The Looking-Glass War

Last night I was listening to a documentary on the radio called Archive on 4: Self on Ballard, in which novelist Will Self talked about the life and work of his friend and fellow author J.G. Ballard who died in April this year. Ballard started out by writing science-fiction novels that dealt mainly with the psychological effects of futuristic technology before moving on to grim and controversial works such as High-Rise and Crash, which was turned into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. He had his biggest success in the 1980s though with his semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, which was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg. I've read quite a few of the J.G. Ballard novels so it was an interesting show.

I also read the final story in the Just After Sunset collection by Stephen King. This final story was a pretty long one called "A Very Tight Place", and told the pretty gross story of a man trapped in a portable toilet by a maniac.

Today I went along to the corner shop and bought some milk and some sugar. I also got the latest issue of Total Film magazine. The main feature this month was the 100 movie-related things and people that are likely to be popular over the next year (including video-game adaptations, horror movie remakes, social-networking and Ellen Page).

When I got back home I listened to the second and final part of the radio adaptation of The Looking-Glass War based on the 1965 John le Carre novel. The story revolves around a small and forgotten section of the British Secret Service called "The Deaprtment" which sees a chance to enhance it's status by infiltrating an agent into East Germany, when it comes across weak evidence that Soviet missiles are being placed near the West German border. It was pretty good, and complex, with a very bleak conclusion.

After that I went and started cleaning my bedroom. It has been a really exciting day.