Hollywood

Last night I finished reading the novel Hollywood by Charles Bukowski. The story revolves around Henry Chinaski, a hard-drinking author and poet with a fondness for betting on horse-racing. Hired to write a screenplay for a movie, he soon finds himself caught up in the sometimes bizarre and often hilarious world of the Hollywood film industry. Like most of Bukowski's novels, this one is semi-autobiographical concerning his experiences of writing the screenplay for the 1987 film Barfly. The book is very well-written and often very funny.

Later on I was listening to the first of a six part radio adaptation of Guards! Guards!, a comedy fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett. It's one of his Discworld novels and involves the City Watch, kind of the Discworld police force, trying to stop an evil plan to unleash hordes of dragons. It was very entertaining. I also heard the first of a two part reading of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, which was very good. I've really go into listening to the radio, since I got the digital system.

Today I bought the latest copy of Radio Times on my way into work. It was another very quiet and slow day. As always on a Friday the place was almost deserted, especially by the afternoon. On my way home I got a sausage in batter and some chips for a bit of a change.