Slight disappointment

The Kite Runner was one of the best books I have ever read and I think I approached A Thousand Splendid Suns with too much expectation. I was really looking forward to it and found it somewhat disappointing. There were bits that were superb - his writing is very evocative and I felt I could visualise everything and everywhere he was writing about - and many of the characters were very believable. But there were other bits that didn't ring true to me - particularly the attitude of the mother to her daughter, whilst waiting for her older sons to come back from the war, and also the way that Tariq returns after all. It all seemed a little too pat, as though Hosseini couldn't quite decide how to finish things off. And then there were bits that were so clever (if very traumatic) - the man at the bus station for instance - that I was transfixed again.

I would highly recommend this book but not as much as The Kite Runner....

Postage IS a rip-off

A 2Gb memory card is between £5 and £7 elsewhere but here it's £1 plus £5 postage. I tried ordering 3 and found that the postage went up to £15. So this IS a rip-off and is not what I would expect of such a highly-reputable company such as Amazon. Pricing should be straightforward and transparent.

ohh it's a tough one, good but a sort of to buy or not to buy game

well i don't know where to start. It is a fantastic game most of the time but not all of the time it's the type of game i would love to recive or give, but would i buy it for myself...... maybe but i would need more convicing than what the game or adverts gave me. anyway enough of that. The quality of the game is the best ever seen ever simple things like being able to name the exact street name in a taxi. there are lots of those through out the game. But and it's a big but driving is impossible now that may be me just being crap but i'm not that bad at driving on these games and that has made me want to take a test to be able to drive. It's hard to controll choppers and if I was to be quite mean it can get a bit frustrating sometimes e.g. going to do a mission you do it all and then you get nicked you get the message on your phone asking if you want to try again but then you have to go through the whole course of driving to the place to start the mission again i know you can get cabs but..... well you get the idea. overall if you 40 or 45 quid to spend on a xbox game and you think it looks ok buy it. PS when in a car listen to WKTT radio, it is side spittingly funny.

See ya

Great product-watch out for the cat!

Got this product for christmas and have to say it is amazing! I couldn't put it down and had mastered the art of flying it around the room in about an hour. Hovering it around the room and landin it on my dads bald head is the most fun i've had in ages!
It's had more than it's fair share of crashes and still in perfect working order (might need to adjust the rotors after some crashes tho!)
Just make sure you keep it away from any cats! Mine saw it, lept off the table and proceeded to escape with it out the door. Retrieved it and it still worked fine!
Brilliant fun!

One of the most annoying pieces of software I've ever come across.

You might've expected, as did I, that Microsoft Office 2007 would be a large improvement over 2003. Easier to use, clearer, stylish, new tools which allow you to create a great website/presentation/word document, but 2007 is terrible. The main thing that annoys me is the format of word documents has been changed to docx. I'm forced to use Microsoft Office 2007 in school as every computer has been upgraded, (thankfully they still run on XP).
I for some reason cannot download any type of"file converter" as it just simply doesn't work. Microsoft Office 2003 has done me perfectly fine for years, except for the annoying"create your drawing here" box. And the fact it crashes. I assumed Microsoft would have taken into consideration all the point their customers made and done something about it.
No.
MO2007 crashes a lot more than 2003, it's slow to run on less modern computers, you can never find any of the tools you need, you can't select an ordinary text box without altering it's properties which really is annoying, it's too expensive for what it actually is, the toolbar at the top looks disgusting, and it would be very difficult to use if you were new to using computers or not very experienced.
Microsoft really do need to go back to basics with this. Office 2007 is meant to look like Vista, but Vista looks horrid anyway so why bother?
It's slow, annoying, crashes too often, it probably takes up too much HDD space, way too expensive for what it is and I wouldn't recommend it.
Stick to Office 2003.
Or buy a different word processing package.

Disappointing and frustrating !

