It has been 15 years now since "The Noodle that Knew Remorse" came out. In that time, a lot has changed in the world. But the core insight of the Noodle remains valid: pasta plus passion equals drama. Try offering a bouquet of spaghetti to your loved one on Valentine's day and you'll see what I mean.

For those who haven't read the Noodle (for shame!), here's a review (full disclosure: the Broken Plank is a Dalek Bell holding):

Life. We don't talk about it much but everyone knows it is there. Lurking. A shadowy figure that infiltrates every fiber of our being. But what do we really know about it?

This is the subject matter of Dalek Bell's greatest novel, "The Noodle that Knew Remorse." In this epic, Bell uses the metaphor of a thousand rampaging elephants for life. Frightening. Massively powerful. Perhaps not particularly rational. Something that is liable to pound you into the ground and squish you flat if you stand around analyzing it too long.

This contrasts strikingly with Bell's metaphor for love, which is a thousand rampaging penguins. His thought processes in this instance are rather trickier to fathom. Perhaps he has a fondness for rampaging penguins, and who could blame him. Certainly, a horde of rampaging penguins unleashed on a major city can be, like love, all-consuming.

"What is this life thing anyway?" - The Broken Plank, 1998