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---10 rules for writing fiction:

"You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished." --Will Self

"The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying "Faire et se taire" (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as "Shut up and get on with it." --Helen Simpson

"Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet." --Roddy Doyle

"Don't romanticise your "vocation". You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no "writer's lifestyle". All that matters is what you leave on the page." --Zadie Smith

---Walker Percy and the alienated self

---the pleasures of boredom:

"There’s something exquisite about boredom. Like melancholy and its darker cousin sadness, boredom is related to emptiness and meaninglessness, but in a perfectly enjoyable way. It’s like wandering though the National Gallery, being surrounded by all those great works of art, and deciding not to look at them because it’s a pleasure just walking from room to room enjoying the squeak of your soles on the polished floor. Boredom is the no-signal sound on a blank television, the closed-down monotone of a radio in the middle of the night. It’s an uninterrupted straight line.

Actually, my idea of boredom has little to do with wealthy surroundings. It’s about a certain mindset. Perfect boredom is the enjoyment of the moment of stasis that comes between slowing down and speeding up – like sitting at a traffic light for a particularly long time. It’s at the cusp of action, because however enjoyable it may be, boredom is really not a long-term aspiration. It’s for an afternoon before a sociable evening. It marks that point in a holiday when you’ve shrugged off all the concerns of work and home, explored the hotel and got used to the swimming pool, and everything has become totally familiar. ‘I’m bored’ just pops into your mind one morning as you’re laying your towel over the sunlounger before breakfast, and then you think ‘How lovely.’ It’s about the stillness and familiarity of that precise moment before the inevitable anxiety about packing up and heading back to God-knows-what."

---what beer would Jesus drink?

---what slums can teach us and the one billion squatters

---neuromarketing Campbell's Soup

---rock 'n roll links

---Howard and Bellamy converse about Altman's Nashville:

"EH: What I love about Altman's approach to this subject is how thoroughly he strips away those illusions about celebrity, how completely he tears down the ideas about glamor and happiness and "extraordinary" lives—and not in a trashy behind-the-scenes tabloid way, either, but with a casual acknowledgement that celebrities are merely human. When Delbert (Ned Beatty) realizes thatElliott Gould is "somebody," he falls all over himself apologizing for not treating him better; Del hadn't actually been rude to Gould when he thought he was just some guy, but he hadn't given him the red carpet treatment either. He's apologizing for not treating Gould like a king, and Gould mumbles an embarrassed demurral: "I'm just like anybody else." And that's the point. That's the point, also, of Barbara Jean's breakdown, and of the scene where she sits in a darkened hospital room with Barnett, painting her toenails and getting angry at the radio when Connie comes on. It's an intimate scene, stripped down, far away from the bustle of the Grand Ole Opry and the constant celebrity buzz that usually surrounds Barbara Jean even in the hospital. Instead, it's simply a human moment, a moment of disconnection between a depressed wife and a callous husband, a moment of prosaic activity. When she's not on stage—and often, even when she is—Barbara Jean is just like anybody else. That's arguably what sets her apart from the other performers in the film, like Haven and Connie, who are constantly at least trying to maintain a persona."

---the bleak aspects of virtual life:

"Social Networking Sites (SNSs) promise limitless, boundless friendship – a phenomenon that should make us happier than ever. But our optimism over connectivity has gradually morphed into cynicism and resentment. It turns out virtual life is less about connectivity than self-branding. SNSs entice us to divulge and update, stroking our fragile egos with filtered ads that utilize our personal information to reap huge profits, as our hundreds of “friends” perpetually rate our online popularity. Paranoid about how we’ll be perceived, we spend hour after hour trying to avoid the virtual consequences of being deemed uncool. We have more to worry about than our online acquaintances deleting us after we’re tagged in an unflattering photo. Sites like Lamebook, devoted to reposting cliché status updates and socially awkward wall exchanges, humiliate those virtual personas who are unfamiliar with the web’s mores and codes."

---on the other hand, this demo of Wired's tablet looks good.

---younger George Clooney

---when actors disagree with a director

---Quentin Tarantino claims his movies are "achingly personal." He also points out some of the movie influences on Inglourious Basterds, inviting Chuck Tryon's thoughts on how crowdsourcing and social media have affected out reactions to Tarantino's work.

---a history of the MacGuffin

---comic book heroes behind the scenes

---lastly, the fun of visiting Battleship Island