Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

I wish I had been able to read this book when I was 16, or 17, or 18.

It's just a little teen novel, but I know it would have had a profound effect on the person I was then, and would have helped me identify the person I am now a little more quickly.

Why for the Shipping?

Why do we identify characters with chemistry on TV programmes and then hope they'll get together (although often we enjoy the chase more than the actual resolution)? It's as if we actively seek out these relationships - is it just because it's a recognisable and cliched "trope", or is it a natural extension of real life?
 

Online musings

While I was still at Rhodes I became really active on the university forums. I loved it, got really involved and swept away by the giddy thrill that comes with the message board medium. It's a very gratifying (but occasionally frustrating) way of communicating. Being on a forum allows you to create a sense of community that is hard to capture on sites like Facebook.

Anyway, the university got fed up with people trying to use the forums as a place to hawk their services and kicked those of us who were no longer on campus off. I said a fond farewell to Castle Creepy and thought that was the end of the online world.

I was still at The Southern Cross when I found Table Talk, the forum attached to the Salon site. I was really put out that you had to pay to play, but that didn't stop me from lurking like a big lurky thing. I lurked for about three years until I came to the UK and then I paid and started to post.

And it was only then that I discovered a few pockets of community in this mass of discussion (Otters, we call ourselves, don't ask). And I feel as intensely about these online friends as I do about any of my real life friends. Some of these "invisible friends" have become real life friends - we've been on holidays together, visited each other, shared dinner and too much red wine, and really good martinis).

So I was bereft last night when the message went out that Table Talk was being shut down (even The Mother and The Sister were horrified for me: "Oh noes! Now you will have no friends at all!"). We're moving into a new forum, and I'm hoping the tight little community will stay tight. Because it is it's own culture, in a way, with its own myths and lore and beliefs and taboos. Community is about people, not place, so we should be all right.

The Otters will live on!

Oh, Groupon

Wow, Groupon! £25 for a colonic irrigation? Bargain! Sign me up.

Best movie synopsis ever

A warrior priest tracks down vampires in a post-apocalypse sci-fi thriller.

Puzzles

He knows she enjoys crosswords – she annoys Robert by downloading them from the internet and printing them off. She does all the across clues before her first cup of coffee, and then moves onto the down clues. Sometimes he times her for his own amusement. Last Tuesday it took her 10 minutes, but only because she couldn't remember the synonym for “isotherm”. This morning the printer malfunctioned, and she was forced to drink her coffee while staring at the ceiling.

He doesn't know if it's the routine she likes: scribble, sip, scribble; her mind racing along a few minutes ahead of her pencil. Perhaps she just finds it comforting, faithfully filling out blank squares, knowing that each answer leads to another, and that in the end a solution is sure to reveal itself. He could ask her why she enjoys her crossword, but he prefers to observe her murmuring to herself, observe her slight smirk on a Monday (apparently Monday's cruciverbalist is a pushover, preferring clues about dogs), and smiles at her frustration on Sunday (Sunday's cruciverbalist is a sadist, she says, and she is usually only saved by her esoteric knowledge of 18th century furniture).

She doesn't always finish her crosswords. She doesn't throw the unfinished ones away though. He's pretty sure he saw her dig last Wednesday's out of her bag when she went to the bar to get a round of drinks. He wondered what the clue was. Casting his thoughts back to the ribald and inane conversation junior sailors tend to have on shore leave, he's at a loss. Sharks, motorcycles and the cheapest hotels in Bangkok don't tend to make an appearance on a crossword. She likes British crosswords over the ones in the local papers. She doesn't do cryptics. He's not sure why.

And he doesn't quite understand. He likes a pub quiz himself, although it's been a while since he's allowed himself to indulge in one. His strengths are cricket players of the 1950s, Queen's greatest hits, and Humphrey Bogart movies. He doesn't like picture rounds – the sweet young things all look alike to him, and he was never much cop at identifying foreign world leaders.

He's tried his hand at sudoku, but the logic infuriates him. He would prefer to calculate the numbers, like a brainteaser, to manipulating them into place. Occasionally he teases out the chess problems in the Post's letter pages, but strategy is for real life, not a game board. The Rubik's cube on his desk he appreciates. He likes the ongoing thought process of it all, that with a few quick random twists he could be on the path to even colours and peaceful order.

Crosswords are a known and unknown entity. Last Saturday he got to spend a rare day at home. His plans for the day included catching up on the Ashes highlights package and running to earth his other hat. He last saw it in the garage. He thinks. His plans for the day did not include printing off The Guardian's daily quick crossword and making a cup of coffee. He lasted 5 minutes before carefully placing the printed paper down on the table and deciding to search for the hat instead.

It was too hard not to imagine her there: scribble, sip, scribble. Chewing the end of her pencil as she works out the angles. “Lead poisoning,” he imagines himself warning her. “Graphite,” his imagination answers him swiftly, smiling at him as only his imagination allows. It's why he doesn't ask questions about her crossword, tease her about her morning ritual, or tell her how long it took her to untangle 6 down yesterday (2 minutes, 9 letters, the scientific name for a llama). He can't ask her a question, because once he starts he won't be able to stop, and there are questions that demand answers that can't be resolved here.

So he keeps his questions to himself, but finds out from Robert if the printer is working again. He quietly passes her the printed sheet with her mid-morning cuppa. She chuckles and reaches for a pencil. He stares straight ahead at the turbulent grey ocean, and starts the timer on his watch.

The things you learn in Devon

- It's never cold, it's just windy.
- Miss Molly's daughter has succumbed to prostitution and taken the name Westward Ho!
- Religions revolving around arses opens up a world of bum-related humour, which never gets old.
- The National Trust is just a front. In fact, this fine and upstanding organisation is a cover up for a network of hitmen. The victims are turned into compost, to help those lovely gardens grow.
- Gnomes are scary.
- Gnomes are extremely scary.
- Gnomes really are quite terrifying.
- The answer to Twenty Questions rarely involves someone involved in shipping.
- Kites are harder to fly than you think.