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knicola @ 2009-08-16T22:49:00

2009-08-16T21:51:57Z

berlin ! ! ! ! ! !

current / recent projects

2009-08-11T14:36:38Z

1. find flat in berlin (TICK)
2. find flat in london
3. find job in london

getting headaches from worry again
reminder to self: sometimes life is a bit difficult but there is (almost always) reward for effort.

i was working as a receptionist and i went out on a limb to build a SITE MANAGEMENT DASHBOARD. i left last friday but learnt this week that there are still some problems with it (which i ran out of time to fix). the brief was to create something that could be maintained ongoing; i'm not sure now if it will or can be.

do i need to worry about this y/n (if so i can add to above list)

tidying up

2009-06-10T16:30:52Z

games (because I will forget where I read this)

knicola @ 2009-04-14T19:42:00

2009-04-14T18:43:22Z

wooo ian mckellen and patrick stewart in waiting for godot tomorrow !!!

goodbye to berlin

2008-07-20T12:32:54Z

books

2008-07-08T23:57:04Z

of the top 100:
if it's bold i read it.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible - not cover to cover

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - probably about half

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (won't be underlining that one)

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - in the summer probably

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - no

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - read a third

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - worst book on this list (possibly ever)

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray it's on the shelf

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

i've read 61/100 - i only did this to show off

photos from my old-fashion slr

2008-05-20T21:38:11Z

lots of photos mostly badly cropped
potsdam, university, schlachtensee, botanic gardens, matt, parents, our flat, etc.
you would be forgiven for thinking berlin was the garden of fucking eden if these were the only pictures you'd ever seen of the place.

I took this at dawn after me and matt stayed up all night drinking/berating boris johnson/singing billy bragg.

some of them lost something in the downsizing, if you copy the address from the image properties you can see them as big as photobucket let me upload them.

also this:

oui oui

2008-03-16T20:23:40Z

NSFF (not safe for facebook)

2008-01-27T15:54:56Z

aaaaaaaaa
me and matt went to the LANGE NACHT DER MUSEEN last night and it was pretty good.
we were waiting for the bus at potsdamer platz for a long time and it was cold and wet
consequence:

i like the picture anyway

snow in berlin :3

2007-11-10T16:47:31Z

knicola @ 2007-10-13T18:16:00

2007-10-13T16:18:02Z

knicola @ 2007-09-26T23:06:00

2007-09-26T22:19:37Z

ok well i suppose i will make a livejournal entry, since seeing matt reminded me that reading livejournal but not writing is a bit creepy and weird.

circumstances are conspiring against me to ruin the first month (at least) of Year Abroad
laptop charger broken
finding a flat impossible
staying in hostel dorm room (D:)
can't speak a fucking word of german basically
still a bit excited

summer was nice but nothing worth reporting really.

knicola @ 2007-07-11T17:26:00

2007-07-11T16:28:50Z

oh hi everyone
this summer is a complete waste of everybody's time so far
i can't even call it relaxing having not earnt the right to relax

i've been designing websites for money. do you know anyone who needs a website, logo, etc designing for money or even for free? nt@knicola.co.uk

anyone who is in nottingham and doesn't totally hate me (finlay), feel free to make plans and include me in them. i am so lethargic.

alchemy: a lime tart

2007-05-02T16:17:47Z

die verwandlung

2007-03-24T01:42:33Z

staying up all night and catching the 6am train home

misadventure

2006-09-06T11:15:22Z

I got back from China a couple of days ago and now I am ill. My mum made my go to the doctors yesterday and it seems not to be bird flu or SARS. For the rest of yesterday I stayed in bed and today looks to be quite similiar, except my favourite genius-nemesis is bringing a German to visit me. China was interesting. Maybe I'll post a couple of photos later.

My biggest worry at the moment is the stupid flat in Edinburgh - the vendor's solicitor is rubbish and as such we're still waiting for the deeds to arrive with our solicitor. He said it would happen some time this week, and we could have the keys n Friday, but it hasn't so far. Term (Fresher's Week) starts on Monday and my term proper starts the following Monday. My dad took this week off work to go up and furnish and decorate but he has ended up just wandering around the house in his shorts and going to play golf. He can't get next week off, and my mum is back at work then too, so we've got this weekend to sort shit out. Shit like furniture.

