A Gentleman's Domain

I most certainly will!

2012-01-10T09:07:32-05:00

Seen at a rest area off I-75 in north Florida yesterday. The question must be: how badly does one need to use the washroom?

Prioities!

2011-10-15T02:27:30-04:00

The cat lover in me totally agrees!

Thursday Thirteen #96

2011-08-24T19:21:50-04:00

Here’s another selection of titles from my To Be Read shelf. The thing that these ones have in common is that they are the 13 longest books I own but have not yet read. All of these are over 600 pages long – some are considerably longer than that. Maybe it is the sheer size of these books that has put me off reading them. Anyway, friendly TTers, can you tell me anything about any of these? Any that you recommend? Any that you would like to warn me not to bother reading? All opinions and comments will be most welcome.

WARLOCK by Wilbur Smith (642 pages) The third novel of Ancient Egypt that Wilbur Smith has written. The first two were excellent, so I expect good things from this one.

A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (787 pages) I’ve read a couple of Wolfe’s books and enjoyed them. I’ve had this for a few years and I’m not sure why I haven’t tackled it yet.

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BODYGUARD OF LIES by Anthony Cave Brown (821 pages) This looked very interesting when I saw it on Amazon, and I’m sure it is, but I had no idea it was so long. Small print too.

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UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King (1072 pages) This is one big-ass book! How does he manage to churn them out? Does he have elves typing away in his attic?

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THE BASTARD by John Jakes (634 pages). I have had this one on my TBR shelf for ages. Like, maybe, since 1996. I bought it in a thrift shop in Walnut Creek, CA, when I was taking a holiday in the Bay Area with my ex-wife (before she was ex, of course). It’s the first volume in an eight-book series.

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ONE DOOR AWAY FROM HEAVEN by Dean Koontz (757 pages) A pretty long novel from a writer who seldom disappoints.

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BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (723 pages) I’ve seen two TV adaptations of this, and enjoyed them both, so I know the story of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce and the characters involved. One day I’ll tackle the book.

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FALL OF GIANTS by Ken Follett (850 pages) I really enjoyed both of Follett’s medieval novels (The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End) so I’m curious to see how he does with Europe a mere 100 years ago. I suspect he’ll do very well!

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PIECE OF CAKE by Derek Robinson (667 pages) This writer has a reputation, not entirely unjustified, for debunking accepted historical conceptions. When this novel was made for TV it was very controversial. I look forward to finding out.

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A WORLD UNDONE by G. J. Meyer (715 pages) Another history of the First World War, a subject that fascinates me.

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EMPEROR: THE GATES OF ROME by Conn Iggulden (624 pages) I like historical novels (as opposed to period romances - ugh!) and this looks quite good. The author’s name looks like an anagram so it must be genuine!

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NEW YORK by Edward Rutherfurd (1017 pages) This writer specializes in long novels set in one place, over a span of many generations. I’ve read his Sarum and London and enjoyed both. So this should be good.

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THE WAR LORD by Malcolm Bosse (736 pages) See the blurb on the cover comparing this to Shogun ? I didn’t enjoy Shogun, so that has put me off somewhat. Still and all, I suppose I should give it a try.

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Hmmm... That little lot come to 10,045 pages. I’d better get reading!

There's harsh, and then there's harsh!

2011-08-10T14:17:18-04:00

Nicholas

Paws for thought....

2011-06-08T21:31:22-04:00

This is the picture on the packet of cat treats that our three felines enjoy so much. I have to say, I find that image vaguely disturbing!

Thursday Thirteen # 95

2011-05-04T22:01:52-04:00

One of my most prized books is a single-volume edition of the Oxford Universal Dictionary. Longer, of course, than the Shorter Oxford but nowhere as long as the 12-volume Complete Oxford, its 2515 pages nevertheless contain tens of thousands of words that do not reside in a 21st Century Anglophone’s daily vocabulary. I always enjoy opening it at random and seeing how many words completely unknown to me I can find. Sometimes I even commit a few to memory and try to use them – after all, a word is still a word, even if it has fallen into disuse. And so, ignoring the countless botanical, chemical and biological terms in the book, I have found easily enough for many Thursday Thirteens. Here’s one:

  13 Obscure, Obsolete or Otherwise Unusual Words

Exust – To burn up.

