conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Colour of Memory about Ways, Telling, Brixton with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: This novel, from the author of "Ways of Telling", concerns a group of friends in Brixton whose lives offer a complex commentary on the experience of post-modernity.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Colour of Memory
  In August it rained all the time – heavy, corrosive rain from which only nettles and rusty metal derived refreshment. The sky was a grey sea with no tide. Gutters burst their kerbs. When it didn't rain it drizzled and when it didn't drizzle the city sweltered under a thick vest of cloud. Even the clouds looked as if they could do with some sun. The weather was getting people down. I wasn't keen on the rain either but what really put a damper on things was being thrown out of my house and sacked from my job.
  Being evicted from a house was a new experience for me but getting sacked was something I'd always had a talent for. I started early, when I was still at school. On Saturdays I worked in a sports shop and was laid off because there was a question mark against my honesty. Called in to the manager's office at four o'clock, I left for good at quarter past, helping myself to a generous silver handshake from the till as I went. A few years later I was fired from an insurance company for lack of attention to detail. My work involved checking someone else's figures for errors and I tended not to bother. There was no point; my checking was checked by somebody else and before anything went through the computer it was double checked, cross checked and double-cross checked by two or three other people. Would you have bothered? Of course not; you'd have been down in the basement playing in the ping-pong tournament like the rest of us.
  Next I was sacked from a place before I'd even started working there. Now that takes some doing. Apparently there was a little problem with one of the references – I'd drawn up some headed notepaper and written it myself – and my future employer felt that under the circumstances they would have to withdraw their conditional offer of employment. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A week later I was taken on at a civil engineer's. Before they had a chance to sack me I trashed my leg in an industrial accident and picked up a thousand pounds in compensation. Easy money.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: On the news there was an item about anti-hunt demonstrators somewhere in the home counties. The huntsmen were all decked out sedately in their red riding gear, the hounds all yapping and panting while the demonstrators tried to get in the way and make a nuisance of themselves. In close-up one of the demonstrators was yelling 'Scab! Scab!'
  After clearing the plates away we devoured the box of expensive chocolates that Belinda had brought. We played our favourite records, drank a bottle of port and took it in turns to try and break brazil nuts with Steranko's nutcrackers. The table quickly became congested with empty beer cans, bags of grass, corks, wine bottles, nutshells and screwed-up chocolate wrappers. There were six of us: Carlton, Foomie, Freddie, Belinda, Steranko and me.
  Through the window I could see the yellow glow of the street lamp and above that a cold sickle of moon. The fire filled the room with warm light.
  Freddie and I sat in his kitchen drinking tea. The radio was on. Someone knocked on the door and when Freddie opened it a cold wedge of air rushed in. Foomie stood in the hall, stamping snow off her boots. She was wearing Steranko's huge dark overcoat.
  Freddie filled up the kettle and I moved round the table to make room for Foomie. Her face was glowing from the cold. Snow was melting in her hair.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Propped, Millais, Burning, Propped, 'Burning, touched.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: On the news there was an item about anti-hunt demonstrators somewhere in the home counties. The huntsmen were all decked out sedately in their red riding gear, the hounds all yapping and panting while the demonstrators tried to get in the way and make a nuisance of themselves. In close-up one of the demonstrators was yelling 'Scab! Scab!'
  After clearing the plates away we devoured the box of expensive chocolates that Belinda had brought. We played our favourite records, drank a bottle of port and took it in turns to try and break brazil nuts with Steranko's nutcrackers. The table quickly became congested with empty beer cans, bags of grass, corks, wine bottles, nutshells and screwed-up chocolate wrappers. There were six of us: Carlton, Foomie, Freddie, Belinda, Steranko and me. 
  Through the window I could see the yellow glow of the street lamp and above that a cold sickle of moon. The fire filled the room with warm light. Propped carelessly on the mantelpiece was a postcard of Millais' 'Burning Leaves': the pale light fading, the leaves burning, the trees receding, the girls' faces touched by the light. 
  Freddie and I sat in his kitchen drinking tea. The radio was on. Someone knocked on the door and when Freddie opened it a cold wedge of air rushed in. Foomie stood in the hall, stamping snow off her boots. She was wearing Steranko's huge dark overcoat. 
