scottyboy

The couple of kick-ass female warrior types are yet to appear. With Dranerys (however that's spelt) and (much later) Sansa Stark, they do come into their own later, yeah; but I think by the end of this book Dranerys has gone off at the head of her own army, and it just continues in that vein: her laying righteous waste to cities and occasionally feeling bad about it. You have Catylin (again sp?) as a pretty unlikeable political manipulator and that's about it. In the TV series they made the queen a main character and arch baddie and probably got more out of Arya Stark as well. I think the characters are just painfully one-dimensional in general. What seems like complex - or at least adequate - characterisation on-screen just doesn't cut it on page, I guess. With the female characters, he's trying to write emotively from the POV of 9-14 year old girls, and just does it horribly. With TV one only sees the words and deeds and is spared inner monologues. There's also loads of belaboured NUDGE NUDGE WINK descriptions and matching plot devices (Stark children overhearing baddies discussing conspiracies in detail on two occasions) whereas the TV show just hints at things and leaves the viewer to figure things out. TV wisely dispensed of Tyrion's preposterous ice-cold-killa battlefield heroics also. /rant * Regards Spoonie's reads, I read The Economic Naturalist several years ago and it was really excellent. I might never have read anything about economics or business if it wasn't for that one. I've also got a pdf of The Wealth of Nations waiting to be read. I like to think I know the gist of what Smith was about, but I've read a couple of things arguing the extent to which he's misrepresented, so thought I might finally check out the source.

I'm also reading A Game of Thrones (i.e. first book) and about 75% in - it's pretty fucking dull tbh. So it gets better, then? I thought knowing the outcome to all the elaborate conspiracy plots might have had something to do with it; but then so much of the writing is also just plainly terrible. I noted the first book wasn't a best-seller until 15 years or so after it first came out, so maybe the later ones are better. Can't say I'm much motivated to wade through probably 1000s of pages to find out...

The Bono-approved (don't let that put you off...) The End of Poverty (there's also a book written as a response called The White Man's Burden, by William Easterly, which is probably even better). The Origins of Political Order is pretty fascinating, particularly the earlier parts. I'm reading the second volume currently. The Age of Ambition (attempts to capture the zeitgeist of contemporary China) I don't think merited the huge plaudits it got, but is a good read nonetheless. Most of the environmental stuff is pretty specialist and has captive market prices to match. But Mao's War Against Nature just about crosses over to general readership (a mere $33 on Amazon...) and is very worthwhile if interested in Chinese history. The Limits to Growth is another academic tract which crossed over due to it's sheer scariness and is now in it's umpteenth edition. Again, it's.. alarming (or alarmist, if you believe it's detractors).

I found a Kindle in Poland - I had to go buy it out of some guy's living room down an alleyway somewhere. In the meantime I found out the bookshop near my work has a small shelf full of stuff from a world literature publisher. This is my list so far: Andrew Wells-Dang - Informal Pathbreakers: Civil Society Networks in Vietnam and China Luis Fernando Verissimo - The Spies Jakob Ejersbo - Revolution Jerome Ferrari - Where I Left My Soul Cees Nooteboom - The Foxes Come at Midnight 2014's list of books I actually read cover to cover. Obviously some of this was not bedtime pleasure reading but anyway: 1. Joy Zhang & Michael Barr, Green Politics in China 2. Jun Morikawa, Whaling in Japan 3. Oliver Hensengerth, Regionalism in China-Vietnam Relations 4. Lei Xie, Environmental Activism in China 5. Robert Weller, Discovering Nature 6. Vaclav Smil, China's Past, China's Future 7. ZhongXiang Zhang, Energy and Environmental Policy in China 8. Brian Tilt, The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China 9. Stefan Al (ed.), Factory Towns of South China 10. Hasegawa, Constructing Civil Society in Japan 11. Judith Shapiro, Mao's War against Nature. 12. Adam minter, Junkyard Planet 13. Meadows/Randers/Meadows, Limits to Growth: 30 Year Update 14. Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order 15. Evylyn Goh, Developing the Mekong 16. Chris Coggins, The Tiger and the Pangolin Clarissa Dickson-Wright, Spilling the Beans Da Chen, Colours of the Mountain Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty Hawken et al. Natural Capitalism Chris Patten, East and West Hannah Pakula, The Last Empress Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition Steven Berkoff, Gross Intrusion and other Stories Roger Backhouse, Penguin History of Economics Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Empire (sorry about formatting)

Occurred to me to put him in my team after I submitted it Maybe just as well, who knows how many points he's worth: "was said to be aged about 90"...

