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June 2012

Book Review: Can’t Stand Up For Sitting Down by Jo Brand

By Amazon, Books & Authors, History, ReviewsNo Comments
cant-stand-up-for-sitting-down-jo-brand-book-cover Can’t Stand Up for Sitting Down is Jo Brand’s second autobiography following on from Look Back in Hunger. I really enjoyed Look Back in Hunger, so much so that I wrote a book review: Book Review: Look Back In Hunger by Jo Brand. I couldn’t wait to read Can’t Stand Up for Sitting Down, so did it satisfy my expectations?

Brand starts with an author’s note stating that this book is more a collection of memoirs rather than a chronological writing of significant events in her life like Look Back in Hunger. The book is split into three distinct sections: Trying To Be Funny, Being Jo Brand and The Box.

Trying To Be Funny is about her comedy career but it felt really vague. I remembered how Brand wrote quite detailed accounts of her time as a Psychiatric Nurse in Look Back in Hunger, yet when writing about her more recent comedy career it lacked details.

Being Jo Brand is about her personal life. In this section Brand gives her opinions about what she likes; as well as writing about her labour political values, her family and friends and what it’s like “being clocked” – recognised by members of the public.

The Box is mainly about TV, Radio and Celebrities. Brand includes a chapter entitled “Writing This Effing Book” were she writes about the volume of words needed to complete this book. Reading this chapter made it click in my head, the word I wanted to describe how this book felt to me: strained. It felt as though Brand stretched out her autobiography to fit into a second book. I had high expectations for this book and unfortunately it didn’t quite meet them.

However the book does have funny and interesting chapters and is well worth a read, especially if you’ve read Look Back in Hunger, as it completes her story. Can’t Stand Up for Sitting Down is available to buy on Amazon.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Saturday 30 June 2012

Degree Results

By Education3 Comments

My Degree results are in and I got a Upper Second (2:1), see:

It’s been a lot of hard work and some of it through difficult times. But I’m really quite proud of myself. I didn’t expect to feel proud, but I do and it feels good.

So I’d just like to say good luck to anyone else expecting results – I’m sure all your hard work will pay off.

Blog soon,

A Quite-Pleased-With-Himself Antony



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Friday 22 June 2012

Intermittent Sound Problems on the iMac

By TechnologyNo Comments

Between Christmas and New Year I splashed out on a iMac (see iMac Part 1 – The Decision to Buy, Ordering & Delivery & iMac Part 2 – From Windows to Mac: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly). My 27″ iMac with it’s high quality screen resolution has replaced my TV & DVD player, and has become my music system, game station and photo albums. It’s become my connection to the world through the Internet and one of the primary ways I get in touch with family and friends (through Facebook, Twitter, iMessage, etc.).

So I was disappointed to start having intermittent sound problems with my iMac. Sometimes when I switched it on, it would chime and then load up as usual. Then I’d log in and then see this:

I’d go into my System Preferences and see this:

When it had this sound problem it wouldn’t play music or movies and sometimes would boot up in Safe Mode. Restarting the iMac usually resolved the issue, but considering how much I paid for the iMac I wasn’t happy with this intermittent sound issue.So I decided that while it’s still under warranty to get it looked at by Apple.

I took screen shots and rang Apple. No queues to speak to someone, friendly and helpful staff. I arranged an appointment to take my iMac to my local Apple Store.

On the day of my appointment I arrived at my local Apple Store, dragging my heavy iMac in behind me. I was about an hour early because the appointment was at a peak travel time. They let me drop it off, do a bit of shopping and come back to the store for my appointment. I saw an Apple Genius Technician who plugged my iMac into a server and checked the hardware. No problems found.

The Genius Technician said if it was a hardware problem I’d have no sound, rather than the problem being intermittent. He said it was probably a software issue. He showed me how to reinstall OS X Lion. You do this by holding down the ALT key when you first switch the iMac on. The great thing about reinstalling Lion is that you don’t loose any of your files or settings (like you would on Windows).

I believe the Genius Technician, after-all he’s the Apple expert. But I remember having an intermittent sound issue with a Window’s PC and that was because of a loose connection on the motherboard.

So I’ve now reinstalled OS X Lion and will just have to keep an eye out to see if my intermittent sound issue returns.

Write soon,

Antony

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I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Thursday 21 June 2012
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