  Freddie filled up the kettle and I moved round the table to make room for Foomie. Her face was glowing from the cold. Snow was melting in her hair.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last three paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: We dragged two large armchairs to where we could watch the sun shiver through the heat and flames of the largest fire. Flames reached high into the air, staining the sky a thick blue. The lorry trundled off and we sat back in our armchairs, surrounded by the waste ground, the slow-burning fires and the sound of the digger mechanically returning the ashes of the trees to the soil. Smoke from the fires behind encircled and drifted past us. Slumped in his armchair, long legs stretched out in front of the fire, Steranko's face was bathed in the deep red light of the flames. More wood had been thrown on to the fires behind us and they erupted suddenly in bright flames. Two more workers from the parks department came along.
  The heat was so intense now that the two men had trouble throwing stuff on to the top of the fire. Their faces were stained deep red with gold and black shadows. The sun had sunk from sight as if consumed by the bonfire. My face felt scorched, my eyes watered. I touched the arms of my chair to make sure that it was not about to burst into flames beneath me. The burning frame of a chair toppled down the slopes of the fire and rolled, still burning, to the ground. There were shadows everywhere. Steranko's face and clothes were lit bright orange and yellow. The sky had turned a deeper blue than either of us had ever seen. Another table caught light and I moved back still further, angling my chair to the left, looking away from the flames. High up in the frozen sky was a full moon, bathing the flattened ground and the trees in calm light. Half of my face was still scorching hot from the fire, the other half chilled by the evening air. Steranko had also turned his chair round; the left side of his face was pale and silver-grey in the cold light of the moon. Burning more slowly now, blue-grey smoke from the other fires curled slowly past us. There was another whoosh of flame from the main fire and we turned away from the moon and the empty sky as a mattress went up in a gush of flame. The two workers walked over and stood watching the fire with us.
  Eventually we got up to leave. Together we swung first Steranko's and then my chair on to the fire. For a few minutes they sat there as if untouched by the heat and then suddenly erupted in a rush of flame that flung back the cold of the night once more. We walked back through the waste ground, fires dying all around us.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: We walked back through the waste ground, fires dying all around us.. For a few minutes they sat there as if untouched by the heat and then suddenly erupted in a rush of flame that flung back the cold of the night once more. Together we swung first Steranko's and then my chair on to the fire.
  Eventually we got up to leave. The two workers walked over and stood watching the fire with us. There was another whoosh of flame from the main fire and we turned away from the moon and the empty sky as a mattress went up in a gush of flame. Burning more slowly now, blue-grey smoke from the other fires curled slowly past us. Steranko had also turned his chair round; the left side of his face was pale and silver-grey in the cold light of the moon. Half of my face was still scorching hot from the fire, the other half chilled by the evening air. High up in the frozen sky was a full moon, bathing the flattened ground and the trees in calm light. Another table caught light and I moved back still further, angling my chair to the left, looking away from the flames. The sky had turned a deeper blue than either of us had ever seen. Steranko's face and clothes were lit bright orange and yellow. There were shadows everywhere. The burning frame of a chair toppled down the slopes of the fire and rolled, still burning, to the ground. I touched the arms of my chair to make sure that it was not about to burst into flames beneath me. My face felt scorched, my eyes watered. The sun had sunk from sight as if consumed by the bonfire. Their faces were stained deep red with gold and black shadows.
  The heat was so intense now that the two men had trouble throwing stuff on to the top of the fire. Two more workers from the parks department came along. More wood had been thrown on to the fires behind us and they erupted suddenly in bright flames. Slumped in his armchair, long legs stretched out in front of the fire, Steranko's face was bathed in the deep red light of the flames. Smoke from the fires behind encircled and drifted past us. The lorry trundled off and we sat back in our armchairs, surrounded by the waste ground, the slow-burning fires and the sound of the digger mechanically returning the ashes of the trees to the soil. Flames reached high into the air, staining the sky a thick blue.We dragged two large armchairs to where we could watch the sun shiver through the heat and flames of the largest fire