2480: Too Much Information

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I listened to Dave Gorman’s audiobook Too Much Information the other day. I’ve been a fan of Dave Gorman’s intelligent comedy ever since I first saw his shows The Dave Gorman Collection and Googlewhack Adventure.

Gorman is a comedian who likes to use facts and evidence to back up the things he is talking about. In The Dave Gorman Collection, in which he travelled around the world seeking out other people called Dave Gorman, he took photographs of every meeting and recorded all manner of stats about his journey. In Googlewhack Adventure, in which he sought out people who had authored Googlewhacks — two-word search terms for which there is only a single result on Google — he again took copious notes and documentary evidence of his journey.

Too Much Information is one of Gorman’s most modern works, taking a look at the modern world and the sheer amount of noise we have to put up with on a daily basis. As you can probably imagine if you’ve been following me for a while, this sort of thing is right up my alley.

Gorman covers a variety of topics throughout Too Much Information, including beauty adverts with hilariously poor survey results in the small print at the bottom of the screen — one product had just 47% of its (admittedly small) sample agree that it was worthwhile — and misleading newspaper headlines. He also looks at how misinformation can spread throughout social media, and has a good rant about some of his favourite bugbears, such as “greatest hits” albums that have all-new tracks on them, and services such as Spotify assuming that we always want to be sharing everything we do with the rest of the world, even if it’s listening to The Wombles.

Too Much Information resonated with me a great deal, and it’s a book well worth getting hold of in one form or another. It worked well as an audiobook, as the whole thing is written in Gorman’s trademark “storytelling” style of comedy, which lends itself well to being recorded, but I can see it working just fine on paper, too.

While you’re on, if you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing Dave Gorman’s past work, do take the time to check out The Dave Gorman Collection, Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure and his most recent series on Dave, Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Goodish. It’s a style of comedy that, so far as I’m aware, is unique to Gorman, and it’s particularly entertaining for those of us who enjoy facts and figures to go along with our funny words. His “Found Poems” in Modern Life is Goodish, constructed entirely of Internet comments sections, are particularly entertaining, and a good reminder of what a bizarre and ridiculous age we live in these days.

1796: Read Me a Story

Since I was getting really quite frustrated with my daily commute to and from work — there is no good time of the day where you can set out and head back without getting caught in a traffic jam with seemingly no cause — I decided to try something a bit different with my audio entertainment for said journey.

Rather than listening to the radio, with its same five adverts and playlist of approximately twelve songs, or the same albums on my phone over and over again, I decided to listen to some audiobooks.

I’ve listened to audiobooks a few times over the years, most recently when I was in the habit (that I should probably get back into) of taking a long walk most days. They provide a good accompaniment to tedious activities like walking or driving, and I’ve found they’ve had a positive effect on my mood overall, even when the M27 is at its most frustrating. The fact that I can tune out the fact I’m moving at approximately 15mph on a road designed to be travelled along at 70mph+ and instead concentrate on an unfolding narrative is pleasurable, and getting to spend more time immersing myself in a story becomes nice rather than frustrating.

The audiobooks I’ve been listening to most recently belong to a genre I haven’t read a lot of in the past: crime fiction. I can’t remember how I first came on to the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell, but I’ve been enjoying them so far: I’m currently about a third of the way through the third book.

For the unfamiliar, the Kay Scarpetta series follows the eponymous heroine, the chief medical examiner for Virginia, and her obligatory “buddy” cop Pete Marino. The two have an enjoyable working relationship and rapport with one another, Kay being rather sensible for the most part — with occasional lapses in judgement and a tendency to attract the main villain of each book to cause some sort of dramatic final confrontation in the closing chapters — and Marino being brash, outspoken and not always entirely tactful.

The stories are interesting when compared to other crime fiction I’ve encountered — be it in books, on TV, in games or in movies — in that the main focus isn’t on the police investigation, the work of an agent on the case or a private investigator. Rather, Kay is essentially a civilian, albeit one with access to information about the corpses that show up in each novel that the public would probably rather not know about. This doesn’t stop her ending up embroiled deep in the mysteries, however, and indeed it’s usually her actions that, if they don’t outright solve the case altogether, certainly put into motion a chain of events that draws the main villain out of hiding (and usually into Kay’s bedroom) in order to be caught and/or killed.

They’re formulaic and somewhat predictable at times, in other words, but they’re filled with interesting characters, and the narrator for the audiobook versions, one Lorelei King, does an admirable job at putting on unique voices for the different characters — even if all her “male” voices tend to end up sounding terribly serious about everything they say… or perhaps this is a side-effect of Cornwell’s male characters?

Anyway. I’m enjoying the experience of listening to audiobooks, and I’ve been enjoying discovering a series of entertaining crime novels in the process. There’s plenty more where that came from, too, so I should be kept reasonably sane on my journeys to and from work for the immediate future, at least…

1278: Christopher Walkern

So the whole “go for a walk for some exercise” thing has been going pretty well. I’ve managed to get up early and get out every day since I said I was going to, which bodes well. I am, however, probably going to take the weekend off so I can enjoy a lie in.

I’ve been walking for at least an hour each day, usually covering a distance of just under 4 miles or so. I usually follow pretty much the same route — up the road to the Common, wiggle around a bit in this side of the Common, cut across, walk down the road into town, walk through the vaguely attractive parks on the edge of the city centre, walk past the station and back up the other end of my road to finish where I started. It’s a big loop, and there’s a mix of flat, uphill and downhill walking all the way, so there’s a bit of variety and challenge in places. It’s still relatively “leisurely” compared to gasping and wheezing my way through a run, though, which makes it infinitely more appealing for the moment even if it isn’t quite as good for me.

One of the helpful inspiring factors while I’ve been walking has been the use of audiobooks. I don’t normally listen to a lot of audiobooks or podcasts any more, because I don’t really have a suitable situation in which to listen to them. I can’t listen to them while I work, because I have proven to myself on numerous occasions that I absolutely, positively 100% cannot write anything more than notes while someone else is talking in the same room, whether they’re a real person or a recording. However, when all you’re doing is walking aimlessly for the purposes of exercise, an audiobook or podcast is ideal listening. You’re not running, so there’s no real need for some music with a sense of “pace” to it; you can take your time and take in the words of whatever it is you’re listening to.

The accompaniment to my walks this week has been the audiobook of a Dean Koontz novel. I had a couple of Koontz works recommended to me a while back and enjoyed them — I read those, rather than listened to them — so I decided to take a chance on another one. It’s a bit bigger of a “risk” to try out an audiobook, since they’re significantly more expensive than eBooks or even just, you know, books. Still, I haven’t been disappointed so far; the story is interesting and the narrator appears to be pretty good, too, which is nice. (The novel is “Lightning,” if you were wondering. I have no idea if this is considered “good” or not by Koontz fans, but I’m enjoying it.)

The other nice thing about audiobooks is the fact that it allows me to enjoy books without having to actually read them. I have nothing against reading and actually enjoy it rather a lot, but it’s quite hard to make time for it when I have lots of other things I want to do as well. Reading is something I like to do when it’s quiet — much like writing — so I can’t really do it in front of the TV, and I certainly can’t do it while I’m doing something else. Audiobooks allow me to enjoy a book while I’m doing something else, which is ideal.

So that’s that. I’ll be taking it easy for the weekend, then continuing this new regime next week. Let’s see if it helps at all.