I hope you are all OK. I mostly kept up with livejournal over the summer, despite my two epic holidays which I'll tell you all about later if I am still ill and bored.

EDIT: I just read the few previous entries and realised that they are all about how ill I am. What you should infer from this is not that I am always ill, but updating livejournal is something I do when I'm ill. For whatever reasons. (NB Daisy is prohibited from posting comments including the word 'frail' 'feeble' 'pathetic' etc)

knicola @ 2006-03-06T17:26:00

2006-03-06T17:47:34Z

guys I am pretty cool right.
right.

knicola @ 2005-10-24T14:24:00

2005-10-24T13:29:14Z

Joe and I were in a car accident on the M1 on Friday night, near Rotherham. His car was written off but we are both, luckily, OK apart from whiplash and I have cuts and bruises from where the seatbelt was. He has a new car now. It wasn't his fault- it was raining and dark, and the guy two cars in front of us suddenly did a handbrake turn so we ploughed into the back of the car in front, which stopped suddenly. Pretty scary, but it's alright now.

Just thought I should tell you all about it. I'm going to decorate my room in the long weekend, or what is left of it.

photosythesis and respiration

2005-06-22T17:38:41Z

'i'm going to kill you, and everyone you care about'

am I naked in this picture? the answer is no! neither am I dead. It's my new passport photo, so clearly that is how I am going to look for the next ten years. I should have worn my red scarf I reckon.

Here are photos from the black and white film I took a couple of weeks ago at

I've decided that the only book I am taking on 'euro_____ two-thousand and five' is Don Quixote. Well... maybe. If I feel brave and weighty, which I may not. I'm about to start Anna Karenina despite that fact that I really should be revising.

I've finished all my exams except French and AEA English, it's my last shift at the pub on Friday, I booked my flight home from Budapest, my parents bought me unexpected presents, and I'm going to buy a great pair of walking sandals.

awesome.

summer tape

2005-05-26T18:01:03Z

ok so I have made the annual summer mix tape/cd (delete as appropriate. at the minute it's a playlist...)

this is it.

01. Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
This is a cop out, to be fair, because it reminds me more of about the summer before last than anything else (and not in a particularly good way) but it has the world's greatest summery intro. p.s. Dear Mark, you know it would have been a better song if the lyrics were what I initially remembered them as ('you get your money for nothing and your kicks for free')

02. Yes - City Of Love
'you guys are really loving Yes these days'. Yes! Well, since yesterday at least.

03. David Bowie - Changes
The adverts for the election coverage reminded me that this song is awesomeeeeeeeee. The verses aren't all that summery though (so.)

04. Jeff Buckley - Eternal Life
So far these are all well obvious choices, damnit. Finlay, this album will remind me of you forever :) (ESPECIALLY CORPUS CHRISTI CAROL HAHA)

05. AC/DC - Back In Black
I guess I am compensating for my deliberate omission of any Beach Boys by putting on a load of summery rock. This is a perennial favourite.

06. Van Morrison - Gloria
I don't get this. I prefer the Patti Smith version, but every else seems to adore this one, and I guess it reminds me more of summer (last summer, mainly). Also this is easier to sing to- the only thing I miss is that first line.... 'Jesus died for somebody's sins... but not mine'.

07. Buck 65 - Wicked and Weird
OK, I concede that rapping can be good in english. All Buck 65 needs is a decent breakfast and he'll be back at it, dirty and reckless. Driving in the summer is awesome, especially long a way. This song is about driving in the summer. P.S let's go on a road trip.

08. Talking Heads - And She Was
there's something about synthy songs (this isn't a particularly synthy song, but it is a bit) that I can't resist in summer. Wait, who am I kidding? As if i can resist synth in winter??