I bought this as it was described as digital with 'crystal clear monitoring' - well, not in our case ! When we'd had it only two weeks, for three consecutive nights when our baby had a nasty cough and cold, the sound didn't transmit at all. It meant that I heard him coughing and crying down the corridor and not a peep came out of the monitor - the lights were flashing, but no sound. In the morning I checked everything was correct, batteries charged etc. Everything seemed fine. I switched it off and on again, and then it started to work again. The next night, same thing happened so I phoned the hotline who were as useful as a chocolate teapot and suggested I should monitor it for 4 consecutive hours in the daytime to see if there was really a fault !! Like any mum has 4 hours to spare to check a product that costs almost £70 and is described by them as top of the range, and I KNEW it had a fault. Needless to say, I returned it and replaced it with a different product that works like a dream.

What a Show

Gavin and Stacey has too be one of the best kept secrets being hidden away on BBC 3. The characters and acting is fantastic and every moment is filled with humour. If you haven seen it then buy it now you will want too watch every episode back too back and then watch them all over again. James corden and Ruth Jones have created a gem with this one lets hope theres more too come from them.

Forget comparisons

As a passionate blues supporter I need to inform the uninformed that blues is where all popular music originated. No matter what syle it has evolved into. While I agree that Duffy has a voice and style that is equal to Dusty, Lulu, Dionne, Aretha and the great Annie, she is quite definitely a unique performer in her own right.
In years gone by Alberta Hunter, Ida Cox, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Sippie Wallace, Victoria Spivey and many other female singers all managed to have successful careers singing the same style of blues songs, but each in their own unique way.
Those who nit pick about lyrics and singing comparisons have lost the idea of music appreciation for what it is. They are trying to be too clever.
Duffy's CD is a genuine work of art from start to finish. Her voice and passion when singing the songs on each track remind me very much of the late, great Eva Cassidy. Forget those who listen with a jaundiced ear, listen to the CD with your heart. It is wonderful.

A change of format.

Previous Bradygames GTA guides have always began with the controls, weapons and a vehicle showroom. This guide does not. The controls for the Xbox360 and PS3 are not discussed anywhere, the weapons are listed on one page and there is no vehicle showroom. Passtimes or Procedural Missions as they are called in this guide are incorporated into the Main Story Walkthrough. An example is how the Vigilante missions are described after the Crime and punishment mission in the book.

Each of the Main Story missions are broken down into Objectives, Prerequisites, Fail Conditions and New Elements Introduced. A map of the local area is included which shows the positions of weapons, first aid kits and armour to help in a specific mission. The back of the book has several Liberty City maps which show the position of all 200 flying rats (pigeons) and Unique Stunt Jumps. Multiplayer coverage is very brief - only 6 out of 286 pages are dedicated to it. There is a foldout map inside the back cover which shows the location of vehicles, races, characters, etc.

I missed the Vehicle Showroom but the authors have obviously put alot of work into this guide. For anyone wanting to get the most from GTA4 this guide is probably essential.

Sonic My Screwdriver

I think many people confuse this Electronic Sonic Screwdriver with the LED Torch. The Electronic Sonic Screwdriver is much better; sounds, blue light, movable, durable and practically every Whovian's wish come true. I've had mine for about 6 months or so now and I drop it nearly every time I'm defeating invisible Daleks in my garden; however, only a few chips seem to appear upon it. It's a great piece of merchandise and something every fan should be proud of possessing. After completing this review, I'm off to defeat the Cybermen.

*****BEWARE OF FAKES*****

Please be very aware of fake cards. Have bought 4GB Memory Pro Duo recently from Digiplay UK and it was fake. Have reported to amazon and am awaiting a full refund.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

great idea badly done

i would agree with the comments above. It is great for the kids and extremely well thought out. The strap however (as per DD) is very weak and really lets it down. the stitching is poor - we have returned ours also, and just got a new one -you can see that the strap is not great again so i think if you dont mind doing some industrial strength extra stitched this could be the best thing you ever bought

I love my Quick Cup

I am only writing this review because of the slightly misleading nature of the other review.

The instruction manual suggests a new filter every 6 - 10 weeks depending on the water in your area and how much use the device gets. But the machine will operate without a filter at all and just because the light suggests a new filter after 2 or 3 weeks you don't have to get one.

I have had mine since Christmas and love it (especially good if like me you use coffee bags - bag in Mug press button walk away come back 5 minutes later), everyone who's seen it wants one!

I live in a hard water area and only now after 10 weeks am I about to purchase a new filter.

