John Baker’s Blog

This film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on a novel by Upton Sinclair, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, was interminably long at 158 minutes. But if it had been cut down by half it still wouldn’t have amounted to much.
It depicts an anarchic world ruled by mindless and gratuitous violence, greed and revenge. The landscape [...]

Last week, Kenya held a national election tainted with vote-tampering. It ended in a claim of victory for incumbent President Mwai Kibaki over the challenger Raila Odinga who had led the polls - now Kenya’s future hangs in the balance. Violence has broken out across the country, with roving gangs of machete-wielding youth terrorizing the [...]

First impression; taking it out of the envelope. It’s a real book. Bright cover, solid feel, nice spine and you can splay the pages and get a feel for the density of the print, length of paragraphs, etc.
All that is good. What is not so good is when you start reading you soon realise that [...]

Waking in the night, the coroner went outside to the garden and taking his easement, heard shouts and uproar nearby. Finishing his business, he took his sword and went out to the way in front, where he found Adam and the tippler roused from their beds by the agitation. It was the dark time of [...]