Cervelat – A short reed instrument

Cunctator   – Someone who is tardy or delays matters

Porrect   – Stretched out forward

Looby – A lout, clown

Purfle – The embroidered edge of a garment

Fard – White paint used as face make-up

Patefy – To disclose, make open

Roband – Nautical term for a small piece of rope

Shoat – A young pig

Neaf – A fist

Recado – A gift or compliment

Izzard – The letter Z. This has become shortened to Zed in the English speaking world, except in the USA, where for some reason I have never been able to ascertain, it is known as Zee.

Low Down Rhythm

2011-02-27T20:46:43-05:00

Arthur Rosebery & his Band were contracted to the Parlophone record company in 1929, but like a lot of other bands they recoded for different labels under pseudonyms. This recording of “Low Down Rhythm” for the British Homophone Company issued on their Sterno label, was credited to The Florida Club Band. I don’t know if there actually was a Florida Club in London at that time, but if there was, Rosebery’s band did not play there.

This is a nice bluesy treatment of a now-forgotten song that was adaptable to the jazz idiom. The piano solo is a touch too long, but I do like the way the whole band resumes playing once it’s over.
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Smugness!

2011-02-03T19:41:58-05:00

Concerning the inclement weather that has swept across much of the USA in recent days, I cannot help feeling a bit smug. This satellite photo shows the sheer size of the storm, but you'll notice Florida, down in the bottom right, clear and unaffected. Pass me another tee-shirt, m'dear; I'm off for a stroll in the sunshine!

What should one do in a crisis?

2011-01-20T02:55:10-05:00

Nicholas

Thursday Thirteen #94

2011-01-06T19:39:13-05:00

As I do every year, I kept a list in a small notebook of every book I read during 2010. I don’t count them, and I tend to lose track of how many there are after a few weeks. That way I can tally them up on new Year’s Eve and surprise myself. Last year I read 88 books, start to finish (abandoned books don’t count) which was down on the previous two years. Here are thirteen of them, all of which I enjoyed and recommend.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith This is what happens if you stumble across a lot of money and decide to keep it, on the grounds that the original owner won’t miss it, being dead, and no one will ever find out. One deception leads to another, and another, and so on. Very readable, very exciting.

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton A rollicking story about pirates based in the English colony of Jamaica in the late seventeenth century, stealing gold from Spanish treasure ships. Crichton only wrote a few period pieces; this example is apparently a posthumous book. We are told that the manuscript was found among his papers after his death.

The Innocent Man by John Grisham This is Grisham’s first non-fiction work and when you read it, it will make you angry – at least I hope it will. It’s about how an innocent man was arrested, tried and imprisoned in Oklahoma for a murder he did not commit. This is not a well-meaning justice system simply getting it wrong -- this is an incompetent, corrupt justice system picking on someone they thought would be easy to convict, with his innocence or guilt an irrelevance to them.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon What an amazing book! It’s a simple tale, told by a young boy in a provincial town in England. What makes it unlike anything you have ever read before (I promise you) is that the boy has Asperger’s Syndrome, so his narrative, while fluent and intelligent, is very idiosyncratic. My description doesn’t do justice to the book. You’d best read it to see what I mean!

No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay A teenage girl wakes up one morning to find her entire family has disappeared! From that premise stems a riveting thriller. One of those books you can’t wait to get back to.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre Another weapon in the fight against the enemies of reason! In this book Dr. Goldacre exposes the uselessness and even dangers of quack medicines and health fads such as detox, brain gym, homeopathy, nutritionists, health scaremongers, vitamin supplements, the antioxidant craze. He also discusses the antic of pharmaceutical corporations and the insidious anti-vaccination movement. It’s an entertaining book but it has a serious purpose.

This One’s On Me by Donald Jack I don’t understand why Donald Jack’s series of novels about Bartholomew Bandy haven’t gained a wider currency, because they are very funny. Flashman meets Bertie Wooster! In this one the former WW1 fighter pilot and Member of the Canadian Parliament returns to London where he get involved with a woman from Iceland and an Indian Prince who wants to start his own air force.

