Calm down. No-one's getting flayed alive.

Long gap this time. Oops. Winter is on it's way - had frost on the cars already, but now there's snow on the Ben! Gonna be a cold winter I think if it carries on like this - GOOD! The last few winters have been wet and disappointing - can't remember the last really good snowfall (although there were a few frosts last year which left inch thick ice on the pavements. Looking forward to a real winter...

I got the train home the other week and there were some lovely girls from the North Highland College in Thurso. They do the horsecare course up there, and I'm not sure whether they live in Inverness and travel to Thurso for the week, or whether they live in Thurso but come to Inverness for the weekend, but they're a coarse lot who give the college a bad name. They all had NHC logos on their clothes and talked loudly about the course, but spent the rest of the time talking about how hungover they were and one lassie boasted about how she slept with one guy on Friday and then his brother on Saturday and neither of them knew. If you don't believe how bad they are, get the 6pm train north from Inverness on a Sunday and you too can share the experience.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm getting sick and tired of the whole American election farce. Do they give a damn about our elections? I'm pretty sure they don't give us or our politics three page spreads in the papers or 20 minutes on the evening news. I started off going, well at least it's not gonna be Bush for much longer, but then I sorta thought, yeah I like Obama he seems nice, now I just don't care and I'm sick of hearing about it. Why do we give them so much attention? We have no influence on what happens and the majority of people here (myself included) struggle to understand the complexities of our OWN political systems, let alone those of another country that doesn't give a damn about ours.

Medication is a funny thing. I'm on tablets at the moment which say that one of the side effects is bad depression or suicidal feelings and that they should not be prescribed to patients with a history of depression. I'm not shy, I'll admit that I've had problems with depression in the past, but my doctor knows this and still gave me the pills. I figured, "he'll know best, he wouldn't have prescribed them if it wasn't safe". Silly me.

But no, that doesn't mean that I've sunk into a big black cloud of depression again. Yes for the first couple of weeks things were bad, but they're getting better. There was a story in the paper today about an electrician in London who's been told by his work that he has to take 15 weeks unpaid leave because his doctor gave him pills to help him stop smoking which have suicidal thoughts listed as a rare side effect. If employers sent people off of work because of every rare side effect mentioned on everything people were taking, nobody would ever be at work! Numptys.

It's been a long three months. Working 7 days a week for 90ish days isn't a good idea. Leaves you very very tired. Enjoying just relaxing now though, two weeks holiday until I have to go back to full time bookselling in the middle of the month.

Might do a book-themed post soon, can't keep moaning all the time after all!

Bombings

I've got the news on right now. Two bombs have gone off in Turkey, a few minutes apart, the first designed to be small and draw people out, but the second one was specifically planted to attack the people who were trying to help the victims of the first.

Yesterday SEVENTEEN bombs went off in ONE city in India. The wankers who planted them were evil enough to plant them outside hospital trauma wards, so that victims would be hit again when they reached help.

The Turkish bombs were in a residential area. The Indian ones were simply so numerous and planted in places like hospitals so that nobody would be safe. This strikes me as a new type of attack. We've seen it before when bombs are planted that they are in public places to inflict maximum damage. But these ones were planted to inflict maximum damage, and THEN hurt the people who were trying to help. Terrorism sinking to a new low?

Maybe it's naive of me, but it seems to me that attacking medical staff and rescuers is something that even terrorists should not do. But like I said, this seems like a new level of callousness.

I'll tell you what, give me five minutes alone in a room with one of the men who did these things, and I'll show them what terror is, and they'd soon regret trying anything like this. Maybe you haven't guessed, but I'm very angry right now.

Here a book, there a book, everywhere a book book!

I like books. That's a given. So I thought I'd share the love by bookcrossing! Now, in case you don't know what bookcrossing is, you read a book (or not!), register it at bookcrossing.com, put the registration number on the cover, and leave it in a public place. Somebody finds it,goes to the website and enters the number, and you know it's been found. Assuming people enter the number each time they find it, you can track where it goes! And people get a free book, which is always good!

So far, Wuthering Heights has been left at a viewpoint on the Struie road, and Wicked has been left at the Heather Hut in Edderton - others will be dropped off as and when I feel like it, keep your eyes open around Inverness, Tain, Alness and Edderton! Keep track of what I have and what I'm releasing here: http://bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/AgentCheesecake

And on a related topic, publishers are planning on printing age banding on kis books. Bad idea - very bad. Children's reading age doesn't develop at the same speed for everyone - I was well ahead of my age group for reading, but I know people who were way behind. By putting age bandings books, publishers will be effectively saying 'this is what you have to read at this age'.

Kids who aren't at the 'recommended' reading level will be tempted to give up reading completely, for fear of having to read things that are too 'young' for them, and they're not exactly going to feel good about themselves if they know they're behind what they should be.

My other problem with this is that a lot of teenage books also tend to be stocked in adult sections as well - take for example, Eragon, Harry Potter and the Earthsea trilogy. These are all technically kids books, yet adults love them. However, adults are often wary of being seen to read kids books, so the publishers have, in the case of Eragon/Eldest and Harry Potter, repackaged them with adult covers. How would it look to have the children's cover with 'age 10' printed on it, but the adult one with no age grade on it? That doesn't seem at all odd...

There's a full argument at the campaign website, which has received signatures from people as prestigious as Terry Pratchett, Darren Shan, Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, and Anne Fine. Please visit the website and see what they have to say, and sign the petition if you agree: http://notoagebanding.org/

Pity and scorn

I worry sometimes about the 'youth' of today. I say 'youth' because I'm only in my 20s. But I'm talking about teenagers. I'm watching a documentary right now about the weapons culture among kids and it's disturbing, especially as yet another teenager was murdered in London today - 17th this year I believe.

Now, these kids immediately claim self-defence when they're asked why they carry a weapon, but they readily admit themselves that it's a defeatist attitude - you carry a knife because you're afraid of people who carry knives? Please - like ANYONE believes you are afraid. The people carrying knives are full of the "yeah I'm so hard" attitude and proud of the fact that they're armed. They are not afraid, they are stupid.

One kid just said that a person can be attacked simply for looking at someone the wrong way, or because they look weak - and no, they weren't talking about other gang members, they were talking about members of the public just going about their business. Is this really what the world has come to? Teenagers attacking strangers with knives, simply because they look wrong?

Maybe I'm old fashioned, maybe I'm jaded. I don't know. But it seems to me that if you want respect then you have to give it in the first place. I appreciate that these kids in the cities are products of their environment, and that they have these attitudes because this is how they have been raised, but if they don't get themselves killed, they're not gonna have a life.

I'm beyond sick of hearing of another knife attack, and I'm sick of the attitude of these kids. The lot of them need to grow up, and fast.

Let me introduce myself...

Hello! I am Agent Cheesecake. I am a scottish science undergraduate masquerading as a bookseller, and living in the middle of nowhere - well, more like the edge of nowhere. A few miles from the middle let's say.

I'm maybe not the most interesting of people, I can be a little 'odd' I've been told, but I've always got an opinion! I can be pretty random in my thought processes, and I have a few obsessions: mainly sci-fi and books! I have a few thoughts on politics and I've been known to answer back to the newsreaders on the TV (it's fair to say I don't always agree with them!).

So this blog, it might be some mundane trivial stuff, but bear with me - I'll be dropping a few gems of thoughts in amongst it!