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Alison Hawke

Book review: "Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason" by Helen Fielding

(Available from Amazon UK for £12.99)

7:15 am Hurrah! The wilderness years are over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male thereby proving am not love pariah as previously feared.

A good read, very funny. (Note: opinions expressed in this review are the opinions of the reviewer and do not constitute an endorsement by T-zero or WVU.)

A girl-only trip to Thailand is something you won't find in an Austen novel. Likewise the wonderful drunken discussions of life, men, the universe, men and, well, men again, or lack thereof.

Four years after the original Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding has published a sequel. It's not out in America yet, so my sister sent me a copy from England. Weighing in at four hundred pages, this book is a lot longer than the original, but it has a lot of ground to cover.

The original book followed Bridget's desperate search for a boyfriend, which she found in the last few pages. But now that she's got one, what do she do with him? How do you do this relationship thing anyway? If you're Bridget, you do it for all of two months before it all falls apart and you're back where you started.

Something that bothered me a few times was "Gaah!" appearing in the text, followed by the phone ringing or someone at the door. It makes it look as if Bridget is dictating her diary as events happen, all through the day, jarring your expectation that the book is a real diary. But this is a minor niggle and I still couldn't read it in public for fear of laughing out loud and people thinking I was mad.

I have to confess, I didn't see the similarity to Jane Austen's Persuasion until it was pointed out to me, leading to one of those blinding flash of the obvious revelations. In Persuasion, Anne Elliot gives up Captain Wentworth, the man she loved, only to find him again years later, no longer interested in her. He proposes to Louisa Musgrove, parallel to Bridget's ex-boyfriend Mark Darcy going off with her rival, the thin and beautiful Rebecca.

I liked this book, I'd read it again but I've lent it to a friend who loved the original so much she was phoning her mother and reading bits of it to her. I think it's definitely worth a look.

Drabble of the Month

Thank you to all who sent in drabbles about complications, and thanks to Margaret Carr for judging them. This month's winners are Paul Hawke and Angela Vennells.

These are not the droids... by Paul Hawke Requirements specification Users in a small huddle around the coffee pot brewing up ideas at the behest of the director of marketing. Functional specification Engineers shouting and screaming, pounding the table, fragile egos bruised and battered. Newest member of the team delegated to 'write up the minutes.' Construction Edit. Compile. Run. Crash. Debug. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ad-nauseum. Demonstration Users and marketing department in a room watching the show. Smiles and nods. 1 week before release Corporate mergers, elaborate boardroom mating rituals resulting in a glossy press release. 5:30pm phonecall: "Our new partners want to switch the database" "What database? The data was hardwired for the demo, and Gerald was 'downsized'" (NB: title refers to a page on Jaimie Zawinski's web site containing excerpts from his diary of the early days of Netscape Communications. The 24 September 1994 entry contains a reference to the Jedi mind-control tactics demonstrated in the original Star Wars movie. We had one of those "we're going to win big" meetings today, where Jim and Marc wave their arms a lot and say "these are not the droids you're looking for," and we all sit there and nod enthusiastically and grin and say "these are not the droids we're looking for." Caution: strong language is used on this site.) The Birth by Angela Vennells "Complications, what do you mean by complications?" I fearfully asked the midwife. Panic gripped me as it was explained that the umbilical cord was wrapped around our baby's neck but I had to be strong for my wife. I watched, fascinated, as the baby's head emerged, dark-haired like me, but when I saw it's little, wrinkled face bright yellow I could not imagine that I was the father. "It's only jaundice," smiled the nurse, noticing my look of horror, "Nothing that a bit of ultra violet won't put to rights." "It's a girl," I breathed relieved, smiling at my wife.

The theme for April is ignorance (due March 10th), the theme for May is the game, another theme from Peter Keane (due April 10th), and the theme for June is identity (due May 10th). If you have any ideas for Drabble themes, please email me at the address below.

PLEASE read the drabble submission guidelines before sending in your entry. Only one entry per person per month.

Email your Drabbles to me at drabble@technologist.com.