Medicus by Ruth Downie A novel that takes place during the Roman occupation of Britain in about the third century AD. The hero, Gaius Petreius Ruso is an army doctor and is posted to a backwater in northwest England and almost as soon as he arrives he is caught up in corruption, murder, rescuing runaway slaves and a lot more. Amusing, exciting, fun!

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young This is the supposedly true story of a British journalist who went to New York to work at Vanity Fair magazine, and made a complete tit of himself. It was an amusing story although I didn’t find him very likeable. They made a film of this, starring Simon “Shaun of the Dead” Pegg.

Cops And Robbers by Donald E. Westlake I usually read a few of Westlake’s every year, and I have about ten more in my TBR pile right now. This is a good one – about two New York City police officers who turn to crime and hide behind their badges to pull off the perfect robbery – from the Mob (never a good idea!).

Wish You Were Here by Mike Gayle This book was in a discount bin near the cash register in a supermarket in England, marked down from £7.99 to £1.00 which suggested to me they were desperate to sell it. Not much of a recommendation, but I bought it anyway. Actually, it’s rather good – a story of three men who go away together to a Mediterranean resort for a holiday in the sun, and are later joined by the girlfriend of one of them. All kinds of conflicts, deceptions, trial, tribulations and a dose of angst make this an entertaining story.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson I think I’ve read just about everything by Bryson. One of my favourite writers. He has lived in England since 1973, with a 6 year gap in New Hampshire, but his American childhood and youth have provided him with ample material for several books. This is about growing up in Iowa. I don’t remember if I laughed out loud as I read it but I definitely smiled a lot.

Human Detritus by Rasmenia Massoud This was almost the last book I read in 2010, and it was a gem! I’m not saying that just because I’m fond of the author, but because it is true. It’s a collection of short stories, almost all told in the first person, from a female’s point of view, concerning relationships of various kinds, that run far from smoothly. I devoured it in less than 24 hours and was left hungry for more. Click over to Lulu and buy it!
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Inked!

2010-12-04T15:36:31-05:00

Colour me irritated. I was in sales for years and years, and rightly or wrongly I feel that that should immunize me against most of the marketing ploys that fool ordinary people. I know a pitch when I hear one; I recognize an alternative close when one is casually lobbed at me; I know how to give a closed answer to an open question, and vice versa. I never believed that old saw that salesmen are the easiest people to sell to. And yet…

In the olden days, when Gillette invented the safety razor, they sold them at a very low price. Almost every man could afford one. They sold like hotcakes (actually, I have always wondered why cakes have to be hot to sell well. I have bought a number of cakes over the years and as far as I can remember, they were all cold). Why, people wondered, were Gillette selling their new patented safety razors at such a give-away price. Well the answer of course was that once you had the razor, you needed periodically to buy blades for it, and that was where Gillette made a killing.

These days most of us use disposable razors, so the tactic of giving away the razors in order to sell the blades no longer applies – or at least, not to the art of scraping off the face fungus. But it exists elsewhere, and I have recently fallen victim to it. It was not completely unexpected. We all know, I think, that you can buy an inkjet printer for your computer at a fairly reasonable cost. Unless you want a top of the line model with all kinds of bells and whistles that most of us don’t really need, you can pick one up for a price that will leave you with some quite healthy change out of a hundred dollars. Where the printer people make their money is from the ink cartridges. My late father bought a very good printer some years ago, only to discover that new colour ink cartridges would cost him about 75% of cost of the printer. Needless to say, he determined only to print in black and white, which is probably what most of us do, most of the time. I hardly ever print in colour.

Anyway, my old printer died the death a few months ago so off I went down to Best Buy one warm and sunny Saturday afternoon to get a new one. Naturally, the model I had become used to was by them obsolete and no longer offered for sale, so I took a long look at the various models on offer and bought what seemed like a good printer/scanner/fax for a price just north of sixty dollars. I was actually rather pleased with myself. Included with the printer was a set of ink cartridges; a black one of course, and three colour ones. Now previously I had been used to having just one colour cartridge in my printer, but this one required separate cartridges of cyan, magenta and yellow ink. Ok, I thought, I won’t be using them more than once in a blue moon, so that doesn’t really matter. I go the box home, opened it, set up the printer on my desk, and did a couple of test prints.

