Kit Whitfield's Blog, page 9

I've been away from blogging for a while..

...This is why.

Charity Mikalogue

Almost all of us have heard by now of the terrible earthquake in Haiti and the urgent need for charitable donations. I am therefore proposing the following:

You donate money, and I will write a Mikalogue in your honour. (Or possibly Mika will, depending on your suspension of disbelief.) I'd recommending the charity Medicins San Frontiers / Doctors Without Borders, who are already setting up hospitals and need a lot more money.

So here's how it's going to work. Send me a 'thank you for...

When horror films are sadder than weepies

A while ago my husband rented a horror movie called Hatchet from the library, almost entirely because of its strapline: 'It's not a remake, it's not a sequel, and it's not based on a Japanese one.' Sharing his sense that good copywriting deserved some kind of reward, I settled down with him to watch it.

After about forty-five minutes, I turned to him and said, 'This is making me sad. I don't want to see all these people die. Can we turn it off?'

'Yeah,' he said, 'I think I agree with you.' So w...

Why I can't be having with 3D

So, happy new year one and all, and welcome to a new decade. The noughties were the decade that published my books so I can't be entirely ungrateful, but as they were also the decade that gave us celebrity reality TV and George W. Bush, I for one am happy to see the back of them and here's hoping for better in the whatever-they're-going-to-be-calleds.

Which brings me tangentially to a subject I've been thinking about for a while: the new technology supposedly sweeping our cinemas - or rather, ...

Christmas Mikalogue

Oh here we have a Christmas tree with branches to the ground,

Is not as good as Mika who is nowhere to be found,

For Mika sits beneath the tree, ensconced all safe and sound,

And is hidin in comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

And is hidin in comfort and joy...



Merry Christmas, all!

The difference between a mental illness sufferer and a jackass

When I get into online conversations, something happens about once a month. Either in an attempt to be compassionate or to condemn, somebody will declare that this corrupt politician, that creep, this annoying person or that wrong-headed one, is probably suffering from a mental illness. Inevitably the person making the comparison doesn't actually have much experience of mental illness, and consequently knows as much about it as anyone who hasn't studied it as a professional or encountered it ...

Private Christmas traditions

Most families have Christmas traditions of some sort, but what about personal ones? Do you have those?

I tend to set aside a few hours to wrap the gifts I'm giving - I actually love wrapping - while watching Little Women with candles and a lit Christmas tree. It's very cosy and I always look forward to it.

What habits do you enjoy at Christmas?

Mikalogues In Session

Okay, I admit it: I have been remiss in keeping the blog up to date recently and my last post was about cookies. I'm sorry; I've been going through an intellectual dry spell with nothing particularly fascinating to say.


Mika: Never has fascinating things to say unless about kibble anyway.

Kit: Mika, hush. I'm trying to write a blog post.


Anyway, it's now the season of good cheer and I was...


Mika: Is Mika the fascinating. Mika has blog fans. You just filler between episodes.

Kit: Mika, that hurts ...

Chocolate chocolate cookies

The festive season will soon be upon us. With this in mind, I'd like to share my recipe for chocolate cookies with chocolate. 
A note: as it's a recipe I made up myself (to support a friend who was getting married in one week's time and had to work nights up until the big day, if I recall correctly), the quantities are approximate. The main point is this: you want a fairly stiff dough, otherwise they start to melt a bit in the oven. If you find them spreading into little lacy bits at the...

Watching the same movie

The other day, I had a most intriguing experience.

My husband and I were hanging around the house discussing our musical tastes. He's a fan of movie music, a genre I've never been that keen on, but he was playing me some of his favourite clips and talking about how and why he liked them, and, as John Williams was on the program and Williams pastiches themes from a lot of classical composers, we had some fun for a while playing spot-the-influence. Well, I won a point for spotting Stravinsky, wh...