion. It is the sort of thing, in my opinion, coroners could handle well. All the ones I have met have been former lawyers with much experience of the world and of the ways of human nature, people with wisdom, in fact, and that means middle-aged at the very least, and old enough to have some grasp of the world's realities. I have no way of knowing whether any of them would wish to be involved; this is breaking new ground and we won't know unless we try. In my early journalistic years, I watched such men deal with the deaths of thalidomide babies and the results of terrible accidents with calm and compassion. If their successors are as caring in their deliberations, I feel this may go some way to meeting the objections that people have. And I would suggest, too, that Social Services be kept well away from any such arrangement. I don't think they would have much to offer. In this country we have rather lost faith in the wisdom of ordinary people, among whom my father was a shining example. And it is ordinary people, ultimately, who must make such decisions. There are those who will object that the care industry can cope. Even if we accept that they are coping now, which most of us will take on trust, in the coming decades they certainly will not be able to without a major reordering of our society. The numbers tell us this. We already have a situation where elderly people are being cared for at home by people who themselves are of pensionable age. The healthcare system will become messy, and the NHS will struggle to cope. There are care homes, of course, and they are subject to inspection, and we must take it on trust that the inspection system has teeth, but would you know how to choose one? Would you know what questions to ask? Would you know, if you suffer from Alzheimer's disease or are representing someone who is, whether the place you would be choosing resorts to 'peg feeding'? Peg feeding is the forcible feeding of patients who refuse food. I found out about this only recently, and I'm afraid it has entirely coloured my views. These are, after all, innocent people who are on the road to death, and yet someone thinks it is right to subject them to this degrading and painful business. The Alzheimer's Society says peg feeding is 'not best practice', a rather diplomatic statement. A kindly angel: Death, as portrayed in a scene from the Sky TV adaptation of Pratchett's Discworld novel The Hogfather People there that I trust tell me the main problem with the treatment of acute Alzheimer's cases is not a lack of care and goodwill as such, but insufficient numbers of people who are skilled in the special needs of the terminally-ill Alzheimer's patient. I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of 'life at any cost'. Apparently there is already such a thing as an official 'quality of life index': I don't know whether the fact that we have one frightens me more than the possibility that we don't. In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper. But the Death of the Discworld is a little more unusual. He has become popular - after all, as he patiently explains, it is not he who kills. Guns and knives and starvation kill; Death turns up afterwards, to reassure the puzzled arrivals as they begin their journey. He is kind; after all, he is an angel. And he is fascinated with us, in the way in which we make our little lives so complicated, and our strivings. So am I. Within a year or two, I started to get letters about Death. They came from people in hospices, and from their relatives and from bereaved individuals, and from young children in leukaemia wards, and the parents of boys who had crashed their motorbikes. I recall one letter where the writer said the books were of great help to his mother when she was in a hospice. Frequently, the bereaved asked to be allowed to quote some part of the Discworld books in a memorial service. They all tried to say, in some way, 'thank you', and until I got used to it, the arrival of one of these letters would move me sufficiently to give up writing for the day. The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style. I would like to think my refusal to go into care towards the end of my life might free up the resources for people such as him. Let me make this very clear: I do not believe there is any such thing as a 'duty to die'; we should treasure great age as the tangible presence of the past, and honour it as such. I know that last September Baroness Warnock was quoted, or possibly misquoted, as saying the very elderly sick had a 'duty to die', and I have seen people profess to fear that the existence of a formalised approach to assisted dying could lead to it somehow becoming part of national health policy. I very much doubt this could be the case. We are a democracy and no democratic government is going to get anywhere with a policy of compulsory or even recommended euthanasia. If we were ever to end up with such a government, we would be in so much trouble that the problem would become the least of our worries. But neither do I believe in a duty to suffer the worst ravages of terminal illness. As an author, I've always tended to be known only to a circle of people - quite a large one, I must admit - who read books. I was not prepared for what happened after I 'came out' about having Alzheimer's in December 2007, and appeared on television. People would stop me in the street to tell me their mother had it, or their father had it. Sometimes, it's both parents, and I look into their eyes and I see a flash of fear. In London the other day, a beefy man grabbed my arm, smiled at me and said, 'Thanks a lot for what you're doing, my mum died from it,' and disappeared into the crowd. And, of course, there have been the vast numbers of letters and emails, some of which, I'm ashamed to say, will perhaps never be answered. People do fear, and not because fear is whipped up, but because they've recalled an unpleasant death in their family history. Sometimes I find myself involved in strange conversations, because I am an amiable-looking person who people think they know and, importantly, I am not an authority figure - quite the reverse. I have met Alzheimer's sufferers who are hoping that another illness takes them away first. Little old ladies confide in me, saying: 'I've been saving up my pills for the end, dear.' What they are doing, in fact, is buying themselves a feeling of control. I have met retired nurses who have made their own provisions for the future with rather more knowledgeable deliberation. From personal experience, I believe the recent poll reflects the views of the people in this country. They don't dread death; it's what happens beforehand that worries them. Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of preservation, too, and these can be lost in a fetish for life at any cost. I believe that if the burden gets too great, those who wish to should be allowed to be shown the door. In my case, in the fullness of time, I hope it will be the one to the garden under an English sky. Or, if wet, the library. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)K.html#ixzz0N9DEl0Mt -------------------------------------- On a happier note: Volgens de Discworld Newsletter is men bezig met Going Postal en wordt deze volgend jaar uitgezonden op Sky1. Going Postal adaptation SKY1 Easter 2010 Sky1 will be showing Going Postal in Easter 2010. The latest cast list is as follows: * Richard Coyle - Moist Von Lipwig * David Suchet - Reacher Gilt * Charles Dance - Lord Vetinari * Claire Foy - Adora Belle Dearheart * Andrew Sachs - Tolliver Groat * Tamsin Greig - Miss Cripslock * Steve Pemberton - Rufus Drumknott * John Henshaw - Mr Pony * Madhav Sharma - Horsefry * Jimmy Yuill - Mr Spools * Ian Bonar - Stanley * Paul Barber - Dave * Adrian Schiller - Gryle * Daniel Cerquiera - Trooper * Ingrid Bolso Berdal - Sergeant Angua * Kerry Shale - Mr Pump (voice) * Ben Crompton - Mad Al * Asif Khan - Sane Alex * Alex Parks - Roger * Sheila Shand Ginns - Old Lady | |
yvonne | maandag 3 augustus 2009 @ 21:13 |
Tvp, mooi stuk dit! | |
willempjewever | maandag 3 augustus 2009 @ 21:15 |
Ook van mijn kant een TVP, ben momenteel aan het verven (even pauze) en deze openingspost neem ik morgen zeker even door. Heb een hele reeks boeken van hem hier staan, maar ben momenteel met een andere SF reeks bezig en stap daarna weer over naar fantasy (waar ik Pratchett voor het gemak onder schaar). | |
Againzender | maandag 3 augustus 2009 @ 21:32 |
Wat een mooie OP! Heb nog drie boeken staan in de kast die ik afgelopen vakantie had willen lezen, niets van gekomen | |
Zpottr | maandag 3 augustus 2009 @ 21:32 |
Wat een mooie kerel. Ik zie het al voor me:quote: En Jeff als Moist, haha. This should be good. | |
FP128 | dinsdag 4 augustus 2009 @ 14:23 |
Zeer boeiend en mooie Op waarvoor dank die ik met plezier heb gelezen en een vervolg ga geven. | |
Brentmeister | vrijdag 7 augustus 2009 @ 17:29 |
Terry Pratchett... geniaal! OP ziet er goed uit! Tvptje om em verder te lezen | |
blessed19 | zondag 9 augustus 2009 @ 13:32 |
misschien is het idee om dat plaatje van de discworld boeken in verschillende chronologische volgordes toe te voegen? | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 9 augustus 2009 @ 13:37 |
Alstublieft | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 9 augustus 2009 @ 13:40 |
Ik zie overigens nu pas dat ik klakkeloos een slordige fout van de Daily Mail heb overgenomen. In de caption onder het plaatje van Death wordt gesproken over 'The Hogfather', terwijl boek en film gewoon 'Hogfather' heten | |
Misstique | woensdag 12 augustus 2009 @ 21:20 |
tvp voor wanneer ik tijd heb om de rest van de OP te lezen. . | |
Dagonet | woensdag 12 augustus 2009 @ 21:28 |
Prachtig pleidooi. Waarom hebben de Britten geen zomergasten | |
Susi | woensdag 12 augustus 2009 @ 21:38 |
quote:Handig, dat plaatje overigens | |
FrankRicard | vrijdag 4 september 2009 @ 17:00 |
tvp | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 27 september 2009 @ 08:46 |
Hier een video-interview van de BBC met Terry over hoe hij wil sterven. En op een conferentie van de Liberal-Democrats heeft Terry eveneens over zijn ziekte gesproken. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 27 september 2009 @ 08:47 |
En een fake-trailer voor een niet bestaande Guards! Guards! film | |
Lod | zondag 27 september 2009 @ 09:14 |
Ik heb blijkbaar het sluiten van het vorige topic gemist . Verder een zelfde soort tvp als Misstique. | |
De_Hertog | zondag 27 september 2009 @ 10:29 |
quote:Idem. En nog een tip: bij Bookdepository.co.uk is Nation in paperback te bestellen, komt over 11 dagen uit, voor onder de 6 euro (prijs wisselt met de koers van de pond mee, 5.72 vandaag). | |
Pandora73 | zondag 27 september 2009 @ 16:06 |
Poeh, da's wel een hele lange OP, maar wel erg interessant... Complimenten! En De_Hertog, dank voor de tip over Nation! | |
willempjewever | maandag 28 september 2009 @ 15:27 |
quote:wel opletten dat je als valuta de pond selecteerd (rechtsboven), anders betaal je te veel 1 pond = 1 euro momenteel (ongeveer dan). | |
De_Hertog | maandag 28 september 2009 @ 15:31 |
quote:Mwa, 1.08, en bookdepsitory houdt zo te zien 1.10 aan. Een paar dagen geleden klopte de wisselkoers nog maar nu zitten ze er inderdaad iets boven. Hoe dan ook is deze pond-stand wel weer ideaal om boeken te bestellen in Engeland | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 2 oktober 2009 @ 10:29 |
Mailtje gekregen: mijn exemplaar is gisteren verstuurd. Zal een dezer dagen dus wel binnenvallen. Nu snel mijn huidige boek uit gaan lezen | |
Pandora73 | vrijdag 2 oktober 2009 @ 11:26 |
Ik was dit alweer vergeten, dus had hem van de week in de boekhandel gehaald. Nog niet aan toegekomen om er echt in te beginnen (alleen hoofdstuk 1 tot nu toe gehad) | |
Woodpecker | zondag 4 oktober 2009 @ 08:50 |
Onlangs pas Terry Pratchett ontdekt, en ben nu bezig om alles chronologisch te lezen Heb net Lord and Ladies uit. (verkapte tvp) | |
roelke87 | zondag 4 oktober 2009 @ 08:51 |
geniale OP over een zeer groot schrijver. Tragisch verhaal dit. Ik hoop dat hij zijn eigen keuze mag maken Hij heeft ons zoveel gegeven, ze zouden hem dat gewoon moeten gunnen | |
Zpottr | woensdag 21 oktober 2009 @ 20:22 |
Someone in The Netherlands bough Nation by Terry Pratchett. Cool, die live GOogle map met aankopen op bookrepository | |
De_Hertog | woensdag 21 oktober 2009 @ 20:26 |
quote:Dat heeft er enige tijd geleden bij mij ook gestaan Ik heb inmiddels binnen, en ook al uitgelezen. Erg, erg goed boek. Het is inderdaad anders dan zijn Discworld-verhalen, al zit er nog steeds duidelijk dezelfde humor in. Ik weet niet of zijn gevoelens omtrent zijn ziekte doorspelen in dit boek, maar ik vermoed een beetje van wel. Ik kreeg er een beetje hetzelfde gevoel bij als bij de nieuwe show van Herman Finkers: anders, zwaarder, maar goed. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 1 november 2009 @ 10:48 |
Een bericht van Terry in de Discworld Monthly:quote: | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 1 november 2009 @ 10:49 |
En een wat luchtiger stukje:quote: | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 1 november 2009 @ 10:51 |
In The Guardian van 28/9 heeft Terry nogmaals zijn visie gegeven op euthanasie en de regels die daarvoor gelden in de UK:quote:En op dezelfde dag in The Telegraph, een bespreking van Unseen Academicals, dat uiteraard leidt tot een gesprek met Terry over zijn ziekte: quote:En een interview met Terry op de BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/breakfast/8302339.stm Een radio-interview in het programma The Author Hour op VoiceAmerica: http://theauthorhour.com/terry-pratchett/ In Engeland heeft de stad Wincanton in een nieuwe wijk straten vernoemd naar straten in Ankh-Morpork. De stad is ook officieel zusterstad Terry heeft de straatnamen onthuld. Lees hier een verslag. [ Bericht 36% gewijzigd door Lord_Vetinari op 01-11-2009 11:07:15 ] | |
De_Hertog | zondag 1 november 2009 @ 11:06 |
Mooi artikelen, dank je. Even wat luchtigers tussendoor: 'Discworld, you're doing it wrong' | |
wonderer | zondag 20 december 2009 @ 02:45 |
quote: Verder ben ik bezig in The Hogfather (vaste prik ) en komt Nation deze kant op. Ben benieuwd. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 20 december 2009 @ 10:19 |
quote: | |
wonderer | zondag 20 december 2009 @ 18:05 |
Wat? Ik vind Charles Dance tof | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 20 december 2009 @ 18:17 |
quote:Gewoon. Ik vind het niet tof dat je boektitels verkeerd schrijft. | |
wonderer | zondag 20 december 2009 @ 18:26 |
quote:Hm, die was wel suf ja. Neem me niet kwalijk! | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 1 januari 2010 @ 10:42 |
Sir Terry heeft een award gekregen van het Writers Guild voor "Outstanding contribution to children's writing". http://www.writersguild.o(...)397_WGGBNewsGui.html | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 14 januari 2010 @ 22:18 |
LOL. Ik zit net "Garfield & Friends" tekenfilms te kijken. Komt de aftiteling voorbij: Model maker: Salene Weatherwax Life imitating art | |
Maisnon | woensdag 27 januari 2010 @ 02:03 |
Ik heb ooit Mort gelezen en die vond ik geweldig en nu meteen goed aangepakt door een paar boeken tegelijk te kopen. Ik heb nu the Color of Magic, Guards! Guards! en Night Watch. Die reading guide had ik nog niet gezien maar ik heb dus per ongeluk alles best goed uitgekozen | |
FrankRicard | woensdag 27 januari 2010 @ 09:43 |
quote:Als je toch van plan bent het goed aan te pakken kun je denk ik het beste gewoon op volgorde lezen. (zie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Novels) Mensen die nog nooit iets van Pratchett gelezen hebben raad ik meestal Guards! Guards! aan omdat die toch net wat anders is dan Colour of Magic en meer op de rest van de serie lijkt. | |
Brentmeister | woensdag 27 januari 2010 @ 09:46 |
Heb net Reaper Man uit, heel erg leuk! Ik vind Death altijd hilarisch. Nu in de volgende begonnen: Witches Abroad | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 06:21 |
One of the most popular authors writing today, Sir Terry Pratchett, is to deliver BBC One's annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture on 1 February 2010. This will be the 34th lecture held in honour of the veteran broadcaster who died in 1965. The first novelist to give the lecture, Sir Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Discworld series. The first Discworld novel, The Colour Of Magic, was published in 1983 and there are now 37 books in the series. Regarded as a significant satirist, Pratchett has won numerous literary awards, was awarded an OBE in 1998, Knighted in 2009 and has received eight honorary doctorates. His novels have sold more than 65 million copies and have been translated into 37 languages. In December 2007, he announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Since then, he has become Patron of The Alzheimer's Research Trust and has been closely involved in fundraising as well as making a sizeable donation to the charity himself. In this keynote lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, Sir Terry Pratchett will explore how modern society, confronted with an increasingly older population, many of whom will suffer from incurable illnesses, will need to redefine how it deals with death. Jay Hunt, Controller of BBC One, says: "I'm absolutely delighted that one of our most popular and best-loved authors has agreed to give this lecture. Sir Terry Pratchett has spoken with great bravery and honesty about his battle with Alzheimer's and I look forward to an intelligent and thought-provoking speech." http://www.bbc.co.uk/pres(...)ry/14/dimbleby.shtml | |
Joy_Division | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 06:23 |
Zoals men zal begrijpen ben ik nu niet volledig in staat om de op (Volledig en serieus) door te nemen. Daarom bij deze: Een TVP. | |
morg78 | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 12:18 |
quote: | |
Nembrionic | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 12:20 |
TerugVindPratchett | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 15:51 |
The National Theatre zendt een stuk over Nation live op 30 januari de wereld rond: http://www.nationaltheatr(...)national-venues.html The Live Show will include a couple of videos produced by young film makers showing their interpretation of Mau and Daphne's first meeting. | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 28 januari 2010 @ 15:53 |
Review: Terry Pratchett On Nation National Theatre Platform, 19th January 2010 Reviewed by Jessica Yates Terry Pratchett was interviewed by Sarah LeFanu, former Artistic Director of the Bath Literary Festival, who has interviewed him several times before. The Olivier Theatre was very nearly full for this early evening Platform, so that meant that approx. 1000 people were there to hear Terry, many of whom had also booked to see Nation that same evening. Ms LeFanu revealed that 60 million copies of Discworld novels had been sold (gasps and cheers), and that (as we knew) Terry had also written a number of 'wonderful and varied novels for younger readers'. Nation was a really big story, partly a love story, partly a myth of origins, it asked big questions and turned the world upside down. Terry reminded her that she was in at the start. He was launching a book several years ago, before the disastrous tsunami in 2004, and he told her the germ of the story, about a boy raging against the gods. When he had finished the books he was contracted to write, he then told his agent he had to do this one; and never before had a book dragged him along so much. Every time he needed some information he had already got it from a lifetime of reading plus useful contacts. He found a place which resembled the island - a rainforest in Australia. LeFanu went on with the story of how the National Theatre took over the book for their next Christmas show for families, and Terry commented that it was like taking a new toy away from a kid after he has started to play with it. He gave the team advice - which they took on board - and then threw overboard, as they kept saying that a play is different from a book. 'A playwright has a whole orchestra to play with - often literally - and I've got one lousy alphabet!' LeFanu asked him if he was nervous when he first came to see the show, and Terry replied that it felt like Wyatt Earp walking down a quiet street in Tombstone. He could see the changes from the start, but to be fair, putting more in would have made it longer. They spoke of the challenge to young people to make their own film of the tea-party scene, and Terry praised the winners who would have their films shown before the live broadcast of Nation on Saturday 30th January. They now invited questions from the floor, and first Terry was asked who his favourite character was. He replied that at present it was Tiffany, as he is writing the fourth book about her, which will bring her up to adulthood. After her, it would be Commander Vimes (cheers). Would there be any more Johnny Maxwell books? Well, you've got to have something to say (so probably not). Which Discworld character do you feel your personality reflects? Commander Vimes on a good day and ? Death of Rats? on a bad one (sorry I couldn't quite hear that). Terry then went on to discuss the differing portrayals of Death in the Discworld and Nation. In the latter, Death was like Bergman's Death in The Seventh Seal. When he saw that film on his Granny's TV it had a tremendous effect on him. Why is Nation set on a parallel world? 'It's my Get out of Jail Free card' - readers won't be able to find the island on a map, and spot any other inaccuracies. LeFanu commented on the wealth of background material in the programme and summed up by saying that in the book we are reading about ourselves, and that she hoped there would not be many dry eyes in the theatre tonight. The session ended with rapturous applause! | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 1 februari 2010 @ 08:10 |