09. Pulp - Sorted For Es and Whizz
It makes me sad that I'm not going to any festivals this summer. Hopefully I can stand in my garden with this on loud and I will feel like it :( but probably not. (cf. Crapstock)

10. Bjork - Human Behaviour
This song is leading me to rediscover Bjork. I wonder why it is that I find Bjork's wailing uplifting and cool but I find Tori Amos so unbearable. Perhaps it's because Bjork is Icelandic. Oh, and hot.

11. The Pixies - I Can't Forget
Ok so I was going to put Leonard Cohen 'I'm Your Man' on here, just because I like singing to it, but then I remembered a) that the Pixies are playing Carling b) that the Pixies are great and c) that Leonard Cohen isn't really summery and so I replaced him with this Pixies cover of I Can't Forget.

12. The White Stripes - Jumble, Jumble
Once again, a last summer song. Sometimes I think my taste in music is kinda respectable, and then I look at my audioscrobbler page and see that the White Stripes are my top artists. In order to save face I will now state that the first album is the best. See how much cooler I seem now?

13. Bauhaus - She's In Parties
I wish. Oh wait, no I don't wish, but this is still a DARKWAVE CLASSIC and if you don't like it then I don't like you. I think Bauhaus would be ashamed of their inclusion on any summer mix. Most people probably don't get why this kind of music reminds me of summer. It's hard to say really. I suppose because it's the kind of thing that should be played on a tinny radio in a car on a hot day. Hmm. I expect that didn't help you, did it?

14. Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
We are moving now more towards summer evening music. For me this mainly constitutes shoegazing indie. Start as you mean to go on.

15. Grandaddy - The Warming Sun
See? I really adore Grandaddy's music, but I can't listen to them without a faint smile after I learnt that at least one member (not sure which, but I'll go out on a limb and say the bassist) is a fat middle aged guy who is probably also an honorary member of the beard of the month club. And the rest of them wear trucker caps without a hint of irony.

16. Bob Dylan - Idiot Wind
What else could compensate for the inherent uncoolness of chubby indie guys but Dylan? This song will probably remind me of Ian for a long time.

17. Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road
Sometimes I like to think of mix tapes in a literal sense, and imagine all the artists, say, stuck in a lift together. I wonder what Bob Dylan would have to say to Bruce Springsteen? 'so, Vietnam, huh?'. Thunder Road (is one of Nick Hornby's 31 Songs, for anyone who cares) is a good summer evening melancholy song.

18. Paul Simon - That Was Your Mother
This song has some of the singular most skank lyrics of any song ever. Alright, maybe not. 'That was your mother, and that was your father, before you was born, yeah, when life was great'. Oh, for anyone who doesn't know, this is Paul Simon. He was in Simon and Garfunkel too!

19. MC Solaar - La Vie Est Belle
Yeah, I wish this kind of hip hop didn't suck so much in English, cause it makes great summer music. I suppose it wouldn't be as good if I could tell what he was saying. Something about girls and guns, autant que je sache.

putting the cart before whatever actually matters.

2005-05-12T20:27:59Z

that's me, I look Chinese (and appear to be advertising capitalism).

that's Andy, he looks like 1940 (he doesn't always look like that).

to lighten the mood on this tense evening

2005-05-05T20:16:59Z

thanks daisy.

p.s. me and andy are having an election party. I don't know how much of the election we are going to watch, we'll probably just drink wine and snack.

that was france (&some belgium)

2005-04-25T21:42:21Z

Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.

So I went to Flanders, the Somme, Arras, Ypres et al last week for a look at the war graves and battlefields. So it was pretty interesting, and has really made me enjoy rather than tolerate the poems, especially Owen and some minor poets. Have been checking out Charles Hamilton Sorley- bonus poem of his below.

Sonnet- 'When you see millions of the mouthless dead...'

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." The add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

angstology

2005-03-29T12:32:30Z

that's for andy, to keep him going half an hour.

edit:

anyone else remember doing this as a kid? or just me who was so easily amused.

itinerary-ish

2005-03-23T18:41:04Z

Budapest ---> Carpathians (Brasov/Sinia?) ---> Danube Delta ---> Belgrade ---> Prishtina ---> Lake Ohrid ---> (Tirana?) ---> Kotor ---> Dubrovnik ---> (Mostar?)---> Sarajevo ---> Budapest