Fast And Slow

I find it strange with books , TV and film how similar sized items seem to take such different times to watch or read.

I suppose that is mainly whether you want to take it on or you feel you have to take it on. There are so many books , films and TV series that I have on my lists and some are enjoyable but difficult to get through and therefore take much longer and this is true of all media.

You know when that record you detest comes on and seems to just go on forever , even though it really is only three minutes. Sometimes I channel hop and see a little of some of the mainstream soaps , cookery programs or politicians and time just seems to stop. Luckily there are other channels and failing that an off switch.

Groucho Marx said that he found television extremely educational , every time it was on he would go into another room and read a book, but there are good and bad in both types of media.

I am currently reading the Adversary cycle by the excellent F Paul Wilson which I expected to take me about six months but I am now on the final book “Nightworld” because although it is a reread , he is a writer I find easy to read and his stories really grab me.

I recently took on “Steppenwolf” by Hermann Hesse and “The Stranger” by Albert Camus , both considered literary classics and I cannot say they are not , but I did find them interesting if a little mundane but they did make me think, but despite being slim volumes they seemed to take a while for me complete, whereas books and authors I am familiar with seem to fly by , and I am close to the final pages before I know where I am at.

The final series of “Bosch” dropped and the latest series of “Lucifer” did and despite me saying I would not binge watch them “Lucifer” is done and I have three episodes of “Bosch” to go. The episodes are between forty and sixty minutes but extremely easy to watch for me.

A couple of other series “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “The Haunting of Hill House” I found more difficult. I finished the former and while I could see how good it was , it was the last two episodes that picked it up for me. The latter is a similar situation so I am hoping that by the time it finishes I will fully appreciate it , but “Bosch” dropped last week and it’s close to the end.

Time flies when you are in familiar or enjoyable territory whatever you are doing, I even find this true with work. When I am doing something enjoyable, the end of the day always comes too quickly but sometimes you hit donkey work and then time seems to drag.

The story by Brian Aldiss tells of the controlling elite speeding up clocks when people are not working and slowing them down when people are working. While that could be true when you are working or reading , it couldn’t happen when you are watching a film or listening to music, but it is an interesting and amusing concept.

I suppose writing at times can be like that , sometimes I am writing and I complete a lot more than I expect , and at other times I think I have written a lot and I have barely written a hundred words. Word processors are great to auto count what you have completed, so if you need to complete a five hundred or thousand word article it is really easy to keep count. I also find Google Docs, a great lightweight word processor which allows me to update documents by computer or phone, but can’t do it on my Kindle Fire yet.