Sir Terry Pratchett to call for assisted suicide to be legalised Sir Terry Pratchett will call for a tribunal to be set up where people can apply for legal permission to end their lives Sir Terry Pratchett will make a provocative call on BBC TV tonight for assisted suicide to be legalised. The fantasy novelist, who has Alzheimer's, will call for a tribunal to be set up where people can apply for legal permission to end their lives at a time of their choosing. Sir Terry's impassioned plea will come as he delivers the annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1. Extracts were released in advance yesterday as the BBC published a poll which it said showed 'a clear majority of Britons support allowing supported suicide for the terminally ill'. The survey was taken for an edition of Panorama to be broadcast before Sir Terry's lecture. It will feature an interview with Kay Gilderdale, who was last week acquitted of attempted murder after helping her daughter Lynn, who was paralysed by ME, to end her life. The BBC says it is 'pure coincidence' that the two programmes are being shown on the same night. But critics questioned if the corporation has an 'agenda' on the eve of publication of guidelines on assisted suicide from the Director of Public Prosecutions. They are expected to effectively give the green light to relatives to help desperately ill loved ones to die. Panorama will also feature Baroness Campbell, who has battled a degenerative illness for 50 years and is opposed to the introduction of assisted suicide. But the anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing said it had 'grave concerns' over the level of balance with which assisted suicide is portrayed. It also raised concerns over the presentation of the Panorama poll findings. The poll showed that 73 per cent said friends or relatives should be allowed to help someone who is terminally ill to commit suicide. But this fell to 48 per cent when the illness was incurable and painful, but not fatal - and 49 per cent said those involved in such cases should face prosecution. Lynn Gilderdale: Paralysed by ME Care Not Killing director Dr Peter Saunders said the results of polling tend to be coloured when emotive cases have recently made news. Sir Terry is the first novelist to deliver the Richard Dimbleby lecture in its 34-year history. Previous lecturers have included Prince Charles, Bill Clinton, Dame Stella Rimington and Dr Rowan Williams. He will argue that 'assisted suicide' - or 'assisted death' as he prefers to call it - is 'an idea whose time is really coming'. The author of the hugely successful Discworld books first made a plea for the right to take his own life last summer following the controversial House of Lords judgment in the case of Debbie Purdy. The Law Lords ruled that the DPP must give Mrs Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, guidance on whether her husband will face prosecution and a possible 14-year jail sentence if he helps her travel to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich to die. In the lecture, Sir Terry will say his proposed tribunal would be acting for the good of society as well as that of the applicant. It would also 'ensure they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and not under the influence of a third party'. 'I would suggest there should be a lawyer - one with expertise in dynastic family affairs - and a medical practitioner experienced in dealing with the complexities of serious long-term illnesses.' The tribunal would also offer protection to the medical profession and Sir Terry will suggest that many GPs would support the right to die if they were protected. Summing up, he will say: 'We should aim for a good and rich life, well lived, and at the end of it, in the comfort of our own home in the company of those who love us, have a death worth dying for'. But Dr Saunders said: 'To argue that if you are terminally ill you deserve less protection from the law than do the rest of us is highly discriminatory as well as dangerous. 'Many cases of abuse involving elderly, sick and disabled people occur in so-called loving families and the blanket prohibition of intentional killing or assisting suicide is there to ensure that vulnerable people are not put at risk.' A BBC spokesman said: 'The Dimbleby lecture always features a prominent person talking about something they are particularly involved in. Across the BBC's output there is a wide opportunity for different points of view to be heard.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)d.html#ixzz0eGXNXkBB | |
Tangarine | dinsdag 2 februari 2010 @ 19:30 |
Hij was erg goed... En erg goed gebracht door Tony Robinson | |
Nembrionic | dinsdag 2 februari 2010 @ 19:38 |
quote:Ja, ook gezien van de week | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 2 februari 2010 @ 19:42 |
Een ingekorte versie van Terry's tekst vinden we hier | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 4 februari 2010 @ 19:25 |
MPs accuse BBC of promoting euthanasia in 'biased' coverage of topic A group of MPs have accused the BBC of promoting euthanasia after it aired a speech by Sir Terry Pratchett calling for assisted suicide to be legalised. The cross-party group of MP called on the Government to threaten to cut off public funding to the broadcaster. A Commons motion said the corporation 'misused public funds' in its coverage of euthanasia, highlighting the high profile given to Sir Terry's speech in favour of assisted suicide. The motion claimed the BBC 'ignored the rights of the disabled' and had used drama as well as news to promote its pro-euthanasia stance. Tory Ann Winterton has the support of one Tory and four Labour MPs for her early day motion. The BBC aired an interview with Kay Gilderdale, who was acquitted of attempted murder after helping her daughter Lynn, who was paralysed by ME, to end her life They claim there had been 'numerous complaints' over the 'persistent bias of the BBC on matters relating to euthanasia and other life issues and on the manner in which the BBC have misused public funds to promote changes in the law'. The MPs complain of 'thinly-disguised plays and soap operas being used to promote the use of euthanasia and misrepresentation of pro-life activists in the UK as people of violence'. They claim the 'multi-million pound campaign' culminated with a Panorama programme on Kay Gilderdale, who was cleared of attempting to murder her 31-year-old daughter Lynn after pleading guilty to assisting her suicide, and Sir Terry's comments. The fantasy novelist, who has Alzheimer's disease, gave the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture this week and called for a tribunal to give seriously ill people permission to get help to die. He offered himself to be a test case for one of the tribunals. The BBC said on Monday it was 'pure coincidence' that the two programmes aired on the same night. The MPs said that 'as usual the BBC have ignored the rights of the disabled, despite the fact that every disability group in the UK is opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia'. They urge the Government to make it clear to the BBC public funds will be withdrawn unless it complies with its charter and ensures 'all programmes on issues of public interest are treated impartially'. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)c.html#ixzz0eap4huPV | |
Lod | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 11:49 |
Zijn er trouwens al weer plannen voor een nieuwe film? | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 11:52 |
Sky1 is bezig met Going Postal, uitzending Pasen dit jaar. De Hollywood-versie van The Wee Free Men komt waarschijnlijk niet meer en volgens Sir Terry is dat geen ramp. | |
Nembrionic | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 11:54 |
quote:En terecht. Die films stellen echt niet zo veel voor ivm de boeken | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 12:20 |
quote:Hollywood-films zijn nog niet gemaakt van werk van Pratchett. De bekendste films, Colour of Magic en Hogfather, zijn van Sky1. Deze zijn wel 'goedgekeurd door Sir Terry, hij heeft zelfs een cameo in beide. Natuurlijk zijn de boeken altijd beter | |
Nembrionic | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 12:27 |
quote:Ja en die vond ik allebei suf. En ander voorbeeld: Stephen King. Daar zijn veel verfilmingen van geweest en de meesten zijn ronduit bagger quote:Dat neemt niet weg dat een film goed gemaakt kan zijn. | |
Lod | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 12:30 |
Ik vond de films, en zeker Colour of Magic, nog best aardig. Uiteraard niet te vergelijken met de boeken maar desalniettemin. De tekenfilms die gemaakt zijn van discworld, die zijn bagger | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 12:30 |
quote:Dat kan, ik wilde alleen het verschil aangeven quote:Ja natuurlijk. Het hangt ook van de bron af, de humor van Discworld laat zich redelijk lastig in een film pakken, denk ik zo. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 19:12 |
quote:Sir Terry was erg te spreken over de tekenfilms, anders. Op de DVD staat een interview met hem en hij is vol lof. Ik vond beide Real Life films overigens wel goed. Maar dat komt omdat ik met name in Hogfather Susan zo'n lekker ding vond LOL | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 19:19 |
Xcalibur | vrijdag 5 februari 2010 @ 19:36 |
Eensch | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 07:37 |
Update van PTerry himself: Folks, So many people have contacted me since the Richard Dimbleby lecture that there is no possibility at all that I can reply to everyone individually. Generally speaking people are asking what they can do to help, support and, indeed, take some control over their own death. The people to contact for all this are at Dignity in Dying - http://www.dignityindying.org.uk - they can campaign better than two blokes in an office. I'm getting some interesting letters though, some of them are from couples who have refrained from having children for the good of the planet, and now fear facing their final illness with no one to fight their corner. The same thinking seems to be affecting people who are happily single. Suddenly the ties of family seem more attractive than once they did. As one lady said 'saying that friends are the new family is all very well, but it starts to ring hollow as we get older.' I want to make it clear what it is that I have been saying recently since retelling can change things. I think that assisted death should be available to people who clearly have a serious and incurable disease and are demonstrably capable of making their wishes felt and clearly do understand their situation. And that is that. Causing or assisting the death of somebody who has not made their wishes publicly clear should be treated, at least initially, as murder. If there are exonerating circumstances, then the legal system is capable of recognising these. We are not, by and large an uncaring and punitive society. The tribunal idea which the charity Dignity in Dying is investigating is a suggestion, and at the moment only that. I believe it could help those unclear about the law and the guidelines, and also act as a gentle filter, identifying the hypothetical pressured grannies that opponents of assisted dying continue to summon up as an argument, but also perhaps to suggest that a future that currently looks dark may yet be improved. I suspect that the majority of people seeking assisted death will be individuals in every sense of the word, looking for an organised death after a productive and organised life. I'm probably one of them. But I must say, it is a pleasure to meet other people with PCA, even if only to share anecdotes with those who truly know where you're coming from. A trouble shared is not halved, whatever the proverb says, but at least it is understood. The generation currently sliding into old age must surely be the first one ever to grow up unfamiliar with the realities of death. It has been hidden away, not spoken of, not acknowledged. It would be better for our mental health to do so. I can just remember, when I was a child, that sometimes you would see somebody wearing a black band around their arm, as a sign of mourning. I've seldom seen them as an adult. But now the task of dying is left to us, we might as well get good at it. On a more cheerful note, I'm working my way through the second draft of I Shall Wear Midnight, but as ever fighting for writing time among all the other calls. I shall be back on the sofa of the One Show on Thursday 11th February at 7pm on BBC One and I hope to get my Seamstresses Guild Crest before bumping into Christine Bleakley again Late News: We've been told that my sword is ready for viewing; I couldn't have any hand in the making of the horn hilt or the silverwork. Sadly, I won't get to see it until next week. All the best. Terry Pratchett | |
Odysseuzzz | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 07:42 |
TerugVindPratchett. | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 07:47 |
Terry Pratchett welcomes assisted suicide policy Author and euthanasia campaigner says new rules are best possible outcome in absence of law change The author and euthanasia campaigner Sir Terry Pratchett has welcomed new guidelines on assisted suicide set out by the director of public prosecutions (DPP) today. Pratchett used his Dimbleby lecture this month to call for euthanasia tribunals to give people with incurable diseases the right to medical help to end their lives. He said the new rules were the best possible outcome in the absence of a change in the law. "I am really pleased, I think we're going as far as we can go without legislation," he said. "It's rather more looking into the mind of the person [who is] helping assist the person to commit suicide. I rather like that it's getting away from the 'tick-box' approach the preliminary guidelines seemed to be suggesting." The DPP, Keir Starmer QC, said the final advice was not intended to be a tick-box exercise and the policy was now more focused on the motivation of the suspect. Pratchett, who was diagnosed two years ago with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease, said that while he welcomed the guidelines he would continue to campaign for a change in the law and for the introduction of euthanasia tribunals. The author of the bestselling Discworld fantasy novels, and patron of Dignity in Dying, said what he had heard from the DPP strengthened the case for tribunals, which would provide a "safety net" for people who might be coerced into ending their own lives. Sarah Wootton, Dignity in Dying's chief executive, called the guidelines a victory for common sense and compassion and a milestone on the way to legalising assisted deaths. But she said the situation remained flawed as assisted suicide was still illegal and, even with the help of the guidelines, people faced stressful investigations. "The law still needs to change and we'll continue to campaign," she said. Lord Carlile QC, chairman of Care Not Killing, said the guidelines greatly reduced the risk of undermining existing law. "Our main concern was that the interim guidelines singled out as a group those who were disabled or ill, thereby affording them less protection than other people under the law," he said. "We are very glad this has been removed." http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)isted-suicide-policy Een video uit december, waarin Pratchett praat over religie: http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)y-pratchett-religion "Sir Terry Pratchett wants to win control of how his own story ends" is the headline in The Times on February 6th. The interview takes place in a Wiltshire pub. You've got to love a man that writes about being discovered lying head on his computer keyboard by either his PA Rob or his wife. And them saving the work in progress before checking for a pulse. Het hele verhaal: http://www.timesonline.co(...)h/article7017199.ece The Telegraph reports that the BBC has been accused of 'promoting euthanasia by ignoring rights of disabled' after airing Terry's Richard Dimbleby Lecture. One does have to wonder if the people making the complaints actually watched the lecture and listened to what Terry had to say? http://www.telegraph.co.u(...)hts-of-disabled.html Dit is dan weer wat minder leuk nieuws: Terry has written to MPs urging them to adopt the Digital Economy Bill especially the part that talks about piracy. http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)hett-internet-piracy | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 07:50 |
Terry's opvattingen worden niet overal omarmd: The door to euthanasia stays shut, as it must Dominic Lawson The point of national treasures is that we are meant to unite in worship at the shrine of their sagacity; but it should be possible to remove national-treasure status as well as bestow it. I nominate Sir Terry Pratchett for relegation. The “Discworld novelist” (as he is known, somewhat mysteriously to those of us who have never read a word of his fiction) has become a figurehead of the euthanasia movement, which in this country now calls itself Dignity in Dying. After the publication on Thursday of the director of public prosecutions’ long-awaited guidelines on “assisted suicide”, Pratchett was interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News. He told Snow it was only “the far right” who argued that it would threaten the vulnerable and old if the law were changed to give blanket immunity against prosecution in such cases. Although Snow chose not to query Pratchett’s remark — national treasures may not be challenged on television under any circumstances — it was an outrageous thing to say. Anyone who has taken the trouble to study the voting records in parliament when it has debated this issue would have known that this matter is not predictable by political affiliation; for example, left-wing “old Labour” has always been much more opposed to legalisation of any form of euthanasia than the Blairites. When this topic was debated earlier in the month on BBC’s Question Time, the most excoriating attack on any change in the law came from George Galloway, the Respect MP. In their fanaticism, the full-time advocates of euthanasia find it impossible to accept that those who take a different view might be as “enlightened” as they are. They are also incapable of understanding the limitations of their position that autonomy alone gives a person the absolute right to demand that the state — via the National Health Service — terminates his life whenever he wants. As Professor Nigel Biggar of the Royal College of Physicians’ committee on ethical issues in medicine has written: “If we were to regard the individual as the sole arbiter of the worth of his or her life, then how could he or she continue to oblige the care and commitment of other people?” In other words, if we don’t accord any value to someone’s life beyond that attributable to their own estimation of it, why should we care about others’ health at all — beyond the negligible good manners of respecting another’s opinion? Fortunately, such an atomised view of the fabric of society does not govern the actions of Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions. The assiduous media management of Dignity in Dying had been able to spin many newspapers into expecting some radical change in favour of its campaign. Yet Starmer’s allegedly “new” policy, as he pointed out with adamantine clarity, “does not change the law on assisted suicide. It does not open the door for euthanasia”. All he has done is to set out the factors governing decisions whether or not to prosecute — and, as he said on Thursday, “prosecutions are neither more nor less likely” as a result. Despite the claims of Dignity in Dying, the courts have long been able to display compassion in such cases, assisted by a keen awareness of the circumstances in which a jury would be most unlikely to convict. That is why, so far, none of the 100 or more relatives who have accompanied suicidal Britons to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland has been prosecuted. This is, necessarily, a far from straightforward matter. Starmer said he is minded to prosecute in cases where “the suspect was not wholly motivated by compassion; for example, the suspect was motivated by the prospect that he or she or a person closely connected to him or her stood to gain in some way from the death of the victim”. Yet how do we know if someone’s motives do not contain a smidgen of hope for gain — looking after an elderly relative properly is hardly cheap — along with all the compassion volubly expressed as justification? No wonder, when asked if he could give an absolute assurance to Debbie Purdy, another Dignity in Dying campaigner, that her husband will not face prosecution after any terminal trip to Zurich, Starmer responded that no one could be given immunity. The interesting question remaining is why the campaign to introduce a measure of euthanasia is attracting such widespread public sympathy, at least as measured by the questions of pollsters as they ring up ordinary members of the public to ask them — one hopes not during tea with the children — how they would want to die. I don’t think it can be a coincidence that this apparent trend in opinion towards euthanasia has followed a dramatic increase in the costs of looking after the elderly, especially when it involves care homes. When David Willetts, the Tory MP, recently published his much-acclaimed book about the alleged selfishness of the baby-boomers in not providing sufficiently for the future, he did not address this point about an unwillingness to provide for the previous generation. Perhaps there are limits to the extent to which even the most intellectually conscientious of politicians is prepared to question the motives of the electorate. The wittiest British novelist of the baby-boom generation, Martin Amis, got into some trouble for telling this newspaper a month ago that it would soon become necessary to encourage “with a medal and a martini” the old to enter euthanasia booths on street corners. Otherwise, said Amis, “there’ll be a population of very demented old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops”. Cue (as intended) outrage. Yet I prefer the mischievous grotesqueries of Amis to the deceptive kindness of his fellow novelist Pratchett. In his recent Dimbleby lecture (yes, the BBC loves him too) Pratchett complained that “medicine is keeping more and more people alive” — idiot doctors! — “all requiring more and more care, a burden that falls initially on the next of kin”. Here we see how those apparently arguing for assisted suicide only for the sake of the “sufferer” so easily and unobtrusively descend the slippery slope towards euthanasia on grounds of all-round convenience. The truth in any case is that if someone feels he has become, in that horrible phrase, “a burden to his family”, he is absolutely entitled to refuse medical treatment — and certainly all invasive procedures. That is why it was so disingenuous of Lord Lester, who has acted as a legal adviser to Dignity in Dying, to declare that “not everyone wants doctors and nurses to strive to keep them alive”. Lord Lester, as a distinguished lawyer, must know no doctor could ever impose on him, while sentient, a treatment he does not wish to have, even if it were essential to preserve his life. As used to be said in such circumstances: he could turn his face to the wall. In his Dimbleby lecture, Pratchett quoted approvingly in full the line to which Lester merely alluded: “Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive / Officiously to keep alive.” These words of Arthur Hugh Clough, the 19th-century poet, have for years been obtusely (if not dishonestly) misrepresented as an endorsement of euthanasia. The poem in question, The Latest Decalogue, is in fact a bitterly satirical account of what Clough saw as the perversion of Christian morality in Victorian Britain. That is why another line of his poem reads, “Do not adultery commit;/Advantage rarely comes of it,” and it says towards its end, “Bear not false witness;/Let the lie/Have time on its own wings to fly.” These lines admirably sum up the strategy of the euthanasia lobby, even if it does have a national treasure to spread a warm glow over its chilling manifesto. dominic.lawson@sunday-times.co.uk Mijn persoonlijke mening: Een naar, bekrompen mannetje zonder gevoel voor humor en tussen de regels door lees ik groen-gele jaloezie dat een schrijver van humoristische boeken een 'Sir' is, terwijl een columnist van The Times nog steeds een 'mr' is. Hij zet zijn mailadres onder het artikel en dat heb ik dus meegekopieerd, dus voel je vrij, deze meneer je mening te geven | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 08:00 |
