Late nights, exams and Death

It is 1.30 am in London. Everyone I love in Singapore are at work right now - 8.30 am! What a difference. I am staying up until 4.30 am, time to wake Nazir for some last minute revision and then, it's off to school. Exams are here - pray for him, okay?

To keep awake, I have been reading Terry Prachett for the past hour. French colonialism would just send me to sleep so it's fiction for me now. I find it quite curious that some days my insomnia would hit me, and on others, like today, when I need to stay awake, my eyes keep drooping.

It's 22 years late for me but I've finally read "The Colour of Magic" - the first in the Discworld series. It's fantastic! Hilarious, wacky and punny. Is there some genre in which Prachett, Hiaasen, Douglas Adams, and Fforde fall - sth like wacky funny? I don't know, but I do find these are the books I love most. Anyway, in "The Colour of Magic", Rincewind, an Unseen University non-graduate, is saddled with an inept, bumbling, happy tourist. This is a world where gods play a game of chance (literally) and Death comes a knocking, offering help - to die, of course. In a hysterical fashion, our not very heroic protagonist helps this tourist get out of scrapes he is not even aware of being in.

My favourite is Death. He is so funny in an understated sort of way. A sample of just how funny he is, an excerpt from "The Colour of Magic"

----

OF COURSE, WHAT'S SO BLOODY VEXING ABOUT THE WHOLE BUSINESS IS THAT I WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN PSEPHOPOLOLIS. [Death talking to Rincewind]

'But that's five hundred miles away!' [Rincewind]

YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME, THE WHOLE SYSTEM'S GOT SCREWED UP AGAIN, I CAN SEE THAT. LOOK, THERE'S NO CHANCE OF YOU-?

Rincewind backed away, hands spread protectively in front of him. The dried fish salesman on a nearby stall watched this madman with interest.

'Not a chance!'

I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE.

'No!'

IT WON'T HURT A BIT.

'No!' Rincewind turned and ran. Death watched him go, and shrugged bitterly.

SOD YOU,THEN, Death said.

----

Death's favourite words - "It won't hurt a bit". Ha ha.

Well, if your tastes lies with this sort of humour, I would recommend reading Prachett. If you haven't already! Death gets his own book in "Mort", the one that started it all. Am eagerly anticipating....Death! Ha ha.

On other news, Liverpool won the Champions' League today - much to Nazir's delight. He's such a ...bloke sometimes. He's been scaring me with yells, curses and excited cheers. I'm glad though - there is something quite not 'man' if a guy doesn't like sports - though only manly sports like soccer, rugby, boxing; something people can get injured with or get beaten up in. I know! It's a sexist view, but what can I say? It's what I think.

I also managed to cook a lovely meal, bake a lovely snack (at the same time), do the laundry AND watch the first three episodes of ST:DS9 - new favourite Trek character: Dr. Bashir. He looks disconcertingly like Luke Perry (I kid you not!) and is so charmingly blur and inept, and in love with stronger women. V like Tom Paris, come to think of it. Sans the daddy issue, have a tissue. This week's "I'm a doctor, not a -" is 'spy'.

Am leading a full life!