Should you or shouldnt you

Bought this little beauty two days ago for the blu ray. I am a happy gamer and have loved my xbox360 upgraded to the elite and then by natural progression and because the hd -v- blu ray war was won by sony decided to purchase the PS3.

This is a wonderful piece of kit for gaming and for playing back those movies.

That having been said it is behind the 360 in a few ways. Download times bad, takes an age to update games. The controllers are good but charge through the ps3 via a cable, effective but not as quick as changing two batteries as with the xbox.

Sony have still to get their online gaming moving, to be honest not impressive at all.

The 40 gb hardrive is fine but I also like the fact that I have a massive hard drive on the 360 so I can download movies by the bucket load and keep pictures music etc for as long as I want to so I am not spending time clearing things off and then wishing I'd kept them.

I also connect my laptop computer to the tv via my 360 which is great, not sure whether or not I can do this through the ps3.

The 360 has loads of titles because its been on the market longer but Sony are now catching up in this area and I am presuming they will be head to head before long if not in front at some point.

In the war of DVD blu ray versus hi def Sony won. If you are buying to watch dvd this is the console for you. HD kit for xbox 360 amazing but they lost the war so I am presuming that the titles will dry up for my hd dvd drive.

I would not presume to be an expert nor advise which is the console for you but what I would say is that I have both and would recommend them both for different reasons. There are no winners or losers whichever console you purchase, they are both amazing machines and will provide hours of entertainment and pleasure whatever your passion.

Horrible

A bad bad album!! Chasing Pavements is a terrible single, it is sooo irritating and depressing. You just want to grab the remote control and change over the radio station asap when it comes on and if you can`t do anything to shut her up, even flushing your head down the toilet would be better than listening to Adele!! Cold Shoulder ain`t much cop either, in fact the whole album is dead boring. Buy Madonna`s or Estelle`s album - much better!

That sound? The Beeb flogging a dead horse.

If ever a show should not have been subjected to a spin-off it was Life on Mars. Thematically original and one of the best BBC shows of the last decade it shone like a jewel and deservedly won critical and public acclaim. That shine is sadly tainted by this appalling derivative mess. Like some bad ITV rip-off it stinks like week-old fish. Even Glenister when interviewed by Jonathan Ross seemed to know it was a stinker, warning audiences not to expect more of the same (I now realise he meant"more of the same quality") as LoM. Almost constantly sountracked by eighties hits, stitching together a weak and unconvincing 1980s setting, this unappealing production is sunk from the get-go by the casting of Keeley Hawes. Acceptable in Spooks, this actress can do cold and distant until the cows come home but not once does she ever get the audience to empathise with her plight. The constant self-awareness ("Morning constructs") grates even by episode 2 and the way her storyline is shoe-horned into every episode regardless just destroys any dramatic tension from whatever else is going on in that episode. I say dramatic tension but really there's hardly any at all as this is"Carry On Life on Mars", played almost entirely for laughs - They've artificially enlarged Hunt's character (pandering to the character's success from the parent programme) and now have him slavering over Hawes' character in a wine-bar! What a betrayal of everything they achieved with Hunt in LoM. One wonders now if John Simm's decision to leave wasn't in some way down to having seen what Kudos has planned for the series. If so his reputation as one of the most astute and respected actors of his generation is only enhanced by his refusal to continue with the show.

Not that fantastic

After hearing so much about this book, I finally added it to the children's library. It's an ok story about a caterpillar who eats all sorts of food until he turns into a butterfly. I found the illustrations a little boring, and the holes did not generate the expected excitement. I could not help wondering if the important lesson was the life-cycle of a butterfly or a caution not to eat too much in case you get a stomach-ache. It's a good book but did not come to the standard of"Dear Zoo" or"We are going on a bear hunt".

It's a 'Coffee' Mill

This is a coffee mill. It grinds coffee. It's small and does"exactly what it says on the tin" :-) Okay, the cable is a bit short and I also can smell the mill (lubricant or otherwise) after use - minor negatives. I read the other reviews and you really can't mark it down for things like:"it does not stand up to grinding spices Cumin or similar that contain certain chemicals that corrode metal and plastic" - 1) it's a coffee mill, 2) *nothing* which is made of metal and plastic will stand up to anything that corrodes metal or plastic! ;-) Buy it, it's a good mill.