De Dimbleby-lecture staat in 6 delen op You Tube: | |
Pandora73 | dinsdag 2 maart 2010 @ 12:18 |
Ik snap gewoonweg niet dat er mensen zijn die dus liever lang en pijnlijk wegkwijnen, of dat hun geliefden willen laten doen, dan dat ze er bewust vóór het zover is een eind aan (laten) maken. Honden, katten, konijnen en andere huisdieren worden uit hun lijden verlost... Omdat dat humaan is. Mensen wordt dit (door mensen zoals meneer Lawson) echter niet gegund. Het wrange daarbij is dat humaan natuurlijk menselijk betekent... Ik kan echt zo boos worden om dit soort mensen... Bah. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 2 april 2010 @ 08:00 |
It looks like the SKY adaptation of Going Postal has been delayed. It was originally scheduled to be broadcast over the Easter period but it is now looking more likely to be broadcast at the end of May 2010. There has been very little advertising from Sky although an empty holding page has been set up for the show on the Sky website: http://sky1.sky.com/going-postal Hot of the press - As of the 1st April Sky have put the trailer up at: http://sky1.sky.com/going-postal-about -------------------- Terry Pratchett has written a story for an imaginary character in a real portrait for the National Portrait Gallery. In Terry's story it appears that a seafarer named Joshua Easement gives Queen Elizabeth a present from the Americas. Having no sense of smell he doesn't realise that he's given her a skunk. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=NPG156A and http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=NPG156B and http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=NPG156C --------------------- Authors including Terry Pratchett, Ian McEwan, Philip Pullman and Roddy Doyle have participated in a survey to find a 'writers' pick' of the past decade in books. Terry's choice was Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. More information can be found at The Guardian website: http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=DECADE156 | |
picodealion | vrijdag 2 april 2010 @ 12:17 |
Even een tvp. Ik heb het afgelopen jaar bijna alle boeken gelezen, uit het overzicht met de leesvolgorde bovenin dit topic mis ik alleen The Fifth Elephant. Wel jammer dat ik van sommige boeken, met name de Watch, echt niet meer weet wat er nou in welke gebeurde. Ik heb wel geprobeerd ze in de volgorde van schrijven te lezen (dus niet per thema) maar dat is ook niet met allemaal gelukt waardoor sommige verhaallijnen ook wat door elkaar lopen. | |
Marlalala | zondag 4 april 2010 @ 11:17 |
tvp | |
Merge | donderdag 15 april 2010 @ 22:53 |
Don't shoot me if I'm mistaking; maar zou Tim Burton niet perfect zijn om de boeken van Sir Pratchett te verfilmen? Just a thought Overigens moet ik echt weer eens een boek van Discworld gaan lezen, maar mijn bieb heeft niks nieuws te bieden.. Tijd om wat geld te verdienen | |
Dagonet | donderdag 15 april 2010 @ 23:03 |
Je moet ze gewoon helemaal niet verfilmen. . Ik heb net eindelijk Nation gelezen en die vind ik tot nog toe wel z'n beste denk ik, een culminatie van alles waar hij naartoe werkte in z'n eerdere boeken. | |
Merge | donderdag 15 april 2010 @ 23:10 |
Fair enough. De beste oplossing Ik moet nog steeds Unseen Academicals lezen, en blijkbaar is Nation ookal een aanrader? (Wat zeg ik nou, alle boeken van Prachett zijn aanraders..) | |
Dagonet | donderdag 15 april 2010 @ 23:15 |
Hmm, ja, ik denk dat je gewoon z'n boeken moet lezen in volgorde van publicatie (niet alleen discworld dus) aangezien Nation ook dingen meepikt van de Bromeliad trilogie. | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 15 april 2010 @ 23:15 |
quote:Ik vind het een briljant boek. Knappe verweving van echte geschiedenis met parallele universum-dingetjes, waardoor het herkenbaar is en toch helemaal anders. Ik vind het wel minder uitbundig humoristisch als de Discworld boeken. | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 08:58 |
quote:Ah, Terry heeft ook smaak als het over andermans boeken gaat. | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 09:00 |
quote:Mee eens. Een erg goed boek. Voor mijn gevoel zit er ook veel van zijn persoonlijke situatie in verwerkt. Unseen Academicals moet ik ook nog lezen trouwens, nog even geduld voor de pocket uitkomt | |
picodealion | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 10:17 |
Die moet ik ook maar eens halen dan. | |
De_Hertog | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 10:20 |
quote:Als je de pocket wil duurt dat nog 55 dagen 6,81 pre-order prijs op bookdepository. | |
picodealion | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 10:45 |
Ah, dank. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 18:36 |
quote:Toevallig vandaag gepre-ordered bij Play.com. 7,99 incl verzenden | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 16 april 2010 @ 18:59 |
quote:Hoe bedoel je dat? Er zit heel veel in dat in eerdere boeken ook al zat, de belangrijkste zaken in ieder geval. Mau is in veel opzichten een kopie van Masklin. | |
De_Hertog | zaterdag 8 mei 2010 @ 22:28 |
quote:Bookdepository is ook met gratis verzenden. Maar bij play.com is het momenteel 5,49. Inmiddels ook maar besteld. Bleek dat nog niet gedaan te hebben bij bookdepository en goedkoper verwacht ik het voorlopig niet meer | |
De_Hertog | zaterdag 8 mei 2010 @ 22:34 |
quote:Het is een gevoel dat ik erbij kreeg, maar het is natuurlijk goed mogelijk dat ik dat ook alleen maar kreeg omdat ik al weet hoe het met hem gaat. Maar ik had het idee dat hier het hele gebeuren rond dood gaan, opnieuw beginnen, ingrijpende veranderingen in een leven een stuk meer naar voren komt. Dat is natuurlijk een wat vreemde uitspraak voor een schrijver die in vrijwel al zijn boeken het karakter Death laat optreden, maar dat is misschien net wat ik bedoel: in alle andere boeken is dood eerder een 'komisch effect', een soort bijrol. Hier wordt het een stuk serieuzer aangepakt. Voor mijn gevoel is het werk van Pratchett meestal humor met een flinke serieuze ondertoon, terwijl ik Nation meer een serieus boek met een flinke dosis humor vind. | |
De_Hertog | zaterdag 8 mei 2010 @ 22:46 |
En The Carpet People is 4,49 momenteel, had nog niet alles van zijn pre-discworld-tijd dus die ook maar even besteld | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 10:43 |
This weekend the third Discworld adaptation by The Mob Films and Sky will be broadcast on Sky1 and Sky1HD. Part one starts at 6pm on Sunday 30th May and part 2 will be on Monday 31st. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 10:45 |
The secrets of my success: Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchett 'I will outsell the Booker winner, and that's not because I'm better than the Booker winner. It's simply a matter of popularity,' said Terry Pratchett Born in Beaconsfield in 1948, Sir Terry Pratchett is one of Britain's most successful authors with more than 65 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages. He is best known for the Discworld series, which accounts for 37 of his 49 books to date. In 2007 he was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Since the diagnosis, he has donated £500,000 to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, and become something of a figurehead for dementia sufferers. He gave the BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture last year on the subject of assisted dying, which drew criticism from the anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing. Pratchett was awarded the OBE for services to literature in 1998 and knighted last year. Remember what your mother told you. If I say that it was my destiny to write, that sounds altogether too posh. But my mother, who was cremated recently, and is very much in my thoughts now, used to walk me to school. And she used to tell me stories on the way to school: all that she could remember of the Greek myths, for example. (I must have been the only kid on the planet who had a tortoise called Phidippides - the runner who ran the first marathon). But the thing is, I listened to these stories, not always understanding them, but getting enough of them over the mile and a half each way every day that it just stuck. Appreciate the value of education. My mother and father weren't great readers, but they valued learning, because a certain A Hitler spoiled things for everybody, and meant that such further education as they might have had didn't happen. They wanted me to have the education they didn't have. Once you've got a kid to learn and read for pleasure, you've done nearly everything you can. School is there to teach social interaction; how to deal with the *******s and the bullies. Find out what you're good at. I found out by sheer accident, and that became my life's work. Now that many schools don't have orchestras and don't sing, people are missing opportunities to find out what they can be. Somewhere out there in this country is a child who's probably now carrying a hod on a building site because he's never put his hands on a piano. I think once people know what they're capable of being, they become, not a better person, but less likely to be an unpleasant one. Be self-motivated. First you have to get it right for yourself. Then there are the readers - and there are the fans. There are probably 10,000 hardcore fans who will be the first in the queue, who will buy the towel, the eau de cologne or whatever, and there are thousands, millions out there who will buy the books, and maybe a poster from time to time. And you write for them. You write for the readers, and hope that you've got it right. What does help these days is that science fiction/fantasy is no longer a genre. It outsells mainstream literature. As a matter of course, I will outsell the Booker winner, and that's not because I'm better than the Booker winner. It's simply a matter of popularity. Making money isn't something to be ashamed of. There's a feeling now that if you have money you must have got it by having some kind of shady dealings, or being an MP. But I just did it - I sat down and did the one thing I was good at, for a very long time. Now I'm a millionaire several times over. Keep asking questions until something happens. Sometimes I think I have a kind of creative stupidity - it's the 'what if?' thing. If you have that curious mindset, you see things that other people don't. For example, have you read The Wind In The Willows? What seemed odd about it to you? The animals change their size repeatedly - they go down holes, drive cars, walk around - and nobody notices. The magic of The Wind In The Willows is that as a kid you don't question that - and it does wonders for the way they think. Always write. A day without writing makes me neurotic; it's something I should be doing. I've spent more than three decades writing the books, and my last holiday was... well 9/11 took place during it. I'm slowing down now, for reasons you know. I've signed a contract for two more books after this one - I don't know if my health will actually survive that, but it's an act of faith. I cannot conceive of not being a writer and not having a book to do. And I've always said that if my PA or my wife finds me slumped over the machine, what's the first thing they should do? Save the work in progress! The fight gives you strength. After the arguments I had with Care Not Killing, that's how I felt. I'm fortunate, given my circumstances, that I can work round the problems, and that my life is full of stuff to do, to the extent that I have to turn down an embarrassing amount. Read a book, magazine or newspaper written by and for people who have a world view completely different from your own. I won't go there with specific examples, but you should not live permanently in your own world view. Always keep at the back of your mind the possibility that you're dead wrong. It came home to me once - I was on a train, by myself, going up to Glasgow. A guy got in with a six-pack and a shell suit; he was big, uncouth-looking and probably a bit drunk. I had this sudden flash in which the train had had an accident, a crash, and there was this guy pulling ragged metal off me. I think that was my remembering one of the big London rail crashes - I remembered people going in, helping each other out. It showed the real commonality of mankind. And that sometimes happens, and when it does it's a wonderful thing. 'Terry Pratchett's Going Postal' is on Sky1 on May 30 and 31 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)ewsxml#ixzz0pOtd1Uh9 | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 10:48 |
'Yes, I have got Alzheimer's, but in many ways I'm the luckiest man alive': Terry Pratchcett on defying dementia Extrovert novelist Sir Terry Pratchett likes to make cameo appearances in the screen adaptations of his books - 'my one vanity', he calls it. He was a toymaker in the Hogfather, an astrozoologist in Colour Of Magic and in the latest of his Discworld novels, Going Postal, he is briefly seen as a postman. But is there more to this particular cameo than vanity? For viewers will see him pushing open a door only to find himself staring into a deep, dark void. No fantasy: Richard Coyle and Claire Foy star in Going Postal which is based on Terry Pratchett's novels He can find only one word to describe the abyss: 'It's an embuggerance.' He also used that word - a Pratchett invention - to describe his feelings three years ago, when he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Is the fact that his character is staring into the abyss a metaphor for Terry's own tragic circumstances? 'I've got a very serious condition but I've no plans to disappear into the abyss any time soon,' says 62-year-old Pratchett. 'If the truth be told, I wasn't that keen on playing the postman - I'm hardly the world's greatest actor. 'After six takes, I just about got it right. Mind you, I had to put up with Charles Dance looking on smiling while I was filming the previous five takes. 'He's a fine actor but I wonder what he would be like writing a fantasy novel? 'As for the scene - people always try to find extra significance in on screen events, but they are often just coincidental.' Serious condition: Pratchett, who makes a cameo role in the TV adaptation, was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset dementia 14 years ago Aside from forgetting the odd word (bark, the name for the coating on a tree, eludes him for a while), Sir Terry is on fine form. He is wearing a black, polo neck pullover, dark trousers and his famous white beard is neatly trimmed. He's anxious to emphasise that there is life in the old dog yet. 'Do me a favour', he says, 'and spread the word that I'm not short on intellect.' He's even prepared to portray himself as an ageing literary sex symbol, recounting the story of a woman at a Discworld convention who was 'particularly keen to make my acquaintance and may possibly have wished to take things further'. Was he tempted? 'Well I did have a spare afternoon, but I chose to go shopping instead because I love my wife, Lyn, and had no intention of straying after 41 happy years. 'In a funny way, I felt I had let the male side down by refusing this woman's overtures - even though I was rather relieved to walk away. 'Flirting I can handle, cheating I couldn't. The woman organising the convention sent out an email warning: "Terry will flirt like a champion. But don't worry, you will never meet a more married man." 'I was not ashamed she had written that. I enjoy the pleasures of life, but I know where to draw the line.' Despite being diagnosed with a rare form of early onset dementia - posterior cortical atrophy - in 1997 and being aware that a frighteningly small percentage of those diagnosed with the disease live more than 14 years after diagnosis, Terry isn't about to stop enjoying life. 'I'm doing all right. There are problems caused by the disease. For example, if I go to the toilet from the kitchen I find it hard to remember the way back. But it's not a big problem - I might walk into a cupboard but there is always a door to get me back to where I was. 'I can no longer drive a car but I never had car machismo and my PA and my wife drive. 'I have minor problems with work. It was because my typing and spelling were becoming so erratic that I was first diagnosed as having Alzheimer's. 'If I did a job which didn't require me to churn out words the disease may have gone undiscovered. But I can cope with the problems. I use technology to dictate letters and I write my books by speaking what I want to say into a machine. My style of writing is conversational anyway. 'What I am hoping for is a piece of software that allows me to go into my office, say to the computer "open the file I was working on yesterday afternoon" and I can read it on the screen, then dictate additions. I hope that technology is available in time for me to use it.' Sir Terry is also hoping that medical advances allow him to sustain his life well beyond current expectations. 'Alzheimer's will be conquered one day and I can only hope that medical breakthroughs keep me going. 'Above all, I want to remain in control of my own life. My mother was cremated a couple of days ago, having suffered a massive stroke, from which she never recovered. 'She had a good life - dying at 88 is not a tragedy. The last thing she would have wanted was to have been fed by somebody and to look out of the window all day, which would have been her fate had she survived. 'I want the right to decide how I live and how and when I die - to retain my dignity.' Terry's determination to raise the profile of Alzheimer's, plus his attempts to legalise assisted suicide, means a pretty extraordinary postbag for the Wiltshire-based author. 'I only used to get letters about my books,' says Terry. 'Now, I get some strange stuff - and some pretty strange reactions in the street too. 'And I have had some mail from those of a religious persuasion. "You are going to die because God loves you," read one. In which case, thank goodness God doesn't hate me!' One is tempted to regard Terry's Discworld books - 70 million of which have been sold worldwide - as his escape from real life. But Going Postal is very much of this world, with its focus on the evils of big business, represented by David Suchet's money grabbing character Reacher Gilt. 'It's about post offices closing, piratical takeovers. There are plenty of resonances with this world.' He IS also currently writing his autobiography, which is obviously non-fantasy too. 'What I want to do is go away and write my next novel and connect fully again with that world of fantasy,' he says. 'That's what I have done for the past 30 years until I was foolish enough to say: "I've got Alzheimer's." Then it all changed. 'I wish, for so many reasons, that I could go back to the way things were - although I recognise that I have been luckier than most. 'I remember flying first class on a global book tour, looking in the toilet mirror in the dead of night and saying to myself: "You lucky b*****d. "You are only in first class because you put letters in an amusing order. You really don't deserve it." 'But then, in my mind, I probably don't "deserve" to have Alzheimer's. 'I've just been unlucky, in that regard.' Going Postal is on Sky 1 on Sunday, May 30, and Monday, May31. For more information, visit Alzheimersresearch.org.uk. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)e.html#ixzz0pOuABUIu | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 10:52 |
