God's Waiting Room

So much to do and so little time. I just don't know how you're meant to fit everything into one life as I currently feel as if I'm living at least two.

Went to see PC Benny passing out (not literally) down in sunny, candyfloss imbued Paignton. He looked very smart or done up in his uniform and had even shaved for once. I had visions of being a PC down in Devon as being something of a laid back affair, akin to driving around small country lanes and tracking down the odd cream tea crime. How mistaken I was, at it seems Paignton is a hot bed of tattooed thugs wearing stretch lycra, fuelled by cheap lager and all day breakfasts...and that's just the women.

Due to some last minute hitch we ended up staying in a B&B...or what we thought was a B&B. It seemed that instead we had stumbled upon God's waiting room and it was full too capacity of old dears sipping tea and exchanging pleasantries such as how much dribble had leaked out of them during the night. It seems that God himself is a rough diamond from the East end of London with penchant for poodles. The world's religions are probably not to keen on promoting this new bit of information and will have to rewrite a lot of hymns to include rhyming slang.

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'The White Road' is a pivotal book in the saga of Charlie 'Bird' Parker allowing him to put many of his ghosts behind him while setting him up as a better formed character for the coming stories. The book itself is personally the weakest in story but acts more as a repositioning of all the characters for what comes later and allows the character of Louise and Angel to be become less stereotyped.

Everytime I read about Louis I think of the actor Ving Rhames. If they ever film any of these books surely he's a contender for the role.

'Signal to Noise' is an early Gaiman / McKean work which rather than them dealing with the more fantastical elements they dwell on the ideas of death and creation. At times it does have a slight 'straight out of art college' feel to the story, student angst etc but its still a beautifully presented piece of work that feels like a historical piece now that the millenium is behind us.

Read this week:
Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
The White Road by John Connolly