Because the recent novel brought Dickens to mind, here's my absolutely favourite essay about Dickens as a writer, by George Orwell. It's not just insightful about Dickens' novels, it reminds me how literary criticism, or, to use an internet term, meta can be - neither bashing rant nor uncritical rave, but with an appreciation for the qualities and awareness of the flaws at the same time. (Mind you, Orwell when he was being bitchy about a writer was great fun, too: one of my favourite quotes of his is from his essay "The Sanctified Sinner" about Graham Greene and sums Greene up thusly: “He appears to share the idea, which has been floating around ever since Baudelaire, that there is something rather distingue in being damned; Hell is a sort of high class night club, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only.”) But back to his wonderful Dickens essay, which you should all read no matter whether you love, are indifferent to or hate Dickens' novels: Orwell on Dickens.

Jules Verne fanboying Edgar Allen Poe.

I hear yesterday was international talk like a pirate day. I missed that, but here are two piratical songs nonetheless:

Amanda Palmer sings Seeräuber Jenny in Munich. It's a powerful performance, and as a side aspect, her German pronounciation is awesome. I remember Wolfgang Wagner telling me that singers from the English speaking world find singing German tough because of the ch- sounds. (While Spanish singers who do have that sound in their own language master it easily.) Well, Ms. Palmer has no problem there.

I am the very model of a Gallifreyan buccaneer: in which some genius has taken the song from the Big Finish audio "Doctor Who and the Pirates" and matched it to tv show images. Hooray!

Lastly, a link for skywaterblue:

This much I know by Yoko Ono