A new website that contains the fictional stories that Terry wrote whilst he was working as a journalist for the Bucks Free Press newspaper in the mid to late 1960s has just launched. The stories have never been made available outside of the original issues of the newspapers that they were published in; there are some true gems, including a Carpet People story that ran in issues published late 1965; pre-dating the publication of the original Carpet People book by at least 5 years! http://www.terrypratchett.weebly.com | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 10:54 |
Sir Terry Pratchett creates Wincanton ‘Walk of Fame’ Legendary author Sir Terry Pratchett OBE returned to the Somerset town of Wincanton to leave Hollywood style ‘walk of fame’ imprints at Taylor Wimpey’s Kingwell Rise development. Sir Terry places his hands and signature into concrete The new homes development in the small Somerset town rose to fame this time last year when it unveiled Discworld-inspired road names in keeping with the town’s official twinning with the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork from the Discworld novels. Treacle Mine Road and Peach Pie Street won the public vote but since then Taylor Wimpey has gained council approval to name all of the roads at the development after Discworld with additions including Hen And Chickens Field, Morpork Street and Kinklebury Street. Hundreds of Discworld fans, many in costume, descended on Kingwell Rise to see Sir Terry place his hands and signature into concrete at the development following other Discworld activities organised by the Discworld Emporium of Wincanton. Sir Terry Pratchett said: “It is just great to return to Kingwell Rise a year on and actually see homes now built along Treacle Mine Road and Peach Pie Street – it certainly feels more real now – as opposed to fantasy fiction! I hope the new residents are enjoying their road names – I’d definitely pay good money to live on Hen And Chickens Field!” Richard Goad, regional sales and marketing director for Taylor Wimpey, explained: “We are simply over the moon to have Sir Terry back at the development leaving another permanent mark on Kingwell Rise for current and future residents. Following the public vote last year, it seemed fitting to try to get approval on Discworld names for all of the roads at the development and we are thrilled that we did.” Replica road names were signed by Sir Terry and are planned for auction at the official Discworld convention in Birmingham in August. All proceeds, in addition to a further donation from Taylor Wimpey, will go to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, of which Sir Terry is a patron. | |
Pandora73 | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 13:01 |
Vetinary, dank voor deze posts! De site met korte verhalen is natuurlijk erg leuk, hopelijk wordt het snel allemaal aangevuld. En Wincanton... Je zal er maar kunnen wonen! (Misschien leuk voor als we gepensioneerd zijn?) | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 14:24 |
quote: | |
picodealion | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 14:43 |
Laatst Making Money maar eens gekocht en gelezen. Vetinari is verreweg mijn favoriete character, . Wat een baas is dat toch. | |
Pandora73 | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 14:48 |
quote:I do apologise, my liege... Vetinari of course! (Slip of the keyboard ) | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 23:24 |
Deel 1 van Going Postal aan het downloaden | |
wonderer | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 23:31 |
quote:Mijn torrentboer heeft hem nog niet... *nog even wacht* | |
speknek | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 23:32 |
Je zou maar op Treacle Mine Road wonen, hoe baas is dat | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 23:32 |
quote:Usenet | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 30 mei 2010 @ 23:33 |
quote:Lijkt me niet iets om hier in NL in te voeren. De vertaalde namen zijn lang zo leuk niet. | |
FrankRicard | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 12:39 |
Dan krijg je inderdaad dit soort net niet gevallen: http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=geldrop&fb=1&ei=pJEDTMP8DeDOjAfPltXDCA&ved=0CBkQpQY&hl=en&view=map&geocode=FdijEAMdectUAA&split=0&sll=51.431777,5.590921&sspn=0.057466,0.131429&hq=&hnear=Geldrop-Mierlo,+North+Brabant,+The+Netherlands&ll=51.411962,5.546443&spn=0.008887,0.024269&t=h&z=16 | |
speknek | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 12:45 |
Maar dat zijn dan weer wel de Engelse namen. (overigens, typisch dat "Emopad" er langsloopt ) | |
Cid | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 13:16 |
quote: Dat gaan we even regelen Kan ik vanavond ook kijken! | |
picodealion | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 13:48 |
quote:Dat is wel vrij triest inderdaad. | |
wonderer | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 18:29 |
quote:_! | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 19:16 |
Deel 1 van GP net gezien. Ik vind hem goed. Beter dan Colour of Magic en beter dan Hogfather. Er wordt wat vrijer met het materiaal omgegaan en dat doet het verhaal wel goed. Klein minpuntje vind ik de iets te soepel verlopende romance van Moist. Maar daar is wel overheen te komen | |
Lod | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 20:28 |
Ook net deel 1 gezien. Goed vermaak in ieder geval. Wat wel een klein beetje jammer is is dat ze niet telkens dezelfde mensen gebruiken voor terugkerende karakters. Lord Vetinari is een andere en Ridcully volgens mij ook. Maar ik kijk uit naar het tweede deel. | |
wonderer | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:03 |
quote:Vetinari zat toch niet in Hogfather? | |
Lod | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:05 |
Maar wel in de colour of magic. Waar overigens David Jason Rincewind speelt, terwijl hij in Hogwatch Albert speelt | |
wonderer | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:07 |
quote:Ik dacht dat er tussen CoM en GP een behoorlijke tijd zat en dat het dus twee verschillende Patricians zijn. | |
FrankRicard | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:26 |
Ik meen ook ooit ergens op een fansite gelezen te hebben dat de patrician in CoM niet Vetinari is. | |
Dagonet | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:32 |
quote:Volgens Pratchett is het wel Vetinari, alleen is hij daarna een betere schrijver geworden. | |
wonderer | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:34 |
quote:Oh, ik dacht dat die eerdere boeken zich veel vroeger afspeelden. Ook ander hoofd van de unseen university enzo. | |
Dagonet | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 21:41 |
quote:Ja, maar dat wordt weer in de boeken uiteen gedaan, dat komt door de gebeurtenissen in Sourceror. Maar het gemakkelijkst is het inderdaad om te denken dat het niet Vetinari maar Lord Snapcase is ofzo. . | |
wonderer | maandag 31 mei 2010 @ 22:06 |
quote:Het is alweer een poosje (jaar of tien) geleden dat ik die boeken heb gelezen | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 1 juni 2010 @ 06:08 |
Deel 2 gedownload. Vanmiddag kijken | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 1 juni 2010 @ 16:23 |
Film wijkt wel erg af van het boek, moet ik zeggen. Vooral deze tweede helft. Maar in het algemeen een goed geschoten epos, doet veel recht aan Pratchett's werk. Ik heb me er prima mee vermaakt. Zelfs mijn karakter vond ik, na even wennen, goed gekozen. | |
Cid | dinsdag 1 juni 2010 @ 16:52 |
quote: | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 1 juni 2010 @ 17:11 |
quote: | |
wonderer | dinsdag 1 juni 2010 @ 17:52 |
Eerste helft gezien. Volgens mijn vent ook voor iemand die Pratchett's werk niet kent goed te volgen, itt CoM en Hogfather Vanavond tweede helft. | |
FrankRicard | donderdag 3 juni 2010 @ 10:37 |
Ik vond het wel aardig, maar ik heb toch het idee dat er veel van de humor van Pratchett's boeken mist. | |
picodealion | donderdag 3 juni 2010 @ 12:29 |
quote:Hogfather was goed te volgen voor niet-kenners hoor. Je mist een boel subtiele humor maar iedereen die ik ken die hem heeft gezien vond 'm goed te pruimen, ondanks dat ik maar één Discworld-lezer ken. | |
wonderer | donderdag 3 juni 2010 @ 18:09 |
quote:Ik ging af op wat er naast me gezegd werd. Hogfather was inderdaad beter te volgen dan CoM, maar hij vond GP het makkelijkst. Kan ik ook niets aan doen | |
willempjewever | donderdag 3 juni 2010 @ 19:13 |
quote:is inmiddels 8,30 euro. Irritante euro | |
De_Hertog | donderdag 3 juni 2010 @ 19:58 |
quote:Zoals eerder gemeld, inmiddels 5,49 op play.com | |
SadKingBilly | zaterdag 5 juni 2010 @ 00:22 |
Maar daar kun je niet met paypal betalen en ik heb geen CC. Balen, je kunt er I shall wear midnight ook al pre-orderen. | |
Pandora73 | zaterdag 5 juni 2010 @ 22:56 |
Ken je niemand met een CC via wie je het kan bestellen dan? | |
Lord_Vetinari | zaterdag 5 juni 2010 @ 23:00 |
quote:http://www.bol.com/nl/p/e(...)007772636/index.html 9,99 en geen CC nodig. | |
De_Hertog | woensdag 9 juni 2010 @ 08:51 |
Unseen Academicals is inmiddels onderweg naar mij. Nog steeds 5,49 bij play.com, voor de trage beslissers. | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 9 juni 2010 @ 09:01 |
quote: | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 08:04 |
Hmm, ik realiseer me net dat ik in GP Death helemaal niet gezien heb | |
FrankRicard | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 09:26 |
Was mij inderdaad ook niet opgevallen, maar toch jammer. | |
Lod | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 09:45 |
Het is zolang geleden dat ik het boek heb gelezen dat ik eigenlijk niet kan herinneren of Death daar een belangrijke rol in speelde. Van de andere kant, volgens mij heeft hij in vrijwel elk boek zijn opwachting gemaakt dus in deze waarschijnlijk ook wel. | |
wonderer | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 17:40 |
quote:Een beetje wel: Mr Pump werd door dezelfde (Nederlandse) acteur gespeeld | |
picodealion | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 17:59 |
quote:Had onze eigen Carel Struycken weer een rolletje? Weer weinig tekst zeker? | |
wonderer | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 18:01 |
quote:Nee, Marnix van den Broecke is de nieuwe Carel Struycken (wel met ck in zijn achternaam ). | |
picodealion | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 18:15 |
Ah, ik zie het. Met een k, overigens. . Mr. Pump is een Golem nietwaar? Verder speelt 'ie Death, The Shadow, Harvester 1 en staat hij bij een Harry Potter special vernoemd als 'werewolf special creature actor'. Blijkbaar geen filmgeniek hoofd? | |
wonderer | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 18:28 |
Ik heb hem een paar jaar geleden gesproken op de Elf Fantasy Fair. Hij is balletdanser geweest en wordt gevraagd vanwege zijn manier van bewegen vooral. Zijn Engels is niet zo heel goed (zwaar Nederlands accent) dus dat wordt lastig qua echt acteren. Er zijn wat achter-de-schermen filmpjes met hem als Death van Hogfather, die zijn wel leuk, staan vast wel op youtube. | |
picodealion | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 18:30 |
Grappig, toch een beetje een gevalletje Struycken dus. | |
wonderer | donderdag 10 juni 2010 @ 18:32 |
Hier is mijn verslagje van die dag: http://blog.nietoverdrijven.com/?p=287 Marnix heeft zelf nog op mijn blog gepost (zal zichzelf wel gegoogled hebben of zo, vond het wel grappig). | |
Dagonet | maandag 14 juni 2010 @ 22:03 |
Afgelopen zaterdag mijzelf de Folklore of Discworld en de pocket van Unseen Academicals kado gedaan. | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 14 juni 2010 @ 22:05 |
UA is nog onderweg. FoD heb ik al een tijdje. Is wel interessant | |
wonderer | maandag 14 juni 2010 @ 22:05 |
Ik ben Mort aan het herlezen. Toch zit er echt een flink verschil in de boeken uit die periode, en de nieuwere, zeg. | |
Xessive | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 01:25 |
Net het tweede deel van Going Postal af zitten kijken. Man, man, man, wat een briljant stukje werk is dat zeg. Alsof ze de beelden die ik bij het boek had, uit mijn hoofd getrokken hebben. En Adora. En Angua! Hoe geweldig is die in haar minirolletje?! Ik kan niet wachten tot ze een 'verfilming' van een van de Guard boeken maken. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 07:22 |
UA is gisteren binnengekomen Jammer dat ik het pas mag lezen in de vakantie, over twee maanden | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 07:28 |
Ik kan boeken nooit bewaren tot de vakantie, dus dan moet ik op het laatste moment pas besluiten wat ik meeneem. . | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 07:39 |
quote:Het is ook niet makkelijk, maar ik heb een ijzeren wilskracht | |
Lod | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 07:50 |
quote:Je vrouw/vriendin/vriend/man/moeder heeft het boek gewoon opgesloten in een kast en je krijgt het niet eerder dan op de vakantie. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:09 |
quote:Nee hoor. Het ligt open en bloot met een heleboel andere nieuwe boeken in en krat op mijn kamer. | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:14 |
Ach, met mijn methode is het snel voor het inpakken nog even een zooi boeken uitzoeken op de gok. Is ook leuk voor de afwisseling. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:15 |
Nee, ik ga altijd een maand of twee voor de vakantie (dus na verjaardag en vakantiegeld) op jacht en alles wat ik koop bewaar ik voor de vakantie | |
SadKingBilly | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:38 |
quote:Lang leve mijn ebook reader Op een 8GB kaartje passen genoeg boeken voor een wereldreis Helaas zijn de Nederlandstalige versies nergens te vinden ach, lezen in het engels is toch leuker. | |
Xcalibur | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:40 |
Ik heb hem vandaag ook binnen gehad.... bizar dat ze hem voor dat geld hierheen kunnen krijgen Ben benieuwd, cover ziet er goed uit! | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:43 |
quote:Maar zelfs dan nog moet je keuzes maken wat je gaat lezen. Ik hou er ook wel een hele sloot op m'n telefoon maar de papieren versies zijn de boeken die ik zeker ga lezen. . En ik lees eigenlijk nooit in het Nederlands? | |
Dagonet | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 18:44 |
Ontopic maar weer: Folkore vond ik leuk maar niet echt briljant, ik had meer verwacht en gehoopt. Eingelijk moeten ze gewoon de AFP uitgeven. . | |
SadKingBilly | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 19:25 |
Folklore? | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 18 juni 2010 @ 21:43 |
quote: | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 2 juli 2010 @ 06:08 |
It looks like some of the cast of Going Postal had fun on set. Moist Von Lipwig, Stanley Howler, Mr Groat and Pump 19 can be seen doing their version of Elvis's classic Return To Sender at: Bril-jant!!!! [ Bericht 18% gewijzigd door Lord_Vetinari op 02-07-2010 19:31:28 ] | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 2 juli 2010 @ 06:18 |
The Guardian reports that the first part of Going Postal was viewed by over 879,000 people. More than three times Sky 1's normal average for the time slot. ============= John Mullan of the Guardian Book Club has interviewed Terry about Unseen Academicals. Klik ============ A short video (that I haven't seen before) of Terry being interviewed by Mark Lawson of the BBC about Terry's first science fiction convention can be found on YouTube at: Klik ========= Terry himself over Going Postal Interview met Richard Coyle (Moist von Lipwig) Charles Dance (Lord Vetinari ) Claire Foy (Adora Belle Dearheart) David Suchet (Reacher Gilt) Andrew Sachs (Toliver Groat) [ Bericht 17% gewijzigd door Lord_Vetinari op 02-07-2010 19:56:50 ] | |
picodealion | vrijdag 2 juli 2010 @ 12:58 |
Ik bleej Wintersmith nog niet te hebben gelezen. Leuke verrassing, meteen maar even gekocht. | |
Lod | zaterdag 3 juli 2010 @ 10:24 |
Ben naar aanleiding van de film weer eens begonnen met het herlezen van mijn favoriete boeken. En toen moest ik opeens aan een uitspraak van J.K. Rowling denken. Ze had ooit in een interview gezegd dat ze niet eens wist dat ze fantasyboeken aan het schrijven was. Ik bedacht mij toen ook dat ik Pratchett niet lees omdat het fantasyboeken zijn maar dat ik ze lees voor de humor, zijn filosofische gedachtespinsels en zijn schrijfstijl. Dat hij schrijft over tovenaars, dwergen en trollen is voor mij maar bijzaak, hij had het net zo goed een setting kunnen kiezen die overeenkomt met onze wereld. En eigenlijk kan het hele genre fantasy mij ook niet zo boeien, op Pratchett, Tom Holt en Harry Potter na. Zijn er mensen die hem echt lezen vanwege het fantasy aspect? Of is hij misschien toch geen echte fantasy-schrijver? edit: wat typefouten weggehaald en wat meer structuur aangebracht. Ik moet toch meer de preview-knop gaan gebruiken. | |
De_Hertog | zaterdag 3 juli 2010 @ 18:39 |
Unseen Academicals ook binnen gekregen tijdens m'n afwezigheid, straks maar eens gaan lezen. Past vast goed bij de WK-sfeer | |
De_Hertog | zaterdag 3 juli 2010 @ 18:40 |
quote:AFP? Volgens mij mis ik iets | |
Dagonet | zaterdag 3 juli 2010 @ 21:15 |
quote:Je kent de Annotated Pratchett File niet? ! Vanuit de nieuwsgroep (bestaat die nog?) alt.fan.pratchett hebben mensen een site opgezet en annotaties uit de boeken verzameld (en nog veel meer). Oh, ik zie dat ik AFP schreef (afkorting van de nieuwsgroep) ipv APF. . De APF vind je hier: http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html | |
Dagonet | zaterdag 3 juli 2010 @ 21:16 |
Ik lees Pratchett trouwens ook niet vanwege de 'fantasy' want dat is totaal niet van belang voor de verhalen. | |
suikertaartje | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 13:27 |
quote:Geweldig, ik ga hem (bijna) meteen bestellen! Ik ben nu even tussendoor bezig met A Hat full of Sky Hebben jullie toevallig ook de dvd van Hogfather gezien en zo ja, wat vonden jullie daarvan? | |
rubje | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 13:49 |
schitterende Op en ook erg boeiend. Met plezier gelezen en ik heb al wat besteld! Bedankt ts! | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:46 |
quote:Toevallig gisteren weer eens bekeken. Blijft een goeie film, vind ik persoonlijk. | |
wonderer | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:47 |
Ik hoop dat ze Reaper Man een keer gaan verfilmen Net weer gelezen, erg geinig en volgens mij ook makkelijk te voltooien. | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:52 |
quote:Ik denk dat making Money de volgende is, hoewel ik best een Watch-boek (5th Elephant) of een Witches-boek verfilmd zou willen zien. | |
wonderer | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:53 |
Masquerade of Night watch Vimes Hoewel ik me zo geen acteur voor de geest kan halen die het goed zou doen. | |
Dagonet | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:54 |
Ik vind dat ze bigger budget mogen en Alan Rickman inzetten voor Vetinari. . Dat is ook eigenlijk de enige karakter waar ik een acteur voor zou weten. Misschien Harrison Ford (blade runnerstijl) als Vimes. | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:55 |
quote:Oh, ik denk dat er best Engelse acteurs rondlopen die wij niet kennen die een perfecte Vimes zouden neerzetten. | |
Dagonet | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:56 |
Het is jammer dat Peter o'Toole zo oud is alleen. Die stem... | |
wonderer | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:57 |
Rickman | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 20:58 |
quote:Misschien als Death (voice)? | |
suikertaartje | maandag 5 juli 2010 @ 22:01 |
quote:Ik was echt blij verrast dat het, na het lezen van het boek, in mijn hoofd ongeveer net zo was als in de film! Dat gebeurt me bijna nooit met verfilmingen namelijk... | |
Woodpecker | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 12:02 |
Ik ben tot nu toe alle boeken chronologisch aan het lezen, en wát een wereld! Ben momenteel bezig met The Last Hero en heb de rest al in mijn kastje staan, behalve de boeken voor young adults (The Amazing Maurice en de Tiffany Aching-boeken). Zijn die ook onmisbaar voor elke rechtgeaarde Discworld/Pratchett-fan of zijn die echt te 'kinderlijk'? | |
Lod | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 12:09 |
quote:Ik weet er wel 1. Warren Clarke. De man die Andy Dalziel speelt in Dalziel en Pascoe. Zijn karakter daar heeft m.i. al wat weg van Vimes. | |
De_Hertog | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 12:18 |
quote:Te kinderlijk zijn ze zeker niet. Het taalgebruik is wat eenvoudiger en de verhalen zijn wat korter, maar de humor en de onderliggende thema's zijn hetzelfde. Gewoon doen dus. Plus, de Nac Mac Feegle vond ik erg leuk. Crivens! | |
Nembrionic | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 22:24 |
Nog niemand die over "I Shall Wear Midnight" heeft gepost? | |
De_Hertog | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 22:27 |
quote:Is ook nog niet uit toch? Sowieso koop ik de pockets, dus moet ik meestal nog langer wachten, maar de hardcover komt ook pas in september dacht ik. | |
Nembrionic | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 22:28 |
quote:Klopt, maar had op z'n minst verwacht dat er wel iemand zou posten over een nieuw boek | |
suikertaartje | maandag 23 augustus 2010 @ 22:34 |
quote:Dat deed je toch net ook? | |
blessed19 | dinsdag 24 augustus 2010 @ 22:54 |
quote:Over welke groep gaat het? | |
Nembrionic | woensdag 25 augustus 2010 @ 01:28 |
quote:?? | |
Dagonet | woensdag 25 augustus 2010 @ 07:16 |
I Shall Wear Midnight is een Tiffany boek. | |
Cid | woensdag 25 augustus 2010 @ 08:15 |
quote:Crivens! Vandaag komen Witches Abroad en The Science of Discworld als het goed is binnen. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:35 |
Ik ben op vakantie (ik ben hier dus niet), en Unseen Academicals staat al op me te wachten in de caravan | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:36 |
