10 Recent Entries (0 Skipped)
 Couldn't be bothered to italicise and underline so many but it was quite interesting; of the first 200, I had read 106, but after that they go really obscure!
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The DUrbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - HELL YEAH!
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce - noooo way
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. Georges Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick OBrian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlottes Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway - wow, that was
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophies World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winters Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen Gods Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setters Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magics Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magics Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magics Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lions Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucaults Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, URI Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster loved
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhoods End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeepers Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Misery, Stephen King
374. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
375. Hood, Emma Donoghue
376. The Land of Spices, Kate O’Brien
377. The Diary of Anne Frank
378. Regeneration, Pat Barker
379. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
380. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
381. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
382. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
383. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
384. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
385. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine LEngle
386. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
387. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
388. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
389. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill
390. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
391. The Things We Carried, Tim O’Brien
392. I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
393. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
394. Enders Shadow, Orson Scott Card
395. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card
396. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen
397. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
398. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L’Engle
399. Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
400. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
401. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
402. The Bridge, Iain Banks
403. How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
404. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
405. A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton
406. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
407. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
408. Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
409. Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho
410. White Oleander, Janet Fitch
411. The Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll
412. Forrest Gump
413. Roots, Alex Haley
414. Kleopatra, Karen Essex
415. Papillion, Henri Charriére
416. Where the Heart Is, Billie Letts
417. Are You There God, Its Me Margaret - Judy Blume
418. Night - Elie Wiesel
419. Welcome to the World, Baby Girl - Fannie Flagg
420. A Walk to Remember, Nicholas Sparks
421. The Ishbane Conspiracy - Randy Alcorn
422. The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris
423. Thirteen - Various
424. Darkside Zodiac - Stella Hyde
425. Piercing the Darkness - Katherine Ramsland
426. The Witch's Handbook - Malcolm Bird
427. The Cheese Monkeys - Chip Kidd
428. The Missing Piece - Shel Silverstein
429. The Last book in the Universe - Rodman Philbrick
430. The Natural History of Weasels and Stoats - Carolyn King and Roger Powell
431. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People - The Venerable Bede
432. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
433. Half Of A Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
444. The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
So I don't know what the economic situation is like in Foreign Lands but over here lots of big-name high street companies are going bust (Woolworths, Zavvi/Virgin Music, blah blah blah) and there are actually ( Facebook groups )Facebook groups dedicated to "saving" them with people saying sensible things like: " how about 260,000,000 peeps payin pound each?
i would gladly pay a pound if it would help." [ punctuation added, everything else sic] Interestingly, the ENTIRE POPULATION OF ENGLAND was only 51, 092, 000 as of 2007 so unless there has been a MASSIVE influx of illegal immigrants which no one knows about and which oh, don't pay taxes anyway and thus would not partake in this "save woolworths" shit, somehow I think that WILL. NOT. WORK. and in any case, guaranteed the people making these kind of suggestions are the same people who bitch their arms off about having to pay our country's high taxes and would object if they were raised by a pound for any cause other than saving and nationalising a private company which they happen to think is a "good brand" (clearly they were wrong if it was in debt to the tune of £260,000,000, as one randomer on the facebook group claims). Fuck the kids with cancer! Why spend our taxes on hospitals or schools when we could leap into a poorly managed company which got itself into this mess and should have to deal with the fucking results? "So what you are saying is that we should no longer allow Woolworths to be privatised but made public!?
You know it could work!" - A. Fucktard Well, Miss Fucktard its nice to hear your fatuous opinions splashed loud and proud across the ether as if you had the faintest clue what you were talking about, you're certainly quite the bluffer! Thank god your facebook profile reveals that you have nothing to do with setting economic policy in this country or I might actually have to catch the first plane to Canada and make good on my one time bargain with Cat that either of us could live in a cardboard box in the other's garage if it was ever necessary! Let's think what privatisation of Woolworths would mean. It would mean either a) putting up taxes (what!? But we already pay so much and food is so expensive now!) or b) diverting money from the aforesaid CHILDREN with CANCER in order to bolster a company with declared debts of a ridiculous amount, with a huge workforce and number of shops across the country which would undoubtedly need painful streamlining anyway, and putting a shop under government management. a shop. government management. A SHOP. GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT. DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS? All that means is that the government will be obliged to keep the already failed business open for as long as it can keep staggering because the job losses would be so huge that whatever government finally shut it down would do so to months of firey newspaper headlines from the tabloids. Pouring public money into a store which sells pick and mix and baby's clothes in a time when the government is already being forced to borrow huge amounts to support businesses which are actually crucial to the country like,oh, I don't know, maybe the FUCKING BANKS? yeah. Swell idea, sweetheart. "it could work yes would be better if public rather then privatly owned it wouldnt be one person getin rich but money could go to better use for the public" - A. N. Other, Fucktardshire As above, apart from the extra point that WTF mate, the reason that woolies is shutting down is that it is operating at a massive loss. Exactly how is that going to generate money to "go to better use for the public"? "meh it was a crap store anyway" - A. Randomer
THANK YOU, MR RANDOMER.