It was then that I read in the book of instructions that even if you set your printer to print in black only, a small amount of coloured ink will be used in each printing. I have no idea why that should be, other than to make you use up ink. Sure enough, every time I printed something, with preferences set to “black only”, I could see from the animated chart that popped up each time that the ink levels of the three coloured cartridges was slowly dropping. I won’t mention the brand name, in order to protect the guilty but they had set it so that
Even
Printing
Seldom
Or
Never in colour, you had no alternative but to use ink from the three colour cartridges.

I told myself that it didn’t matter, because when the colour ones ran out, I wouldn’t bother to replace them. That would show them! In fact, they showed me. One evening, halfway through printing a run of a dozen pages, the machine stopped and showed me a graphic of the cyan cartridge with a big red X across it and a warning that it was now completely empty. And – now here is the fiendish bit – the printer wouldn’t operate at all until I replaced it with a full one. Bastards!

Naturally this was late at night, so I couldn’t go anywhere to get a new one just then. Next day I took the empty cartridge to our local Walgreens, where they have a cartridge refilling service but of course my brand of ink cartridge was the one brand Walgreens didn’t service. So, I had to buy new ones. Three new ones in fact – I replaced the cyan, and I am at least ready for the imminent demise of the current magenta and yellow ones.

To be honest, the actual printer is pretty good, and the scanner is excellent (I expect the fax part of it is good too, but I have never used it). I’m just annoyed with the company for this marketing ploy, and even more annoyed with myself for falling for it. I say again: Bastards! Bastards and mug!
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Rancor and bitterness, for your entertainment!

2010-10-31T03:18:13-04:00

My second YouTube upload. And excellent comedy number, with hot accompaniment, by Ambrose & his Orchestra in 1934.

My first YouTube upload

2010-10-22T21:12:49-04:00

Hope you like. If you don't, I'm sorry to have bothered you. If you do, comments are most welcome.

Thursday Thirteen #93

2010-09-29T19:39:00-04:00

Since I am in England right now, it’s fitting, I suggest, that for my first TT for quite a while I should feature thirteen books that I own, and have read, that are set entirely in England, with brief snippets of opinion. Agreement and argument are both equally welcome.

Medicus by Ruth Downie -- I finished this just a couple of weeks ago. It’s an enjoyable and fascinating novel about Gaius Ruso, a doctor with the Roman army in the second century who gets posted from north Africa to Deva (Chester) in north-west Britannia (England). Almost immediately upon arrival he finds himself involved with a slave girl whom he rescues from her abusive owner, a bureaucratic administrator who appears to want to be as obstructive as possible to the medical staff, a number of murders, a brothel and its owner and the other characters who populate this enjoyable, witty book.

The Churchill Commando by Ted Willis -- From the seventies, this one. The Churchill Commando is really a gang of vigilantes led by a retired army officer who do not like the way things are going, so they decide to put things right by direct action, which is to say by violence. Needless to say it all goes very wrong and whatever high-minded principles they may have started with end up being trampled on. The author is not at all in sympathy with his main characters.

Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse -- This was the very first Wodehouse book I read, in my teens, and it started an addiction of which I have no wish to be cured. It takes a lot for a book to make a person laugh out loud, and this one did, in many places. In fact, I actually fell out of bed laughing – literally. Wodehouse devotees will know exactly what I mean.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon -- Have you read this book? If not, minimize this page at once and got to Amazon and buy it! This is a truly remarkable novel, told in the first person by a boy with Aperger’s Syndrome. I don’t want to give too much away, but it involves his book about a murder, his father, a train ride, a policeman and more. Look, just read it, ok? You won’t regret it.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens -- This was Charles Dickens’s debut novel, at first issued in monthly installments in 1836-37 and then published as a complete novel. It is the joyful, entertaining episodic story of how Samuel Pickwick and his three companions, in the years 1827-28 wander where the spirit moves them exploring that wonderful phenomenon called life. Along the way we have farce, comedy, mystery, treachery and happy endings. As well as Mr. Pickwick we meet his fellow travelers Messrs Snodgrass, Tupman and Winkle, Sergeant Buzfuz, Mrs. Bardell, Alfred Jingle and the cockney Sam Weller, who became one of Dickens’s most popular characters with Victorian readers. The book was so popular that, like successful works a century or more later, it was subject to plagiarism, bootleg copies, unauthorized spin-offs and more. The Pickwick papers made 24-year-old Dickens rich and famous, and he liked it!

The Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett -- Follett usually writes thrillers, and very good they are too. But this one was a departure from the norm. It is a magnificent, long novel, set in 12th Century England. The pages are so full that reading this book is like looking at a very ornate, fascinating tapestry. I would have said this was Follett’s magnum opus --- but then along came World Without End, set a couple of centuries later!

Crash! by James Broom Lynne -- Quite a straightforward, easy read. We meet several people who regularly commute to and from London from their suburban homes, to work and back, and one day their train crashes. One of those who-will-live-and-who-will-die books. Entertaining in its way.

Rumpole And The Reign Of Terror by John Mortimer -- One of the last Rumpole stories that John Mortimer wrote. This is a full length novel, and Rumpole is critical of the anti-terror laws of the early 21st century and how they affect natural justice. The opinions are of course Mortimer’s. Anyone who enjoyed the Rumpole TV program will like this book. The thing is, it’s impossible not to hear Leo McKern’s voice in your head as you read the story!

House Of Cards by David Nobbs -- I am not sure if this novel is better than the TV series based on it that came a year or two later, or if it’s not quiet so good. Probably the latter, actually, and that is a rarity. Even so, it’s an excellent read – a modern day Macbeth, with touches of Richard III, who schemes to become Prime Minister. The ending in the book is different from the one shown on TV, and of course the book doesn’t have the advantage of Ian Richardson’s brilliant performance as Francis Urquhart.

Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell -- The author of the amazing Sharpe novels turns his attention to Britain in 2000 BC. Since we know nothing about the people who inhabited the British Isles back then, and because there is no recorded history of any kind, he can be pretty free with his imagination about who built Stonehenge, and why. And like everything else Cornwell writes, this is a lot of fun.

London by A. N. Wilson -- I only just finished this a few days ago. Maybe it’s cheating, including this in a TT about books set in England, because it’s a slim, but packed, history of London. Fascinating reading. London is unique among cities, because it hs never had an overall architectural plan. It is simply a collection of villages that have grown together over the last 2000 years, and each village still retains its own identity. The story as Wilson tells it is populated by some of the characters who made London’s story what it is – Dick Whittington, Geoffrey Chaucer, Samuel Pepys, Samuel Johnson, Winston Churchill, and all the artists, poets, playwrights, composers and musicians who gravitated to London, which always has been the centre of all artistic, financial, and political activity in England.

To Sir With Love by E. R. Braithwaite -- This was originally published in 1959, so it obviously refers to events that took place earlier in the 1950s, when immigrants from the Caribbean in Britain were a rarity and people were uncertain to react to react to them. E. R. Braithwaite, newly arrived from Barbados, took a teaching job in a rough school in London’s East End, and this excellent book as an account of how he eventually made a success of his job and won the confidence of his pupils and their families. This edition must be from the mid-1960s, when the film starring Sidney Poitier was made – the price at the top right is 5/- which means five shillings (pre-decimal money) and the strapline under the title refers to “a Negro teacher”, a term that has been effectively obsolete for decades.

Doctor In Clover by Richard Gordon -- This is one in a series of entertaining, humorous novels about doctors and others who practice medicine in England. Richard Gordon qualified as a doctor before he began writing, so he knows of what he speaks. The first ones were published in the 1950s and continued at intervals until the 1980s, giving rise along the way to several films and a TV series that ran for years. I find them all pleasant and undemanding. I notice that Wikipedia says they are not very popular these days – well, they are with me, matey, so there!
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