Oh, en over I Shall Wear Midnight: UK release date 2nd September 2010 US release date (according to the Advanced Readers Copy) is 28th September. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:37 |
En er gaan geruchten dat Dreamworks toch de verfilming van Truckers weer gaat oppakken: http://www.collider.com/2(...)ms-details-upcoming/ | |
suikertaartje | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:40 |
quote:Dat is lekker, zeker met dit weer Of zit jij ergens in een ver, warm en droog land? | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:41 |
quote:Momenteel zit ik een dagje thuis ( ) ivm met wat dentale problemen, en morgen ben ik als het goed is weer terug in het Saarland (waar het vandaag in ieder geval beter weer was dan hier) . | |
suikertaartje | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:42 |
quote:Dat is wat minder fijn Is het dan nu of morgen wel opgelost dat je vanaf morgen weer kunt genieten van vakantie met boek? | |
Lord_Vetinari | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:46 |
quote:Als het goed is wel. Mijn plaatje is gebroken en de vorige keer hadden ze dat in een dag o-pgelost, dus... | |
suikertaartje | zondag 29 augustus 2010 @ 16:47 |
quote:Dan komt het vast goed | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 30 augustus 2010 @ 17:11 |
quote:Het duurt een dagje langer. OT: "I Shall Wear Midnight" lag vandaag tot mijn verbazing al in de plaatselijke boekhandel. | |
suikertaartje | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:04 |
quote: Oeh, dat is tof! | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:07 |
quote:Voor de Tiffany Aching fans wel. Ik heb, na Wee Free Men geen TA-boek meer gekocht. Ik vind ze niet leuk. | |
KingOfMars | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:08 |
Van het weekend heeft vrouwlief The Colour of Magic en The Light Fantastic voor me meegenomen van een boekenbeurs, beetje nav Going Postal die ik pas bekekeken heb. Eens kijken of ik het wat vind, dat Discworld . Ben erg benieuwd! (En heb nog lekker veel te lezen als ik het wat vind!) | |
Dagonet | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:09 |
De eerste paar boeken, zeker de eerste twee die je nu hebt, zijn niet de beste die er zijn. Hij moest nog in vorm komen dus hou nog even vol als je deze niet zo leuk vindt. Dat kan heel goed namelijk. . | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:09 |
quote:Um, wel even uitkijken. TLF en TCOM zijn de eerste boeken. PTerry moest zijn draai nog vinden. Ik vind het niet de leukste en zeker niet de beste. Baseer je oordeel niet al te veel op deze twee. Eigenlijk worden ze na Guards! Guards! pas echt leuk | |
Lod | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:10 |
Laat je niet ontmoedigen door die twee boeken. Ik vond ze zelf minder. Als ik daarmee was begonnen met de Discworld dan had ik er waarschijnlijk nooit meer naar omgekeken. Zijn latere werk vind ik zelf een stuk beter. | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:10 |
GMTA Dago -edit- en Lod | |
Lod | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:10 |
De boodschap lijkt me duidelijk | |
KingOfMars | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:11 |
Ok, bedankt voor de heads-up. Ik dacht gewoon lekker naief bij het begin te beginnen... . | |
Dagonet | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:12 |
quote:Mwach, ik zou het leggen bij Wyrd Sisters, twee boeken eerder en Mort is ook goed te pruimen. . TLF, TCOM en Sourcery zijn van de eerste vijf het minste en ook de minste overall. Wintersmith is trouwens beter dan Wee Free Men, die kan je best ngo wel een kans geven. . | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:12 |
Ik ben er wel mee begonnen, overigens. Maar dat was omdat het de enige twee waren, die al uit waren. Ik heb de serie dus inderdaad gewoon vanaf het begin gelezen. | |
Lod | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:12 |
quote:Ben trouwens vorig jaar verhuisd naar Enschede. Maar ondanks dat hier een nerd Universiteit zit kan ik in de reguliere boekhandel geen Tom Holt vinden . Maar dat even terzijde. | |
Dagonet | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:13 |
quote:Is ook prima, er zijn verschillende volgordes om ze te lezen, naar gelang de hoofdpersonen. Publicatievolgorde werkt altijd, maar je kan ook dit aanhouden bijvoorbeeld: | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:13 |
quote:Neuh, ik vond de synopsis daarvan al niet te pruimen | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:14 |
quote:Klopt. Ik moet ze ook altijd bestellen in GB. Mijn eerste heb ik overigens wel in Rotterdam bij Donner kunnen kopen. Geen idee of die ze nog steeds voert. | |
Dagonet | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:15 |
Heeft ABC.nl ze niet? Eigenlijk zou American Bookcentre ook een vestiging in het Oosten moeten openen, nu is het alleen de randstad. | |
KingOfMars | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:15 |
quote:Die was ik ook al tegengekomen. Thanks! | |
suikertaartje | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:19 |
quote:Dat scheelt je weer wat geld dan Ik zal eens even kijken of hier al wat bekend is bij de boekhandel. | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 09:31 |
quote:Ja, ABC.nl heeft ook Holts | |
De_Hertog | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 10:21 |
quote:De hardcover of een paperback-versie? Ik zag bij bookdepository.co.uk ineens ook een paperback langskomen, al staat die daar nog op 2 dagen.. | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 10:38 |
quote:Dat zal wel een foutje zijn. De HC komt nu uit, de PB dan ongeveer over een jaar. | |
FrankRicard | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 10:54 |
quote:Ik raad mensen altijd aan om met Guards! Guards! of Pyramids te beginnen. Guards! Guards! heb ik ondertussen al een keer of 4 cadeau gedaan | |
De_Hertog | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 11:14 |
quote:Dacht ik eerst ook, maar hij staat daadwerkelijk met een ander ISBN-nummer en als 'Airport and Ireland only' editie. Op luchthavens kom je inderdaad zelden hardcovers tegen.. | |
speknek | dinsdag 31 augustus 2010 @ 11:31 |
Ik ben er helemaal uit, is er gewoon al een jaar lang een Unseen University boek uit . | |
Nembrionic | donderdag 9 september 2010 @ 13:38 |
I Shall Wear Midnight viel zojuist in de bus | |
Nembrionic | donderdag 9 september 2010 @ 13:39 |
quote:En nu dus ook een nieuwe Tiffany Aching | |
Neelix | donderdag 16 september 2010 @ 09:36 |
Oeh, ik ga snel weer eens een bestelling bij amazon maken geloof ik Ik ben ook al jaren fan van Terry Pratchett, in het begin veel geleend van een huisgenoot en sinds een tijdje ook een aardige eigen collectie. Ik ben voor het grootste deel echt volledig random door alle delen heen gegaan en weet niet eens zeker of ik ze nu allemaal wel gehad heb...oh well, dan moet ik ze maar gewoon allemaal zien te krijgen en lezen | |
Chihuawatte | vrijdag 17 september 2010 @ 12:42 |
Zowel Unseen Academicals als I shall wear midnight in de vakantie gelezen, allebei weer erg leuk. Aanraders! | |
oompaloompa | zondag 26 september 2010 @ 23:41 |
Ik ben er al weer een paar jaar uit, nu heb ik weer een doel in mijn leven. Dank je thread! | |
Neelix | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 16:18 |
De discworld novels van Pratchett zijn geweldig, maar mijn grootste favoriet is stiekem toch wel Good Omens die hij samen met Neil Gaiman geschreven heeft... | |
wonderer | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 19:17 |
quote:Ze gaan misschien weer een boek samen schrijven. | |
Neelix | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 20:39 |
quote:Dat zou ik echt geweldig vinden. Misschien dat ik het me inbeeld, maar ik heb toch het idee dat Pratchett laatste tijd wat minder sterk is geworden in zijn schrijven. | |
wonderer | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 20:48 |
quote:Niet zo gek met Alzheimer natuurlijk. | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 21:20 |
quote:Nation gelezen? Unseen Academicals? Ik zie er geen verzwakking in, hoor. | |
Neelix | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 21:41 |
quote:Yup, heb ik gelezen. Nation was heel anders. Dat was ook de bedoeling natuurlijk, maar vond hem niet zo heel sterk. Unseen Academicals viel me best tegen. Waar in andere boeken de wereld echt flink op de hak genomen werd in Discworld, viel dat hier erg mee. Maar ja, voetbal/rugby is al idioot genoeg misschien. | |
suikertaartje | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:21 |
quote:Dan moet ik die misschien maar eens gaan lezen | |
De_Hertog | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:26 |
Ik vind ook niet dat zijn werk achteruit gaat, nee. Sowieso zie ik weinig verschil in stijl en wat de inhoud betreft blijft het een combinatie van een goed verhaal, humor en filosofie. Bij Nation had ik wel het gevoel dat ik wat van zijn situatie merkte in de 'zwaarte' van het verhaal, maar dat kan net zo goed projectie zijn. Hoe dan ook vond ik het boek eigenlijk juist erg goed daardoor. Ook bij I Shall Wear Midnight is Tiffany duidelijk wat volwassener geworden. Die laatste vond ik dan ook een prima afsluiter van de serie. En bevatte volgens mij het ergste scheldwoord dat ik Terry ooit heb zien gebruiken | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:35 |
Welk scheldwoord dan? Ik lees de Tiffany boeken niet namelijk. | |
De_Hertog | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:42 |
quote:In een spoiler voor de mensen die I Shall Wear Midnight nog moeten lezen, de context is belangrijk maar geeft veel weg over het einde: SPOILER | |
Lord_Vetinari | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:45 |
Aha. Tja, folkloristisch niks mis mee, maar ik kan me de schok wel voorstellen. Overigens: het gebruik van 'seamstresses' is niet zozeer preutsheid als wel gebaseerd op de werkelijkheid. Met name in de Victoriaanse tijd gebruikte de beroepsgroep nogal wat covernamen. | |
De_Hertog | dinsdag 28 september 2010 @ 22:48 |
quote:Het was geen schok hoor, ik ben wel wat gewend in boeken Maar omdat hij normaal inderdaad nogal victoriaans schrijft viel het me een beetje op. En omdat ik een klein beetje het gevoel had dat hij met die dialoog zichzelf ook wat wilde verdedigen, trouwens | |
Pandora73 | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 09:07 |
Pff het duurt nog tot na de zomer tot "I shall wear midnight" in paperback uitkomt... Tja. Geduld is een schone zaak... | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 19:55 |
Terry Pratchett: 'I'm open to joy. But I'm also more cynical' When, not very long ago, Terry Pratchett's father was given a year to live, Pratchett père took it, on the whole, philosophically. Father and son had plenty of time to "have those conversations that you have with a dying parent", and to reminisce about his father's time in India during the war. At one point, said Pratchett, in last year's Dimbleby lecture, his father suddenly said, "'I can feel the sun of India on my face,' and his face did light up rather magically, brighter and happier than I had seen it at any time in the previous year. If there had been any justice or even narrative sensibility in the universe, he would have died there and then, shading his eyes from the sun of Karachi." If the universe refused to display narrative sensibility, then Pratchett Jr would: that moment returns early in his new novel, I Shall Wear Midnight, in which a gruff, essentially kindly old man is vouchsafed a vision of youth and sunlight (though, instead of Karachi, the sunbeams glint off a leaping hare) and expires as he describes it. Even Pratchett knows this is a tad too neat, however, so, this being Discworld, his fantasy kingdom on a flat planet sailing through space on the backs of four elephants who in turn stand on a giant turtle, Death makes a lugubrious wisecrack about it: "WASN'T THAT APPROPRIATE?" Pratchett, when he arrives at his idyllic local pub in Wiltshire, turns out to be full of this type of humour – deliberate, slightly coercive, very self-aware. He seems a man used to being listened to: his sentences unspool evenly, sometimes a shade irascibly, from beginning to end, often as anecdotes topped and tailed and full of random facts, gloried in for their own sake – annual expenditure on farmers' boots in the 19th century; the ubiquity then of shoe trees; did you know that in Victorian England, most of the women read and most of the men didn't? Partly, though, this is because he's been writing all morning: I Shall Wear Midnight, a young adult novel, was launched in central London at midnight on Tuesday, but, as has been the way throughout a career that has so far produced 50 novels (38 of them set on Discworld) and generated more than 65m book sales – Pratchett is already 60,000 words into the next book. And for the last two and a half years, ever since he was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer's, and lost the physical ability to write, he has dictated those words into voice-recognition software. At first, in fact, he talks to me about the machine as if I am a machine (which is not entirely unwarranted: there is a tape recorder sitting on the table between us). ". . . And the nice thing is, contrary to what you might initially expect, comma" – we both burst out laughing – "yes, sorry about this, full stop." Pratchett has announced that his new book will be the last in his Tiffany Aching series (Aching is a young witch), and the novel, a bridge between childhood and the adult world, is full of worldly darkness – death, domestic abuse, old women's corpses being eaten by their pets, depression. "I'm a fantasy writer," he says. "Called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in I Shall Wear Midnight, which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often." Aching is, in effect, a young social worker, and much of her supposedly witchy wisdom comes simply from being near to people in the moments when others are not, or from making mistakes. At one point, in exasperation, she gets her familiars, the Nac Mac Feegles, to whizz around a depressed woman's very messy kitchen and clean it up – succeeding only in terrifying her. "Tiffany's parents got it right," says Pratchett, sounding for all the world like a promoter of Cameron's Big Society: "mobilise the village to deal with [somebody like that]." Aching has First Sight and Second Thoughts (and occasionally third and fourth) – but they are, respectively, "seeing what's really there, rather than what you want to see," and "thinking about what you are thinking": self-awareness by other names. Pratchett knows there are strict rules about making things so dark when you are writing for children – "a child's instinctive grasp of narrativium [sic] is that this has got to end well" – but he is also very clear that, while his witch can take away physical pain (she draws it out into a ball, then dumps it), she cannot, and will not, take loss, sadness, or grief. "I've lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff," says Pratchett. "That's the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said – one of the famous lady novelists – 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?" He doesn't say it in so many words, but that must also be combined with grief for the loss of his ability to write longhand, or type with anything other than one finger at a time (although, weirdly, he is still perfectly able to sign his name — "the bit that knows how to sign my name is an entirely different bit of the brain"); the grief of knowing that while he may have years yet, most of his other mental faculties will go the same way. But probably not suddenly. "Every day must be a tiny, incrementally . . . incremental . . . incremental . . . – he stumbled over a word; you must write that one down," Pratchett says with a dark, almost-laugh. (Having been a journalist himself, before becoming a PR in the nuclear industry and thence a novelist, he rarely passes up a chance to remind you that he knows how journalists work) ". . . incremental . . . change on the day before. So what is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you're hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference. "The last test I did was the first where I wasn't as good as the previous time. I actually forgot David Cameron. I just blanked on him" – this time the laugh contains, what – a kind of ironic approval? "What happens is, I call it the ball bearing. It's there, it just hasn't gone into the slot." He cannot begin to do tests that require him to scribble shapes, but asked to list names of animals, "I industriously say more than you can possibly imagine" – you can just see the pleasure of the earnest nerd in school – "and we go on for a little while until she smiles and says, 'Yes, we know, we know.' "And then there was the time with dear Claudia with the Germanic accent – which is always good if someone's interrogating you – and she said, 'What would you do with a hammer? And I said, 'If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land.' And by the end I was dancing around the room, with her laughing. The laugh will be on the other foot, eventually, and I'm aware of that. But it shows how different things can be: I can still handle the language well, I can play tricks with it and all the other stuff – but I have to think twice when I put my pants on in the morning." How does it change his sense of self? "Well – no one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes. I think – this is going to follow me for ages – I'm open to moments of joy: the other day, it was just a piece of rusty barbed wire in the hedge. Something had grown over it, and the whole pattern, the different shades of brown, the red – everything made a superb construction. And I was just happy that I'd seen it. But then I think – and it may just be because I'm 62 – it's also made me more . . . cynical? About government. And more sure, which is why I'm doing the Dignity in Dying." For nearly as long as he has been public about his illness, Pratchett has been public about his wish to choose when he goes, and his puzzlement that British law does not see the sense of his position. "I feel embarrassed that people from this country have to go, cap in hand, to die in Switzerland. Apart from anything else, it makes it a rich man's – or a soon to be much poorer man's – possibility." And people have to go earlier than they intended. "Exactly." He has a lot of time for the law in Oregon, where doctors can give a terminally ill patient a "potion to take when life gets too bad. I believe something like 40% or more of the patients die without taking it. Which means that every day they're thinking, 'Hmmmm – today's worth living.' And then one day they don't, and they die. That seems to me a very human thing, and a very good thing, because they can think, 'OK, that's sorted, I've got the potion, now I can get on and try and get the most out of life.'" Ideally, Pratchett would like things to be even more official than that: there should be tribunals – here he leans forward, looking intently at me over his glasses – of mental health professionals, lawyers etc, all over the age of 45, who would question the patient and try to ascertain that no one was coercing them, and that the choice was not "a passing fixation". But that's incredibly difficult; in illness you're often dealing with depression. "Yes. Yes, I know. I know," he says impatiently. Of course he knows. "Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect. But anything is better than some poor half of a couple in some house, devising something with ropes and pulleys, saying, 'If he pulls this and we use that . . .' – that's obscene." Currently, that half of the couple can, in theory, be prosecuted for murder. At least with a tribunal, "it would mean that whoever is left behind is at somewhat less risk – they're probably still at some risk, but at least there would be some proof that the situation was there." Part of me wonders if the publicness of Pratchett's discussions might, on some level, be trying to achieve this too – getting us to act as an unwitting tribunal and witnesses, if or when the need arises. What does Lyn, his wife of more than 40 years, think of all this? "I think my wife takes the view that . . . Actually, I think in her heart of hearts she takes the view that a hand will come out of the sky with a big flask, saying, 'Just the stuff you were after.' I think she takes the view that, um . . . that she would look after me. And I have not said to her – I have absolutely not said to her – 'I want you to do this, or I want you to do that.'" What about his daughter (Rhianna, 33, a successful games scriptwriter and, as she describes herself on her website, "general narrative paramedic")? "My daughter thinks, 'If Dad wants it, that's OK.' I don't think she has any particular interest in seeing me lying there like a baby." That was certainly the way he felt about his own father. It was even, it seems, something his father wanted. Had it been legal, Pratchett says, and "if he could have sat up in bed and said goodbye, I'd have pressed the button. I wouldn't have been able to see for crying, but I would have considered that a duty." http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)ers-assisted-suicide | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 19:57 |
