The Reader Online

From Frank Cottrell Boyce’s short story ‘Accelerate’, which was published in The Reader 31, film-makers Carl Hunter & Clare Heney have created a short film.

From Carl Hunter’s ‘When is a film not a film?’:

['The premise of Accelerate'] is that the woman finds away of making time pass more quickly, by selling some seconds out of every minute so that her days become “the edited highlights of themselves”. It was the perfect marriage of subject and medium – after all, what is a still photograph but a moment pulled out of the stream of time. If you had all the money and time in the World, this would still be the best way to tell that story. Young people seem to photograph everything nowadays. If you go to a concert, the audience is watching it but also filming it on their mobiles. We’d found a story and a storytelling style that tapped right into that jumpy, digital way of seeing things.

Watch the film here.

To read the story, you can download The Reader 31 from our ‘Downloads’ page by clicking here.

We’ve published another of Frank’s short stories in the current issue of The Reader, which you can buy here.

I saw this the other night and just had to share. It’s from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a thirteen-part TV series by the science-writer and astronomer Carl Sagan, originally broadcast in 1980 but recently re-mastered and re-released as a gorgeous DVD box-set. I couldn’t recommend the series – or the book that accompanies it - highly enough if I had a thousand years and all the adjectives in all the languages of the world at my disposal. It’s a fascinating, inspiring and deeply poetic voyage of discovery through life, the universe and everything.

This clip is from an episode called ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (other episodes have such titles as ‘One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue’, ‘The Backbone of Night’ and ‘The Edge of Forever’) which looks at intelligence and the evolution of the brain. Luckily, some kind soul had posted it on YouTube. I apologise for the quality – but only of the picture!

Congratulations to the winner of the Champion of Education Award, Homewood Sunshine Readers, who bring young children and elderly people together to read with one another. A simple, moving and inspirational idea.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream…

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, he’s back. Sorry it’s been a few weeks: the technical team took a well-earned holiday. (Which poses a deep philosophical question: Does Mr Nellist still exist if there’s no one there to film him? Erm… yes, probably.)

And we have a new camera – which means you can now experience Nellibobs in HD! (“Highly Distinguished”.)

This week, after a good meal, Mr Nellist shares his thoughts on Never Let Me Go (2005), the most recent novel of Kazuo Ishiguro, a British author born in Japan in 1954 and best known for his Booker Prize-winning and Damn Good Film-spawning The Remains of the Day (1989).

He also contemplates cosmetic surgery and explains why he is still banned from all bus-stops in the Tranmere area…

If you’ve read the novel, please leave a comment and tell us what you thought of it. If you know someone else who’s read it, pass the video on to them. If neither of these statements applies, leave a comment anyway! Lurk no longer. We’d love to hear from you.

The Aga Saga – a bit like The Forsyte Saga, only with fewer characters and more carbon monoxide. In this episode, Mr Nellist gets all Sooty and requires a Sweep. All we need now is Syoo…

(Disclaimer: The Reader Organisation in no way advocates or condones the dropping of chickens down chimneys. So stop it.)

Mr Nellist shares his thoughts on the work of Willa Cather (1873 – 1947), an American author and Pulitzer Prize winner, known for her depictions of frontier life on the Great Plains (between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River) in novels such as O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).

Plus, inevitably, a short digression on the English and Flemish rabbit.

Hope you like it – and decide to read some Willa Cather! And if you already have, do please post a reply and tell us what you think. Who knows, a conversation may result…

During daylight hours, Mr Nellist and friends engage in civilised discussions about life and literature – in this case, Trollope and William Trevor (the novel is Death in Summer).

But later, when twilight weaves her magic web, everything becomes a little … strange.

Taken over by powerful spirits?

Very possibly…

You say scone.
I say scone.

You say wrath.
I say wrath.

You say gooseberry.
I say gooseberry.

You say floccinaucinihilipilification.
I say you’re very silly indeed and should be ashamed of yourself.

Let’s call the whole thing Nellibobs’ Friday Night no. 11.

Question: What links dogs, pipe-smoke, Louis MacNeice and a squashed orange football?

Answer: This week’s Nellibobs’ Friday Night, of course!

Mr Nellist proves that he can indeed kick it (the football, that is) and that he doesn’t want to kick it (the pipe-smoking, that is). If you get a kick out of it, please leave us positive feedback and, like a good team-player, pass it on…