'How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young.'

I've come to a general conclusion about writing - It's not what you include that makes a good book, it's what you leave out. Trust your reader to come to some conclusions on their own - too much detail and description just makes things tiresome to read and you'll end up patronising your audience.

This job-hunting thing is bleedin' frustrating. I know exactly what I want to do and I'm perfectly qualified and experienced in the field - why can I not find anything that would take me less than two hours to travel to? 'Tis the god of jobs paying me back for not really bothering to find anything in previous years! Damn yooouuu!

I had a dream the other night that I was in a big studio - like a dance hall or something - and was partaking in some sort of acting class. We were given this exercise to do which seemed simple really: we all had to keep frowns on our faces, no matter what. But then the teachers kept saying hilarious things and playing funny audio clips and so none of us could help but laugh. I remember that I took the whole thing extremely seriously too and I got terribly annoyed with myself that I couldn't keep the frown on my face. Looking back on the dream now I see it as an indication that I find it hard to be anything other than myself these days. Which is a damn good thing. However, as a result, I'm finding it rather difficult to be strictly formal when I'm filling forms out, etc. When I am faced with something like a questionnaire my brain just wants me to splash and scrawl and doodle my personality all over it.

Also, I have randomly remembered that when I was a child, I used to think hamburgers were called 'handburgers'. Mental pictures rule.

So. The Westborough Baptist Church want to picket the funeral (or is it the memorial service) of Ronnie James Dio. Urgh. I don't have much fear of them actually ruining it though: Thousands of passionate heavy metal fans will be there. So good luck with that one.

I've finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar, why didn't you write more books? Please come back to life. You can live in my shoebox or under the bed! We'll take trips to Ireland together and I'll buy you Opium! Pwomise! Then I started watching the 2009 movie 'Dorian Gray'. Which I subsequently turned off. For me the casting was all wrong - Colin Firth as Henry? Please! I'd expected him to play Basil! It just wasn't working. And Ben Barnes gave an alright performance it's just that...Dorian Gray was supposed to be beautiful, eye-catching; not plain and forgettable. And, whilst reading the book, I certainly didn't imagine him as having a bum-chin. 'Nuff said. I also was rather annoyed at the entire atmosphere of the film. Why was it so damned spooky from the offset? The beauty of the book is that it takes sinister twists here and there aiding to build up the tension for Dorian towards the end, but it certainly wasn't a jumpy rollercoaster for the most part. What's that all about? I also hate that they gave away the most climactic part to the nature of the main character right at the beginning. With the book you discovered the different elements to Dorian as he was discovering them himself. I know movies don't necessarily need to follow the books exactly and sometimes this is a very good thing, however the film just pissed on the charming parts of the book for me. That's right, pissed on it. Shame I couldn't include that in an English Lit' essay. Is the only way to show madness, vanity, suspense, suspicion these days a few ominous chords playing throughout a scene? Some originality please! Perhaps I'm just too blasé about anything horrific, and took the mood of the book more lightly than I should have done (Which I didn't - it just wasn't unnecessarily tense the entire way through). Or maybe I should watch the end of the film before making such sweeping judgements (I did watch most of it!). Or maybe I would enjoy movies more if I wasn't such a nutjob about books. Orrrr maybe (as has been my general suspicion for the last few years) Hollywood movies just don't do it for me. More depth plz. Kthx.

'Deconstructing Dorian Gray' by Veronica Jackson

Wow, you didn't actually read all that, did you?