Terry was recently interviewed by the BBC for their Meet the Author series to talk about I Shall Wear Midnight. You can see the interview at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11170374 ============ Terry's daughter Rhianna is set to write the screenplay for her first feature film, a London-based drama about a group of female vigilantes, to be produced by Simple Productions. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=SCREEN162 ============= Terry recently recorded a radio interview with Radio New Zealand where he talks about PCA. http://podcast.radionz.co(...)ry_Pratchett-048.mp3 ============== Terry was also interviewed by the BBC 5live about being Britain's biggest niche author. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/5live/2010/09/terry-practchett.shtml ================ In an open letter to The Guardian, Terry is one of many celebrities that felt that the recent visit of the Pope to the UK should not be funded by UK tax payer: We, the undersigned, share the view that Pope Ratzinger should not be given the honour of a state visit to this country. We believe that the pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country. However, as well as a religious leader, the pope is a head of state, and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for: Opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of Aids. Promoting segregated education. Denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women. Opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation. The state of which the pope is head has also resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties ("concordats") with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states. In any case, we reject the masquerading of the Holy See as a state and the pope as a head of state as merely a convenient fiction to amplify the international influence of the Vatican. Stephen Fry, Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor Susan Blackmore, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Ed Byrne, Baroness Blackstone, Ken Follett, Professor AC Grayling, Stewart Lee, Baroness Massey, Claire Rayner, Adele Anderson, John Austin MP, Lord Avebury, Sian Berry, Professor Simon Blackburn, Sir David Blatherwick, Sir Tom Blundell, Dr Helena Cronin, Dylan Evans, Hermione Eyre, Lord Foulkes, Professor Chris French, Natalie Haynes, Johann Hari, Jon Holmes, Lord Hughes, Robin Ince, Dr Michael Irwin, Professor Steve Jones, Sir Harold Kroto, Professor John Lee, Zoe Margolis, Jonathan Meades, Sir Jonathan Miller, Diane Munday, Maryam Namazie, David Nobbs, Professor Richard Norman, Lord O'Neill, Simon Price, Paul Rose, Martin Rowson, Michael Rubenstein, Joan Smith, Dr Harry Stopes-Roe, Professor Raymond Tallis, Lord Taverne, Peter Tatchell, Baroness Turner, Professor Lord Wedderburn of Charlton QC FBA, Ann Marie Waters, Professor Wolpert, Jane Wynne Willson [ Bericht 36% gewijzigd door Lord_Vetinari op 29-09-2010 20:12:51 ] | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 20:00 |
Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, bestselling fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett reserves the right to choose his time of death before the disease can kill his mind – and to go out writing. Sir Terry Pratchett has just forged a sword. He has also just slain a dragon. The “life imitates art” principle can yield odd results when you write fantasy. At 62, Pratchett is in his third decade as a top-tier bestselling writer – I am using “top-tier” as shorthand for “sales sufficiently high in the millions that the precise figure matters only if Stephen King wants to keep score” – and early-career comparisons to PG Wodehouse have given way to ones to Charles Dickens. He was knighted in 2009. And as well as the sword he made himself, there are two others in his life: the one hanging over his head, and the one he believes he should be allowed to throw himself on some day. Pratchett made his Alzheimer’s diagnosis public not long after he learnt of it himself in 2007. Earlier this year, he was invited to give the BBC’s annual Richard Dimbleby lecture; he used the occasion to announce his desire to be allowed to die before the disease can kill his mind and leave his body an empty husk. These are the subjects I most want to discuss with him, and he is demonstrably willing to discuss them, but the first three times I open my mouth to initiate that conversation the duck-for-cover reflex takes over. I ask about the sword he made instead. Was there anything … symbolic about his decision to go out into a local farmer’s fields, find some ore, dig it up, smelt it into high-grade iron in a kiln made from the clay in his own garden, and hammer out an edged weapon? Of course there wasn’t. “If you need to ask why I did it, you wouldn’t understand the answer. I just thought, ‘Okay, I’m a knight now. I want to make a sword!’” Which you might imagine would be significantly more easily said than done; but in fact it was just a matter of finding the necessary loonies. Pratchett is very fond of loonies. “The right kind of loony, by which I mean the kind of people who are open to life, the people who will pick up an idea and run with it. People who are squeezing the last drop out of the fun of being human.” In this case, a brief chat with an artisan friend turned up the names of a swordsmith and an international expert in iron-age smelting methods, who enthusiastically launched themselves into the project. “I said, ‘Look, there’s no way you can teach me to be a swordsmith, but I would like to help you sufficiently that I can say I was involved in every part of this.’ No individual part was particularly difficult; most of what we were doing was just belting things very hard with a hammer … the trick is to do it in the right place.” The end product is sufficiently authentic that Pratchett can’t legally wear it in public. It has a gleaming blade and a gorgeous hilt made of black horn and silver, which was the only part Pratchett couldn’t work on himself. “That’s serious high-end craftsman stuff. I used to work very well with gold when I was younger, but with PCA I don’t think I’d have trusted myself even with silver.” PCA: posterior cortical atrophy, Pratchett’s rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. “And let’s cut to the chase here, because sooner or later you’re going to ask me about it. It bugs me when people get bashful about this; I mean, for heaven’s sake, I stood there and told people I’ve got it. Which itself was a pretty good way of fighting it.” All forms of Alzheimer’s ultimately end the same way, but PCA – which Pratchett describes dryly as “one of the better ones to get, lucky me” – initially manifests as a disruption of complex visual processing. “Anything to do with topology becomes problematic. If I took off my shirt and tossed it on the floor like most men do, it would take me a bit of studying to get the sleeves right again before I could put it on. And I might need someone to tell me whereabouts on the floor it was, even if I was looking right at it.” His short-term memory is shot to pieces. “I’ve already forgotten your name.” He can’t drive. “Because my eyes are fine, but I could be coming up to a zebra crossing and the PCA would give a little flutter, and my brain wouldn’t post up the message ‘there is a girl on the crossing’.” Public toilets are a hazard, because the only difference between the door to the men’s and the door to extreme embarrassment tends to be a picture. “To make certain, and I’ve never done it yet, that I never go into the wrong one, I have a mnemonic, which is Always Go into the One Which Shows the Woman in the Slacks, Not the Scotsman in the Kilt. Because that’s so stupid, I remember it.” http://www.listener.co.nz(...)die_another_day.html | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 20:06 |
Terry was recently interviewed by SFX magazine in the UK. Some of the questions that didn't make it into the magazine were published on their website including one where Terry had to teach a swearword to his dictation software: The Discworld author chats to SFX on many other topics including how to teach the word “arsehole” to a computer SFX is on sale now for just one more week. In it you’ll find an interview with the hugely popular novelist – and one-time guest editor of SFX - Terry Pratchett, in which we put your questions to him. But we spent a lot of time with Sir Terry this summer, and here are some of the other fantastic things we talked about: Sir Terry Pratchett ‘My head is full of so much stuff I read as a kid! Remember all the names it would be unthinkable to leave out of any list of greats. Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Philip K Dick. And then there are people like Jack Vance who used to move backwards and forwards between science fiction and fantasy, although it was all written in the same tone of voice. The Dying Earth was very, very influential because he kind of invented a lot of the language that fantasy was written with subsequently. I read JRR Tolkien aged about 13 I think, but I had read many other things before him!’ ‘Stories are based on other stories, that’s what we all do. And if everybody is stealing off everybody else then it all works quite well. Because what happens is that stuff is bouncing around and getting better, as people explore how to do things! Even Dungeons & Dragons changed the language of fantasy because they wanted to do certain things – and then writers were influenced by D&D. Everybody influences everyone else – it’s better to say that than “stealing”…’ On dictating his novels ‘At the moment it’s a wee bit difficult to listen to music when I work because I have to dictate to the computer, my typing is so bad now. I use Talking Point, which goes on top of Dragon Naturally Speaking.’ ‘It learns you – not the other way round. I spent 45 minutes reading from a book. Arthur C Clarke as it happens, probably a bad choice in the circumstances! Uncle Arthur is difficult to read aloud. He’ll put in equations! The software knows what all those words in that piece should sound like. It knows that’s how you pronounce the syllables. I’ve got a voice like David Bellamy with his hand stuck in an electric fire, but it knows how I pronounce particular syllables. Then we dumped all my Discworld books into the computer over night and it chewed them up and it has algorithms which enable it to work out broadly what most of the words would sound like. Simply because it knows how certain letter formations are supposed to sound. The upshot is that seldom do I have to introduce it to a new word. I had to teach the computer the word “arsehole”. Typed it in, highlighted it, and repeated “arsehole” about three times.’ ‘It has it’s funny little ways. I try not to go too fast for it, because if it gets something wrong going all the way back to change something can be a bit of a pain. I speak in long thoughtful sentences. It’s fine, it feels natural, you learn to play it.’ On looking after his famous hats ‘I did a signing once in a little town where you might not normally sign. It was a self-sufficient little place. And the bookshop had been a haberdashery and gents outfitters initially and it still had, in the manager’s office, the hat stretching machine! And I just had a new hat and it was slightly tight. I offered to buy the machine off him but he didn’t want to sell it – but he did bring it down, and while I was signing I got the hat on it, and every now again I gave it a little twist. You don’t want to burst it! Just a little turn. I told the local paper’s photographer that seeing all these people was making me so swollen-headed that I’d better make my hat larger!’ On book tours of America ‘My first US publisher gave me bad covers, bad printing, my name spelt wrong on every other page… you couldn’t give my books away in the US! I’d be going to conventions and I’d have huge queues… with people having their British hardcovers signed. Things started to change when I got Ralph Vicinanza as my agent.’ ‘Early American tours worked like this: you go from one city to another by yourself, and you’re picked up by a minder when you arrive at the city. And the minder knows the bookshops and places where you’re going to do your signing, and at the end of the day they just decant you back onto the plane. Once you’ve got through check-in you’re by yourself! I always thought, “This is ridiculous. It means if anything goes wrong after that, if the plane’s delayed, I’m stuffed.” About 1996 I did a signing tour from hell, absolutely nothing to eat, most of the time flying from hub to hub, getting into hotels late and finding no help.’ ‘But later, with a new agent, new editor and new publisher and new covers, the books began to move. In 2000 they invited me to come over for another book tour, and that worked incredibly well. The worst leg of the 2000 signing tour was better than the best leg of my previous 1996 experience. Seattle has always been a great gig for me. Always. I always get the most people there, more than New York! The bookshop that does it, run by Tall Dwayne, always just draws the customers in from the whole of the state. Microsoft people from Redmond perhaps! The US generally is now very good for me. I was WorldCon guest of honour a couple of years ago in America and the fans were superb.’ On the inspiration for standalone book Nation ‘I came up with the idea about six months before the first big Asian tsunami. And that’s on record because I have a witness! Sarah LeFanu (who wrote a book on how to write science fiction and fantasy) introduced me when I did a signing in Waterstone’s one time. And it was on the day that I said, “I’ve got to write this book!” and she said, “Sounds great, hope you do it.” And she’s my witness that I didn’t base Nation on the terrible 2004 tsunami. It’s all based on Krakatoa of course – there are certain similarities. After the tsunami I put it on one side for a while because I didn’t want people to think I was taking advantage. And then that lasted for about a year or so and I thought, “To hell with this I’ve got to get it down.” I just identified with it in some way! I don’t quite know why. Mau is such a good character, you spend all the time in his head, and you know that this kid is one step away from actually going insane – that’s good material to work with.’ Thank you Terry! http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010(...)nd-swearing-at-a-pc/ | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 20:09 |
Sir Terry Pratchett is one of the world's most successful authors. He talks to John Gilbey about auto-didacticism, the tyranny of higher education and whether writers are born, not made Terry Pratchett - Sir Terry Pratchett, creator of one of fiction's premier higher education establishments - didn't go to university. "University would have been an absolute tragedy for me," he confides. "I would have found out about beer far too early." He is the architect and author of the immensely popular Discworld novels (38 titles to date) and has sold more than 65 million books. Discworld is a complex, surreal and yet intriguingly familiar environment where few things reliably are what they seem. A central setting in the series is that venerable academic institution, Unseen University, whose wizard- infested precincts are to be found - or, occasionally, not to be found - in the twin city of Ankh-Morpork. "UU", as it is known to its myriad fans, appeared in the first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, in 1983. "Why did I write it? Because I thought fantasy was getting silly," Sir Terry says. "So since it was getting silly, somebody who was silly should start to write fantasy - because I got fed up with the post-Tolkien stuff. You know: 'Ho, landlord! A pint of your finest ale!' No one ever says that who is not on drugs ... And so I said, let's write fantasy as if the people are actually real - even if the situations are not." Since UU first appeared, it has got through an embarrassing number of arch-chancellors, often in distinctly messy and deeply terminal ways, but now it has gained a level of stability under the firm hand of crossbow-toting Mustrum Ridcully. "It started off as your basic wizarding thing, but you simply know, as a given, that the head wizard has got to be a man with some punch - they are such a rowdy lot. The reason Ridcully has been there so long, and not been knocked off like they used to be in the early days, is that I like him because he is big and brusque, a kind of James Robertson Justice character, but maxed ... ". But if Sir Terry never went to university, where does he get these memorable - and utterly believable - academic characters and scenarios? "I worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board - so I know how committees work, and I know how committees can be manipulated - generally around the time the chocolate biscuits turn up. "Probably these days", he adds with regret, "there are no more chocolate biscuits - because we are all 'tightening our belts'." The wrangling that goes on in academic committees certainly forms a strong thread through the novels - and once even appeared in the pages of Times Higher Education ("A collegiate casting-out of devilish devices", 13 May 2005), when UU was threatened with the implementation of a quality assurance process. Another painfully familiar line of narrative is the rather strained relationship between UU and the upstart Brazeneck College in the city of Pseudopolis. This tension came dramatically to a head in the last few pages of his recent novel, Unseen Academicals (2009). "I liked writing the end where, of course, Brazeneck - I'm very pleased with Brazeneck - has poached people and is trying to muscle in, but it hasn't quite understood everything that it has picked up and now it has this giant chicken running around the place," he says. The chicken is 70ft tall and lays eggs 9ft high. This flock-up was probably caused by a lack of experience among the staff of the Higher Energy Magic Building at Brazeneck - and provides the arch-chancellor of UU with an excellent platform to demonstrate the preeminence of his staff. Sir Terry assumes the voice of Ridcully: "We are going to help a fellow university, of course, as we would obviously do - but we are going to let them get a little further in the cacky before doing so ... ". So does Sir Terry have any views on the current state of higher education in the non-fantasy world? "Yes, I think we should cut away at it a bit," he says. "I think that when we lost the secondary moderns, we lost our way in dealing with students - first of all, they were thought of as 'students' - and now we seem to believe that everyone will benefit from a university education. They don't, a lot of them - it's a waste of bloody time. "I think, if a kid in his teens would like to be a fireman, you don't say to him: 'Ah, but you could be an opera singer.' Well, if he hasn't found that out by then, let him go and be a fireman - for heaven's sake, we know we need firemen. And if this kid is good at going up ladders and stuff, well, he is doing a job he wants to do - and that means he will be a happy person and that is going to add to the gaiety of nations." Inevitably, the reverse is also true. "We now have lots of people with university degrees who don't think they are doing the jobs they should be doing - because they have got a degree. They haven't quite realised that, tough shit, this was just a way of fiddling the employment figures: 'Did you think that you were going to come out with a career?'" Sir Terry is keen to remind us that there are other models. "One of the happiest guys I've ever known was a brickie. One day, he said he wouldn't be in for two weeks as he was going on holiday. I said: 'Where are you going?' He said: 'Oh, I'm going to Egypt. I like scuba diving among the sunken temples in the Red Sea - I've been doing a lot of mapping and that.' It's great! This is a happy man - he had his choices, and I don't think the kids are offered choices now." To Pratchett, the "choice" facing teenagers is a binary one. "You either get into university or you don't - and I don't know how you don't get into university - probably by just hanging on to a stanchion and yelling: 'I don't want to go!' We seem to think that 'one size fits all'." He appears slightly bemused by some of the effects this thinking has had. "Near where I live is an area with a lot of coppices - old hazel coppices. And just as there were when I first started going there, there are hurdle makers. The only difference is that the hurdle makers in the old days were elderly men with moleskin trousers and their lunch in a pail; these days they are men who have gone through tertiary education. I have a suspicion that they probably tried teaching - and ran away very fast ... ". Sir Terry's own education was based largely on his passion for reading. "Somehow I kind of shut school out of my mind - but I read absolutely every damn bloody book I could get my hands on." He has fond memories of one of his first sources of science fiction books. "It was an old shed, with just a window that you couldn't really see through, where a nice old lady dispensed tea and conversation - and sold eye-watering pornography ... ". Her sideline was second-hand science fiction, which is what she supplied to the young Pratchett - possibly her one legitimate customer. Many leading science fiction authors have since confirmed to him that "the science fiction bookshop in any town is next to the porno bookshop, or somewhere where ladies of negotiable affection hang out". When he was 17, Sir Terry left school for a writing job on the local newspaper. "I think I probably would always have gravitated towards arranging words in order, but I never took any writing courses or anything like that - because working on a newspaper is itself a writing course. In fact, one of the best things any writer can do is work for a while on a local paper. All human life - and death - is here. It is a great shame that there are fewer and fewer local papers." He recalls his first editor with affectionate amusement: he was apparently "the last person on God's Earth ever to utter the words 'I like the cut of your jib, young man' without being arrested". Much of his reading over the past few decades has been non-fiction, a great deal of it very old - long-forgotten tomes with titles such as Anecdotes of the Great Financiers - but he has also found time to read every edition of Punch published between 1860 and 1960, a true labour of love. "It amazes me how many words I know - and occasionally use - which are now totally archaic," he says. His intensely pragmatic approach to learning is graphically demonstrated by a project he recently undertook. Being newly knighted, he felt that he ought to be suitably equipped. "At the end of last year I made my own sword. I dug out the iron ore from a field about 10 miles away - I was helped by interested friends. We lugged 80 kilos of iron ore, used clay from the garden and straw to make a kiln, and lit the kiln with wildfire by making it with a bow." Colin Smythe, his long-term friend and agent, donated some pieces of meteoric iron - "thunderbolt iron has a special place in magic and we put that in the smelt, and I remember when we sawed the iron apart it looked like silver. Everything about it I touched, handled and so forth ... And everything was as it should have been, it seemed to me." As I wrestle with glorious mental pictures of Sir Terry Pratchett ambling through the fields of Wiltshire, sword at his side, we turn to the vexed question of whether creative writing can truly be taught. "Throughout my career I've pondered on that," he says. "Sometimes I've thought: 'Huh! Creative writing: how can you teach that?' But now, as I get older, I think I'm less certain. There are some people who find out in their late 70s that they are actually good at it - it is finding out what you can do. "I think you can help someone with the makings of a writer get better. I don't know if you can get someone who isn't in their bones a writer and turn them into one. I would stand to be corrected because I don't want to be dogmatic on this. Where can these theories be tested?" The profession of writing itself has an almost timeless quality about it, he says. "I've always thought that the Bible, for example, was written by people like me: smart enough to get a good job in the warm with no heavy lifting." Once again, images start to crowd into my mind - this time with Sir Terry inserted into an oil painting of the Council of Nicaea, animatedly editing screeds of text on sheets of vellum. Before any further mental visions can take hold, I ask Sir Terry what the future holds for UU. "Well, Unseen University is like a jewel - and so you bring it out only rarely. The whole bunch of hoary old wizards arguing with one another - you can't keep that going. It's the same as not using Death too often as a major character." Until it is needed then, UU will quietly go about its business - until it is taken out again and polished. "Unseen University, you see, is more or less self-financing - and Unseen University will never die!" Referring for the first time during our conversation to his very public battle with Alzheimer's disease, he concludes: "Everything now is hinged on my own personal run-time, but I'm pretty certain I shall finish the book I've now started." He mentions, almost in passing, that he is also writing his autobiography - "because it is always a good idea to get the lies down in print before your enemies actually print the truth". Somehow, I think that it will be well worth reading. http://www.timeshigheredu(...)storycode=413455&c=1 | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 20:14 |