I concur with the rest of the internets that the ending was terrible; other than that, great (I'd still go with The Wire for best-tv-evah, though).

Just finished the last Sopranos episode...

Half-seriously: obviously I could get one if I really put my mind to it (otherwise, yeah, seriously I don't think they are sold much here if at all). Having it posted would probably be too much of a theft risk (think I've bitched about that on here before), it bearing a resemblance to an ipad or something else that can access Facebook and Candy Crush. Taxes would also up the price tag considerably (glorious socialist paradise). More likely I'll pick one up next time in another part of Poland, in which people read thngs other than Doremon. Cheers though, I had been thinking about it - I borrowed a Kindle Fire for a bit and didn't like the feel much (and too many distractions with the apps and net access on that model) but have been thinking it's pragmatic just for storage and portability, as I seem to find myself moving between Poland and wherever, .

Just the small problem of getting hold of a Kindle in Poland....

27 for me, I think; I mainly read a lot of stuff beside books this year. I think I could do 50 in 2015; getting hold of them in Poland is the main headache.

Dire relegation year for Death Cube K

Do we send entries to Lucky via PM again?

Rents in London are so high that any of the "poor" areas are full of students (and barristas and so on). I Googled the cafe and it's in Shoreditch, one of the best known bohemian (trying not to use the h-word) areas. The next tube station is Bethnal Green, which is still pretty grim looking, rammed with small Asian businesses, and there's a Unite 200+-a-week student property right in the centre. (so I agree, basically)

When people talk about intervals or chords without specifying major or minor, generally it's major (neither sharp nor flat; minor would be flat). So a "seventh" means a major 7th or 11 frets. You're right in noting that you can't get a sharp 7th, as you have then gone up an octave (there could be obscure theoretical exceptions...). A6, for example, is a major chord with a major 6th. With 7th chords it's a bit different. A7 is a dominant 7th chord: an A chord with a major 3rd and a flat AKA minor 7th. Amaj7 has both a major 3rd and 7th. Am7 has both a minor/flat 3rd and 7th.

Old JCM800 if you can find one? I both bought one (50w combo) and sold it for 300, I think. Maybe not the most practical for gigging, if you're otherwise talking about 20w heads, though.

After - I mean you'd need a PGCE and 2 years' UK experience for an international school job. The latter concern can work dependent on country (my flatmate here is a gay teacher) - although uprooting to another country in general is probably a headache in general if you have a partner/family in tow (one reason international school teachers seem to get more). Just since you mentioned ESL/teaching in Poland in the quick questions thread.

I see. Either way, for someone serious about a teaching career and who has the stamina to get the prerequisite PGCE and 2 years experience in the motherland, getting an international school job in a middle-income part of Poland is probably the cushiest route available, IMHO. Food for thought.

Is this for teaching in Poland?

I don't follow the bleeding edge of new releases, exclusives etc. (and prefer more mouse/keyboard friendly games), but built desktop PC IMO; just obviously better value and more flexible, as I see it.

I think it's pretty normal to sell shares within 5 years if they are in developed markets (maybe not if you're really trying to buy into a minnow and waiting for it to grow into a Starbucks). 6-10 years as a starting point, I'd have thought was more with investing in developing markets.

So what if there's an agenda, per se? It does matter if there's a conflict of interests - it's crucial to the point I was making, which is apparently "moot". Also this fits in right beside savings accounts and ISA IMO; Spoony's ISA is a stock/shares one, e.g.

Maybe so, but the point is that there is (much more likely to be) a conflict of interests (or "agendas") when taking advice form a bank.

Not necessarily: if the financial company is paying the percentage, and it's a percentage of gains from fixed rate of interest, I wouldn't agree that's a cut. And if someone is simply charging for advice and not taking a cut, he's not taking a cut. Conversely, the bank, and certainly not the advisor, need not be taking a "cut" to make it problematic; and it is in fact the lack of a "cut" which makes it superficially attractive to small investors. Again, a bank's interest will often be simply to maximise the amount invested and the length of time invested. But the point was that the cut-taking independent's interests align with the investor's: direct profits for the investor. Indie advisors have also been shown to be more upfront about their agendas, as it happens.