***
Seriously. I am basically extremely left wing on everything except market economics (well actually thats not entirely true, I am definitely pro free trade) where people just have to be fucking realistic. Yes the government can and should and is there to look after its citizens and thus I think healthcare, education, provision of crime prevention agencies and a guaranteed savings in banks up to a sensible limit for each person is absolutely 100% part of the government's job. However, private companies should remain private companies. (I put a little vagueness around public transport providers which I think really should be subsidised by the government in order to lower prices and make the world a little greener). Those that are totally in the retail sector of the market are not the government's concern and the mind just BOGGLES at the fucking morons all over the shop who actually think the government should privatise these things just because they like the brand name. I absolutely sympathise with those people who are losing their jobs and I understand their upset. It's a harsh time for everyone in terms of money at the moment and to be made redundant right now must be incredibly difficult. But unfortunately ultimately the situation will only right itself if it's allowed to purge itself of the underlying reasons for these companies failing: as of yet, its not lowered rates of sales, its not just because of the banks, its because they've been managed poorly and their profits have been pushed too ambitiously out so that they don't have sufficient capital to cover their running costs when there is something of an economic downturn. And if this situation gets rid of the worst offenders and forces other companies to sit up, pay attention and look after their books more carefully even if that means less ambitious and rapid growth in the short term, then fucking good.
***
Anyway I realise reaidng me bitching about economics is probably not exactly the most fun way to spend ten minutes so to anyone who got this far, I applaud you and next time I will talk about something interesting ;) You can even nominate a topic if you want!
ooh i need your love babe yeah you know it's true i find it very hard to wade across this river without you
http://kevan.org/nohari?name=maifacehttp://kevan.org/johari?name=Maiface...you know you want to ;) Decided to make a new one as my old one is... pretty old. About a year, I should say.
Did somne calculating of the biggest trips we've done while travelling. Turns out that, journeys under an hour excluded, we have travelled for a total of 118 hours in 45 days. That means we've spent a fifth of our days in locomotion. Averages out to about 2 hours 40 minutes EVERY DAY. And we're flying to New York tomorrow. Crazy stuff xD I met Sil! It was cool if brief. She shouldn't have self esteem problems because a) she's very nice (and alarmingly deer-y, I could totally imagine white-stag Veil peering over her shoulder) and b) she has a damn good figure xD I was stuck in between two pretty blondes, it was distressing. Although on this trip I have decided not being pretty is good because my mate gets constantly harassed and I do not! Hurrah :3
In LA it is lovely. Unfortunately Fijian mosquitoes ate me alive, I am literally covered in bites; they're so itchy and painful it is INSANE and the silly American pharmacist tried to sell me aromatic camomile oil to put on them and seemed completely baffled by the words "lotion" and "cream". LAX is the crappiest airport we've been to xD Seriously, when South Africa, a nation with 25% unemployment, and Fiji, a tiny blip of a bunch of islands, has a better airport than a mahoosive US city you know there's something wrong! Its so crazy, I remember random places like the topiary dinosaurs on 3rd Street and the pier by which I lost my shoe, and the dragon head in the rocks that go down to Muscle beach. I'm runing a temperature of some kind though, it's a bit nutty. The flight was so long and I didn't have flight socks and the people in front of us put their seats ALL THE WAY BACK at the beginning of the sodding flight! Fucking British tourists xD yesterday I went trekking through the Fijian jungle (also did that the day before, it was damp and generally disgusting if picturesque) we went in waterfalls, horseriding, to a village, kava ceremony (a drug they mush up and drink, it's illegal in the UK xD) and all sorts of fun stuff!
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b383/erinblack/Mairead1.jpgClick it! It's the link to a pic of me about to jump off a 300 foot high cliff. I was hella lot more scared than I look x.x It was awesome though. For some reason more scary the second time XD
So I'm in Queenstown New Zealand, it's funky stuff although it keeps munching my LJ entries which is a shade frustrating. I'm off to go hanggliding tomorrow and a you know I have a fear of heights.... eek? I've always lik3ed the idea of flying though so hopefully it will be okay as I am a bit averse to the idea of falling out the sky in a big wurbly mess. Yes, wurbly. They have good ice cream here, in fact it is fantastic even though we are broke. I saw bottlenose dolphins and a kea and some other crazy birdlife yesterday which was fun. And a seal. I have seen many a seal since starting travelling. I love NZ and Australia, I'm definately going to have to come back here sometime. Travelling with Rach is great but I almost think it could be fun to travel alone sometime just because I've never actually been by myself for very long and i could do everything I want in a very dfelightfully selfish way ;) and not be forced to jump off cliffs and freefall for an excessively long time (canyon swing; apparently the LotR crew did the same one or somethign random xD but heck it will be scary). My search for the moa has gone unfruitful. Still I keep hope alive.
| Title: | ^^ |
| Date: | 2007-05-17 @ 19:51 |
| Security: | public |
We went on a tour of Sydney today, a free walking tour with the hostel (and they gave us all free cider afterwards, score!) it was so cool! We saw Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and Botanic Gardens and Hyde Park (mk II, obviously) and the ANZAC memorial and stuff, and animal wise we saw ibis, loooads of cockatoos and flying foxes! It was wicked. We've got kind of addicted to Neighbours and are watching some Australian Big Brother too - it is SO WEIRD. All the people in there are so comparitively normal! I said that to Spee and she said she thought they were pretty weird but whoah xD All of you Aussies need to see some British BB to know the true meaning of weird. If there isn't a gay transvestite anarchist with enormous fake boobs in there, it's not BB (not that I have anything against gay transvestite anarchists with enormous fake boobs but they are hardly representative of the majority population of Britain, you know?). I missed my mum's phonecalls twice now and I feel so bad >.< The time diff means there's only a small window in which we could chat. Tomorrow at four o clock I MUST NOT forget!
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