The first Dutch Discworld Convention takes place at Hotel NH Atlanta in Rotterdam on 28th - 29th May 2011. Contact details: www.dutchdwcon.nl For further information contact: info@dutchdwcon.nl | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 20:16 |
Meditations upon the arrival of a new Discworld book By Helen Nicholls I was expecting it, of course. I'd been told that my limited slipcase edition of I Shall Wear Midnight had been despatched. However, it was still a surprise to see the innocuous Amazon package waiting on the doorstep. The postman, unable to fit it through the letterbox, had deemed it unnecessary to ring the doorbell. Just a book after all. Nothing a passing delinquent might consider worth stealing. I opened the package and examined its contents. It's a beautiful thing: green, with a smaller version of Paul Kidby's delightful cover art placed discreetly on the front. The additional bit on folklore by Jaqueline Simpson is contained in the main volume. Perhaps I'll ask her to sign it as well as Terry. If Terry's still signing. I flick through it, wondering where I can find the additional illustration but stop, fearing I'll happen upon a spoiler. I glance at the folklore bit instead, but that may also contain clues. I want to read it but there are things I should do. More to the point, once I start I will struggle to put it down and that will not do. I should be looking for jobs, or working on my dissertation. I need to finish repainting the kitchen units too. None of those things are urgent and they are mere excuses not to read. The real reason for my procrastination is that once I start, it will consume me until I finish. As a good book should. But I will finish quickly, it's a kids' book after all. Then it will be gone. Oh, I'll re-read it, more slowly and carefully but without the thrill that comes with the first reading. It's sitting on the sofa now. I'll pick it up in a minute, really I will. There is only one thing for it; I'll open the book. I sometimes enjoy books more on second reading anyway. | |
Dagonet | woensdag 29 september 2010 @ 23:57 |
Thanks L_V | |
morg78 | vrijdag 1 oktober 2010 @ 13:28 |
quote:Prachtig . | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 06:14 |
Trinity College Dublin has recently announced the appointment of Sir Terry Pratchett as an Adjunct Professor in their School of English and Oscar Wilde Centre and are offering tickets to see Terry's inaugural speech on 4th November 2010. See http://pjsmprints.com/news/ for all the details. Routledge journals recently recorded a podcast at the Discworld Convention in Birmingham of Sir Terry in discussion with Jacqueline Simpson (who co-authored his book "The Folklore of Discworld"). In the podcast (which is of some length!) Sir Terry and Jacqueline discuss Folklore, history and the impact this has had on his life and writing. To listen to the first part of the podcast visit: http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=PODCAST163 ---------- Terry's coat of arms and description can be found in The College of Arms newsletter number 26 at: http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=ARMS163 The description reads: The Arms are blazoned: Sable an ankh between four Roundels in saltire each issuing Argent. The Crest is Upon a Helm with a Wreath Argent and Sable On Water Barry wavy Sable Argent and Sable an Owl affronty wings displayed and inverted Or supporting thereby two closed Books erect Gules. ---------- Terry has been awarded one of the three World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2010 (the other recipients being Brian Lumley and Peter Straub). The award was presented on 31 October at the World Fantasy Con in Columbus, Ohio. Further details about the Awards can be found at http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/ ---------- Stephen King's agent, Ralph Vicinanza, recently died at the age of 60. Ralph was also involved in getting Terry published in the US. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=RALPH163 ---------- The US military are trying to make million to one shots happen nine times out of ten with their investment into One Shot Technology. In an article titled 'Terry Pratchett computer sniper-scope deal inked', The Register describes the new sniper technology. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=1SHOT163 ---------- There is an interesting review of I Shall Wear Midnight at: http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=MIDNIGHT163 ---------- Hot off the rumour mill is the news that Disney may be looking to adapt MORT in a couple of years time. According to Latino Review the adaptation could be coming from directors Ron Clements and John Musker who last released The Princess and the Frog and are about to release Pooh in 2011. More details at: http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=MORT163 | |
picodealion | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 15:17 |
Bijna door Unseen Acadamicals heen. Altijd weer een strijd, ik kan hem niet neerleggen en lees elke vrije minuut van de dag een stukje, maar ik baal ook altijd als een stekker als ik weer bijna door een boek heen ben. Volgens mij is dit de op een na laatste Discworld die ik nog niet had gelezen, . Het valt me overigens wel op dat hij inderdaad een stuk vrijer over seks is gaan schrijven. Ik kan er goed om lachen, maar het is wel echt minder preuts dan eerdere boeken. | |
De_Hertog | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 15:20 |
Tenzij ze radicaal van stijl veranderen vind ik dit niet echt goed nieuws.. | |
Maisnon | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 15:24 |
Ben nu bijna door Night Watch heen , nouja ben nu bij dat stuk waar ze barricades maken en verplaatsen. Verder heb ik dus Mort gelezen, en de Colour of Magic, en die waren echt zo veel anders dan dit Maar dat maakt me wel weer benieuwd naar alle andere boeken | |
picodealion | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 15:31 |
In de loop van de jaren is mijn voorkeur uitgegaan naar de Watch boeken. Veel Vimes, veel Vetinari. Angua is ook geweldig. Ik ben ook erg benieuwd naar Mort. Ik vond Hogfather prima te doen maar The Colour of Magic heb ik afgezet, die was echt te kut. | |
FrankRicard | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 16:13 |
Heb je Going Postal al gezien, die vond ik stukken beter dan CoM, Hogfather heb ik nog niet gezien, want ik wil eerst het boek lezen. | |
picodealion | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 17:11 |
Ik wist niet dat daar een film van was. Boek was geweldig in elk geval, die ga ik eens checken. | |
suikertaartje | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 20:40 |
Ik vond hem echt geweldig | |
Neelix | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 21:33 |
Dat heb ik ook ja. Ik ben nu de laatste Tiffany aan het lezen en het is zo genieten om die te lezen...maar ook weer zo ontzettend jammer als ik hem dan straks uit heb... | |
suikertaartje | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 21:42 |
Vond je die beter of ook echt goed? Ik heb hem nog liggen maar ik durf niet zo goed..altijd bang dat de film niet klopt bij de beelden in mijn hoofd | |
Xessive | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 21:51 |
Ik vond hem heel goed. Bijna exact zoals ik het verhaal voor mij zag. | |
suikertaartje | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 21:53 |
Oh, dan durf ik wel, dankje! Had je dat toevallig ook bij Hogfather? | |
Xessive | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 22:02 |
Hogfather was een slap aftreksel van het boek. | |
suikertaartje | donderdag 4 november 2010 @ 22:02 |
Dan durf ik helemaal | |
Tha_Bartman | vrijdag 5 november 2010 @ 17:03 |
Vorige week op het station the colour of magic gekocht, na een hoop goede dingen over Pratchett te hebben gehoord. Ben benieuwd of ik het lezen zelf ook leuk ga vinden. | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 5 november 2010 @ 17:47 |
Maar weer eens de waarschuwing dan: COM is niet echt representatief. Pratchett moet daar zijn stijl nog vinden. Pas vanaf Mort! (mijn mening ) komt Discworld goed op gang. | |
picodealion | vrijdag 5 november 2010 @ 18:46 |
Mort is ook prima los te lezen. Allemaal uiteindelijk wel, maar met name de Watch en Rincewind verhalen vind ik leuker om in volgorde te lezen omdat je dan veel meer meekrijgt van de grappen en de algehele verhaallijn. | |
Tha_Bartman | vrijdag 5 november 2010 @ 21:52 |
Mijn excuses dat het wederom gezegd moet worden dan In dat geval ga ik Mort ook maar eens een kans geven, nadat ik deze gelezen heb Kan ik daar dan zo in beginnen zonder de anderen te lezen? | |
Xessive | vrijdag 5 november 2010 @ 22:52 |
Small Gods. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zaterdag 6 november 2010 @ 09:12 |
Mijn absolute bottom-favoriet. Ik vond er niks aan, heb deze ook, als enige, hoogstens een keer of 4 gelezen. | |
Xessive | zaterdag 6 november 2010 @ 21:04 |
Smaken verschillen. Deze staat voor mij op een gedeelde eerste plaats met The Thief of Time. | |
FrankRicard | zaterdag 6 november 2010 @ 21:34 |
Ik heb het al vaker gezegd in deze reeks, maar ik raad dus altijd Guards! Guards! aan om mee te beginnen. | |
Maisnon | zondag 7 november 2010 @ 02:50 |
Is dat die met Carrot? Dan weet ik het niet hoor! Maar ik heb er ook nog niet veel gelezen | |
Teslynd | zondag 7 november 2010 @ 22:30 |
Ja, dat vind ik ook, deze twee. Ik lees ze eerst in het engels, maar zou daar te veel voor moeten opzoeken (door dyslexie moeite met het woordbeeld dat telkens uit elkaar valt), dus met de nodige hummmmms ertussendoor. Na een tijdje heeft de bieb ze in het nederlands en dan lees ik een iets ander verhaal. Een van de boeken van de dood, vermoedelijk Maaierstijd, heb ik aan iemand opgedrongen die erg bang was voor de dood, een soort bang zijn om het bang zijn. Het heeft geholpen, daarna kon ze beter onderscheiden waar ze echt bang voor was. Geld moet wapperen is duidelijk nieuwe stijl, hij kan niet meer zo complex schrijven. Niet meer het scherpe, zelfs de vertaler kan er maar weinig extra's in bijproppen. Het bezwaar van de nieuwe stijl is, dat Vetinari net een mens begint te worden en sommigen op gelijk niveau bejegend. Dat kan niet, hè? | |
picodealion | zondag 7 november 2010 @ 22:36 |
Geheel niet mee eens, ik vond Making Money juist erg sterk. Vetinari is inderdaad iets milder maar dat maakt hem alleen maar geweldiger vind ik. | |
Neelix | maandag 8 november 2010 @ 09:57 |
Dat vind ik ook. Vetinari wordt alleen maar slimmer en gehaaider neergezet, maar ook menselijker en dat maakt hem een veel interessanter personage. Overigens vind ik "I shall wear midnight" echt briljant tot nu toe. Dat scherpe zit er helemaal in, en Tiffany wordt duidelijk ouder en volwassener. Maar misschien komt dat ook omdat ik echt fan ben van de Nac Mac Feegles | |
Teslynd | maandag 8 november 2010 @ 22:29 |
Het wordt steeds gewoner. Er wordt erg veel gestroomlijnd, wat een interessant proces is, en zo krijg je stap voor stap een bijna gewone stad/gemeenschap. Een menselijke Vetinari klopt niet in het zeer riskante Disc World-ratjetoe | |
picodealion | zondag 14 november 2010 @ 12:05 |
Going Postal is echt een leuke film! Ik vond Reacher Gilt niet helemaal zo gecast als ik me had voorgesteld, Vetinari eigenlijk ook niet echt, maar voor de rest was de cast echt voortreffelijk. Heel erg jammer dat Angua ( ) maar zo'n klein rolletje had. | |
MisterSqueaky | zondag 14 november 2010 @ 12:07 |
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picodealion | dinsdag 16 november 2010 @ 09:37 |
Netjes. Meestal beschrijven ze de Moist von Lipwig serie als de "Ankh Morpork series" omdat ze over de ontwikkelingen in de stad gaan, maar heel vernuftig hoe ze hier Monstrous Regiment ertussen hebben kunnen krijgen door het "Industrial Revolution" te noemen, . Toch gaat die meer over emancipatie dan echt industriële revolutie, maar ik zal niet zeuren. | |
Neelix | maandag 22 november 2010 @ 09:43 |
Gisteravond Postal gezien, vond hem erg goed moet ik zeggen. Er zaten wat kleine afwijkingen van het verhaal in, maar dat is op zich niet zo gek bij een verfilming. Enige wat me dan wel een beetje stoorde was dat de hele film een aardig budget lijkt te hebben voor van alles en nog wat, maar dat er dan flink bezuinigd is op de Golems. Er zijn er in totaal 6 verschillende te zien ofzo, maar er zijn maar 2 of 3 versies van het pak, beetje slordig vond ik dat. | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 25 november 2010 @ 09:00 |
Last month we mentioned rumours that Disney will be making an animated version of Mort in a couple of years time. This month I have heard as yet unconfirmed reports that a live action version of Good Omens may be on the cards. This however would be a new adaptation and wouldn't have anything to do with the production previously associated with Terry Gilliam, Robin Williams and Johnny Depp. ============ Last month we mentioned that Terry had become an adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin University. Terry's inaugural lecture was recorded and can now been seen on YouTube at ============ The organisers of the 2011 North American Discworld Convention have created a new Flash game called Feegle Frenzy which you can play from their website. It is based around a scene in I Shall Wear Midnight. You can give it a go at: http://www.nadwcon.org/feeglefrenzy.html ============= Going Postal has been nominated in the 2010 Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards. The awards take place on Wednesday 24th November. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11716447 (L_V: Ik zal kijken of ik ergens de uitslag kan vinden ) ============= Terry was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the inaugural Galaxy National Book Awards on 10th November. Terry is quoted as saying: "I'm amazed, you find something that you like doing and do well and keep on doing it and suddenly they give you an award, when all I was really doing was having a lot of fun." http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=GALAXY164 ============= Has NASA found the Discworld? The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a striking galaxy called NGC 4452, which appears to lie exactly edge-on as seen from Earth. The result is an extraordinary picture of billions of stars observed from an unusual angle. The bright nucleus can be seen at the centre, along with the very thin disc that looks like a straight line from our unusual viewing position. To complete the picture, a hazy halo of stars on the periphery of the galaxy makes it seem to glow. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=DISCWORLD164 =============== En zowaar iets wat voor NL-fans wel aardig is: [NL, New] Mort is being performed at Het Fijnhout Theatre, Amsterdam on the 2nd - 4th and 8th - 11th December at 20.00. It will be performed by the In Players, Amsterdam's oldest English-speaking amateur theatre company. Tickets are 12 Euro / 10 Euro (students, CJP, Stadspas) and can be reserved by email to reserveren.fijnhouttheater@combiwel.nl or via filling in a reservation form on: http://www.hetfijnhout.nl http://www.inplayers.org ================ En een reminder: [NL] The first Dutch Discworld Convention takes place at Hotel NH Atlanta in Rotterdam on 28th - 29th May 2011. Contact details: www.dutchdwcon.nl For further information contact: info@dutchdwcon.nl Iemand van plan hierheen te gaan? Iets voor een FOK-Pratchett-meet? | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 25 november 2010 @ 09:00 |
Hogswatch komt eraan, dus tijd voor een Hogswatch taart: Hogswatch cake Recipe by Freya Anduin, Denmark Ingredients: * 250 grams ordinary raisins * 150 grams currants * 200 grams candied orange peel (like Dr. Oetker's) * 200 grams chopped, dried apricot * 100 grams chopped dark chocolate pref. 70-80% * 1 teaspoon cinnamon * 1 tsp ground ginger * 1 tsp ground allspice * 1 tsp ground cloves * 100 grams chopped, peeled almonds * 100 grams chopped hazelnut * 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg * 1 decilitre whisky plus extra * 250 grams soft butter (leave out overnight, let fall out of package and use the paper to grease the pan) * 200 grams dark muscovado sugar (mush it with your fingers to be sure there are no rock hard clumps to take out granny's teeth) * 4 medium sized egg * 200 grams wheat flour (not self-raising or anything) * Icing from 400 grams icing sugar and pure lemon juice (no water) Day one: Cut up the apricot and put this and the peel, currants and raisins in a container with the whisky, close tightly and put in the fridge overnight. Day two: Mix butter and sugar very well. Add one egg at a time and mix well between (yes, it does go sort of grainy). This can be done with a mixer. Add the dry bits and mix well. Discard the mixer and find a very strong spoon. Mix in the wet bits. (Your mixer will not survive having a go at this). Put the mix in a pan - maybe a 22x30 cm foil one, well greased. It can go to the rim as it will not rise. (If you use a foil pan take it out with the grille as it will collapse under the weight of the cake if you try to take it out by holding the corners or something.) Bake at 175 degrees centigrade in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes, using top and bottom heat and no fan. When out, wait 5 minutes and then splash it generously with some more whisky - it will absorb immediately. Leave to cool. When hand temperature tip out on something by holding it over the pan and turning it over leaving the cake bottom up. Give it another good helping of whisky. Watch it absorb, it will tell you how much it can take. Leave to go cold. Put on the icing and be careful to spread evenly without damaging the cake. When the icing is almost set cut it in squares. Big enough to not crumble but not big ones. (Here you might want to make sure you are alone - you will not want to share the spoils on the board with anybody). Prepare containers with tight fitting lids by pouring in some 2 mm of whisky in the bottom and put the cake in there and close lids. Put in fridge till you want to eat them. Take out of fridge in time to go room temperature before eating. This is my version of the Christmas Pudding - but being a Dane all this suet and boiling stuff is not my thing so I made up this baked version. And by the way - this cake is not for the kiddies (or AA-members) and believe me - when you had your first bite, you are in no mood to share with anyone. It should keep well in fridge - in theory at least - but I take no responsibility for how long you will be able to leave it there. Oh - and go easy on the stuff, ok? There are enough calories in this to keep an extended family going for about a week. And it costs just about that much too. Happy Hogswatch | |
Cid | donderdag 25 november 2010 @ 09:13 |
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Neelix | donderdag 25 november 2010 @ 11:46 |
Het heeft even geduurd, maar ik heb hem ook uit en heb nu pas je spoiler gelezen....ik verwachtte iets veel ergers.... Zeker nadat ik had gelezen wat de Feegles eerder zeiden over wat ze met een schop zouden doen als er nog een in de buurt kwam. Dat vond ik toch veel erger dan het "scheldwoord" wat je hierboven noemde. | |
Foals | vrijdag 26 november 2010 @ 15:52 |
Ik vind de verfilming van Hogfather werkelijk verschrikkelijk. Doe mij maar gewoon de novels | |
Odysseuzzz | vrijdag 26 november 2010 @ 15:58 |
Vond het wel geinig het herkenbare eraan. Maar idd lang niet zo sterk als het zou moeten zijn. Zelfs de games deden meer recht aan de boeken imo. Niet dat het goed valt te vergelijken. | |
Cid | vrijdag 10 december 2010 @ 13:10 |
Nou nou, verschrikkelijk... | |
Lod | vrijdag 10 december 2010 @ 14:34 |
Ik zie het probleem ook niet inderdaad | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 4 februari 2011 @ 09:05 |
Snuff According to the writer of the best selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe, but many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder. He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, occasionally snookered and occasionally out of his mind, but not out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment. They say that in the end all sins are forgiven. But not quite all... Published 13th October 2011 Signed copies will be available for pre-order from August 2011 from http://www.pjsmprints.com/ | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 4 februari 2011 @ 09:08 |
The Mob Film Company have officially announced that they will start filming their fourth Discworld adaptation later this year. This time around football get the mini-series treatment in their adaptation of Unseen Academicals. We look forward to seeing how they cast Vimes, Carrot, Mrs Nutt and Glenda. Especially with the recent sad news of the death of Pete Postlethwaite, who Melvyn Grant based his drawings of Vimes on in Where's My Cow? ---------- The newspaper The Edinburgh Evening News recently ran a story about the huge backlog of Christmas mail due to the terrible weather conditions Scotland has recently experienced. It seems a case of life imitating art: maybe they should invite Moist Von Lipwig over to help them with the backlog. Our thanks to Thom Fish for letting us know about this. ---------- Terry was recently awarded the 2011 Margaret A. Edwards Award by The American Library Association, which honours an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. ---------- In The Truth Lord Vetinari talks about people really wanting to read olds - things like Dog Bites Man. In a case of truth really being stranger than fiction how about Fox Shoots Man! The story tells of how a wounded fox fighting for its life accidentally pulled the trigger of a hunter's gun, wounding the hunter in the leg. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=FOX166 ---------- The Guardian has recently published an article about its top 100 books of 2010. Terry gets mentioned as being at positions 63 and 84. There is a link at the bottom of the page but it appears to link to a completely different set of data! http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=GUARD166 | |
Lord_Vetinari | woensdag 9 februari 2011 @ 14:34 |
It's time to start taking Alzheimer's more seriously says Pratchett Dementia is being widely ignored and needs the aggressive action that was taken to tackle HIV, according to a leading Alzheimer’s charity. Sir Terry Pratchett, who has the disease, said the world ‘still doesn’t take much notice’ of Alzheimer’s and much more funding is needed for research. The best-selling author, who is patron of Alzheimer’s Research UK, formerly the Alzheimer’s Trust, said an immediate programme of studies into the disease needed to start – similar to that into the Aids virus in the 1980s. His comments come as a report for the charity shows that for every UK scientist working on dementia, six work on cancer. A national poll also found that people fear dementia more than cancer or even death. Sir Terry said: ‘Alzheimer’s is a large number of small tragedies usually played out behind closed doors, so in spite of the numbers living with it, the world still doesn’t take much notice. ‘When the world was shocked by HIV in the 1980s we saw a crash programme of research which has helped tame it enormously. We need the same kind of aggressive action on dementia now.’ The YouGov poll of more than 2,000 people marks the re-launch of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust as Alzheimer’s Research UK. The charity is asking the public, Government and the private sector to help end years of ‘pitifully low’ investment in research. Asked what they feared the most, 31 per cent of people surveyed for the charity said dementia, while 27 per cent were most scared of cancer, 18 per cent said death and 7 per cent said going bankrupt. Dementia costs the economy an estimated £23billion, more than cancer and heart disease combined, says Alzheimer’s Research UK. The charity’s chief executive, Rebecca Wood, said: ‘Public concern around dementia is at an all-time high, yet dementia research is still the poor relation. We have such brilliant research talent in the UK which could make real inroads into defeating dementia with more support – our brains depend on theirs. ‘Alzheimer’s Research UK is the UK’s leading dementia research charity, and the public has helped us fund hundreds of top scientists, including a record £4.5million of grants last year. Regrettably, charity and Government spending still lags far behind efforts made against other diseases.’ Care services minister Paul Burstow said: ‘Dementia is one of the biggest challenges our society faces. As our population ages we need to better understand the disease if we are to counter its effects more successfully. Research is the key to developing new treatments, transforming care and ultimately to finding a cure for this devastating disease. ‘The Department of Health’s research budget is nearly a billion this year - I want more of that funding to be supporting dementia research. But we can only do that if the number and quality of the research proposals are of the right standard to justify the investment. ‘To help dementia sufferers and their families to benefit, we will help researchers to submit high quality proposals which advance our understanding of care, cure and cause.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)t.html#ixzz1DT6G6JJi | |
Jordy-B | woensdag 9 februari 2011 @ 14:42 |
Blij dat er weer een watch-novel komt. Met de heksen (en dan niet zozeer Tiffany), vind ik de wacht toch wel de tofste verhalen hebben. | |
Lord_Vetinari | maandag 28 februari 2011 @ 08:44 |
Discworld fans will have not one, but two new Discworld Games to enjoy in 2011. We mentioned the Ankh-Morpork game last month, the other is called Guards! Guards! A Discworld Boardgame and is well on its way to hitting the shelves this summer. Stephen Player has recently been commissioned to produce the Illustrations for the game. The game will be in the shops in June/July 2011. It will be published by Z-Man Games in the US and will be distributed by Esdevium Games in the UK & Europe. The game sees players taking on the role of newly recruited members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. With the Eight Great Spells missing from the Unseen University the future of the city hangs in the balance. Each player is tasked to collect and return a number of the spells to the University before the news of their loss gets out and chaos ensues. You can view the artwork for the game's box at: http://www.discworldmonthly.co.uk/gfx/guardsguardsbox.jpg --------- Terry did rather well at the recent SFX awards (SFX is an excellent sci-fi magazine published in the UK) winning awards for best novel for I Shall Wear Midnight and the SFX Outstanding Contribution Award. SFX's website includes Terry's acceptance video. http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/02/05/sfx-awards-winners-announced/ --------- Do you know what Amigurumi is? No neither did I - apparently it is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. It appears that June Gilbank has decided to crochet Great A'Tuin, the four elephants and the Disc itself. You can see pictures of the rather cute looking project at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetjune/2766286338/ -------- [NL] The first Dutch Discworld Convention takes place at Hotel NH Atlanta in Rotterdam on 28th - 29th May 2011. Program items so far are Premiere for the Netherlands of Going Postal, a Banquet buffet, a Masquerade and Workshops. No news about Guests of Honour yet. Contact details: http://www.dutchdwcon.nl For further information contact: info@dutchdwcon.nl ------------- | |
Pandora73 | woensdag 2 maart 2011 @ 16:04 |
Zijn er hier mensen die naar CabbageCon gaan? Ik zit er nog heel erg over te twijfelen, ik heb namelijk die zondag een cabaretmarathon (zo'n 10 uur cabaret en kleinkunst) en ik denk dat dat voor mij wat veel wordt als ik dan ook zaterdag nog naar zo'n meeting ga. En ik heb werkelijk geen flauw idee hoe druk het zal zijn... Ergens vrees ik dat het erg rustig gaat blijven, maar ik hoop natuurlijk dat het een groot succes wordt, zodat er volgend jaar ook weer een DW-Con in Nederland komt! | |
Lord_Vetinari | donderdag 3 maart 2011 @ 01:33 |
Slaughter of the swans: Terry Pratchett helps to double reward after 31 birds are shot with high-powered air rifle Terry Pratchett has offered £10,000 to catch swan killers who have murdered 31 of the birds in the last month - doubling the reward. The best-selling author said he was 'incensed' by the slaughter of the birds in Somerset. Many of them had been rescued from starving after being trapped in the winter ice and nursed to health before being released into the wild. Eight swans were found dead in Blackford last week and it later emerged that more carcasses were found by the members of the public at Wedmore and Godney, with most of the birds killed by sniper shots to the head with an air rifle. Wildlife workers yesterday found ten more murdered swans near Wedmore and offered £10,500 to help catch the swan killer. But after Pratchett doubled the reward, and several more members of the public offered money, the total amount on offer stood at £26,000. Wildlife charity Secret World described finding the dead birds as 'one of the worst incidents' it had ever attended. Pratchett, 62, said: 'Nobody understands why this is happening. I'm at a loss, but I certainly don't think someone should be walking around shooting swans. 'I phoned up this morning and said "this is terrible", I was absolutely incensed. They are protected birds and have been for many years. 'I just don't understand the mentality. I can't see them (swans) doing much harm, and why someone would go and shoot them I have no idea. 'I will be following this case with interest and I'm sure the RSPCA will be taking it very seriously, as will I.' The money will be offered to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to a successful prosecution. The Queen retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, anyone found guilty of attacking swans can be sentenced to six months in prison and fined £5,000. Police said they had stepped up patrols in the area but any prosecutions would be handled by the RSPCA. Sarah Cowen, animal care manager at Secret World, said: 'It's amazing to see that people are so enraged about the killings that they are coming forward and donating very large sums of money. 'It's always difficult with cases like this to get people to talk. If someone is carrying out this action they are not likely to be a very nice people and others might be afraid of retribution, but this might make someone more willing to come forward.' The reward fund was started by Phil new, 53, who lives in nearby Highbridge. He said: 'It takes a lot to put a tear in my eye but what happened here has achieved that.' The RSPCA said it is already investigating the first incident and are able to prosecute. An Avon and Somerset Police spokeswoman said the neighbourhood team was carrying out extra patrols. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)e.html#ixzz1FUZ3LRYx | |
Lord_Vetinari | zaterdag 12 maart 2011 @ 06:47 |
"Folks, There has been a long time between updates, mostly because since early November life has been extremely hectic. A large part of that month being mostly spent clearing snow. And then, for some reason, Christmas seemed twice as long as any other Christmas, but enjoyable nevertheless. And now, since our schedule is always pretty full, the world in general believing that the time of an author is expandable, we have run into a kind of gridlock with far too many obligations and not enough days in the year. However, Snuff, with Commander Vimes of the City Watch as the main character, is now with the copy editor and I have finished our next documentary with the BBC, which has also required our major involvement since October. We have answered as much mail as we can and as I sit here I see a huge pile of stuff that we will have to work through over the next few weeks, while desperately trying to make progress on my part of the Long Earth. There has been one hell of a lot of rumours regarding a Good Omens adaptation over the past few weeks, mostly started by me at the SFX Weekender. So, ladies and gentleman, I can hereby exclusively reveal that - YES - Neil and myself have shaken hands and received groats from Rod Brown sealing a TV deal. An official announcement from Prime Focus will follow in a couple of weeks time. However, I can reveal right now that Terry Jones (yes, the Python) and Gavin Scott (not a Python, but he gets it) are already on the job. It's been a long time coming, but it's looking good. A word about conventions; unless something reasonably disastrous happens, Rob and I will be attending the Australian convention in April and I will be doing other engagements in Oz and New Zealand. I believe that an event advertised in Melbourne has already sold out, in fact, even before we knew the details and I am still unsure of the dates of the one in Sydney, although I do know that it will be at the Opera House. PLEASE do not ask us for tickets! We do not have any! We do not know what they look like! And we wait, with bated breath, whether they will actually let us in. Again, the second North American convention looks likely, but again, health considerations, acts of god (okay, random fluctuations in the space/time continuum) and Icelandic dust clouds permitting. We intend to get around that by driving to the convention ... don't ask, but it's going to be fun. I know there are going to be smaller conventions in Germany, Holland, Ireland and I've even heard a rumour of one in Spain. Fortuitously, I will be able (health blah blah blah permitting) to attend the second Irish convention because it is just after a professorial engagement at Trinity College Dublin. I know this will mean an overdose of Guinness, but one has to suffer for his art. I cannot guarantee attendance at any of the other smaller conventions, simply because no matter what size a convention is, it still pretty much takes up the same amount of my time and there are so many calls on it, least of which involves writing books, that I can't go everywhere. Sorry! But I am not the first person to say that I think it a good idea if people put their heads together and organised a pan-European convention, which would probably be a lot more fun and attract a lot more fans. As it is, we've just returned from a whistle-stop visit to Prague to see the final performance of Maskarada at the Dlouhe theatre. It was absolutely superb and I am hoping that it really wasn't the last one. We know this doesn't work but we continue to repeat it even though no one ever takes any notice. PLEASE we would rather you did not send your own books for signing - as we've said time and again, signed books are available HERE. Especially difficult are things sent with a deadline, such as 'please sign this for my husband, whose birthday is next Thursday' which has been posted second class on Tuesday (you would be amazed...). Also, Never assume the author is at home or even in the country, although he might be wishing that he was. And PLEASE do not argue or try to negotiate with us over this. I have heard that Professor Roy Jones, Director of the RICE Centre for the past twenty five years and also my Alzheimer's specialist, is celebrating by running the Bath half marathon. RICE has been the recipient of the goodwill of many fannish occasions and they can always do with more. God help him, but Roy's job is to work out if I am normal or not! Please follow us and take a look at his JustGiving page HERE. More from me very soon. Terry Pratchett." Since Terry wrote this I have received confirmation that Good Omens will be filmed in the UK and Ireland later this year. | |
Lord_Vetinari | zaterdag 12 maart 2011 @ 06:52 |
News about a new Discworld Watch TV Series We've just received this press release hot off the press: Terry Pratchett's 'The Watch' 11 March 2011: Sir Terry Pratchett and Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions, announce that they have come to an agreement for the unprecedented and exclusive worldwide television rights to create brand new storylines for the iconic characters of Pratchett's phenomenally successful Discworld series. Terry's universal success has seen him create one of the leading fantasy fiction franchises of all time, with 70 million worldwide sales of his 38 book Discworld titles (with a 39th being published in October 2011). Whilst there have been three successful mini series adaptations of his Discworld books made for television in the UK, this is the first time that Pratchett has granted a production company the international rights to his character's and world, for the creation of new stories exclusively for a television audience. The main focus of the series will be set in the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and always vibrant city of Ankh Morpork and will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles (and, of course, Igor in the forensics department). Terry commonly refers to the City Watch police force series "the jewels in his Discworld Crown". These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a 'crime of the week' episodic storyline. As each weekly adventure unfolds, viewers will be taken on a ride through Pratchett's genius imagination, with the author overseeing the creation of the series, where wild and exciting encounters with werewolves, dragons, dwarfs, trolls and golems and the classic heroes and villains, are an everyday occurrence... many of whom even make outstanding crime fighters! Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions said, "I believe that the globally successful Discworld franchise will readily translate to the small screen in the form of a high-end, mass appeal weekly drama series. It will give the audience the anticipation and excitement of brand new Discworld stories every week through the medium of television, rather than books. It's a huge responsibility to get this right for Terry, his legions of Discworld fans and the new followers to his work that we will attract along the way, but I believe they will be in for a treat with a high calibre writing team already attached, including 'Monty Python's' Terry Jones and Gavin Scott (Small Soldiers, The Borrowers). We have already spoken to a number of international broadcasters who have shown early interest and we hope to move forward very quickly to bring this exciting project to fruition". Sir Terry Pratchett said, "I'm very excited! I really am incredibly happy about this because Rod was part head of the team that produced the very successful Sky One adaptations and my message of encouragement to him now is; don't bugger it up!" | |
Lord_Vetinari | zaterdag 12 maart 2011 @ 06:54 |
Terry Jones is dus betrokken bij beide projecten. Terryis een enorme Fantasy fan, zoals zijn eerdere betrokkenheid bij The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy al aangetoond heeft. Ik ben erg benieuwd naar beide projecten, hoewel ik redelijk huiverig kijk naar de TV-serie. Non-Pratchett storylines met Pratchett-personages? Ik weet t niet, hoor... | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 1 april 2011 @ 08:02 |
Terry has been spending some time in the offices of SFX Magazine in the UK discussing the new Watch TV series. You can see a video of part of the discussion at: http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/03/21/pratchett-exclusive/ ----------- Neil Gaiman was recently interviewed about his and Terry's involvement in the upcoming Good Omens adaptation at Digital Spy. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=GAIMAN168 ------------- More Discworld Stamps ... This time they are legal to use in the UK. On the 8th March The Royal Mail issued Magical Realms, a set of stamps based on classic magical characters. The four 1st class stamps feature Rincewind and Nanny Ogg from the Discworld and Dumbledore and Voldermort from the Harry Potter series. The two 60p stamps feature Merlin and Morgan Le Fay from Arthurian legend. The two 97p stamps feature Aslan and the White Witch from Narnia. http://discworldmonthly.co.uk?redir=STAMPS168 ----------- [ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Lord_Vetinari op 01-04-2011 08:17:03 ] | |
Lord_Vetinari | vrijdag 1 april 2011 @ 08:02 |
UPDATE: It appears three men, aged 34, 37 and 45, have been arrested and bailed in connection with the shootings. An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said the trio were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. You can see a television interview that Terry gave for ITV here: http://www.itv.com/westco(...)in-swan-appeal89222/ | |
lemonlime | maandag 18 april 2011 @ 23:54 |
Whaa! een terry Pratchett topic! ik heb bijna alles gelezen, alleen the hogfather en eric nog niet. Zal binnenkort wel aan een tweede ronde moeten beginnen | |
morg78 | maandag 13 juni 2011 @ 20:49 |
Vanavond (13 juni 2011) op BBC 2, om 22:00: deel 1 van "Terry Pratchett - Choosing to die", een tweedelige documentaire over vrijwillige euthanasie. |