Sunday walk

Sunday walk is becoming a bit of a feature of the Laytown weekend. This week, Barbara and Caelen and Denali joined us for a bit of being blown around by a strong wind and pancaked afterwards.
Posted Jul. 26 2005, at 10:07 PM
Original comments
Denali's getting big isn't she!!
Posted by Queenie on Jul. 28 2005

34: No one can say no to the bastard

Possibly the worst tag line I've ever seen for a book. Certainly the worst cover I've seen on a book in ages (I realise that a scan would have brought out its awful seventiesness much more effectively than a crappy photo of the cover, but I can't be arsed going all the way upstairs to the scanner). If I was Beryl Bainbridge I'd have sued someone. Maybe she did.

The book itself is slight enough and is of the type that Bainbridge seems to have given up, which is just as well because the itroverted girl who gets taken for a ride by the bastard man of the world was done best in An Awfully Big Adventure, and thankfully it's kind of old and not very believable (maybe I'm just lucky and know strong women).

More interesting is the period detail. The family huddled around in a small dining room at Christmas, the mother constantly rubbing the backs of the chair legs to make sure the electric fire isn't scorching them, everyone trying not to trip over the cord on the electric carving knife, that kind of thing. I'm glad Beryl Bainbridge has moved on to the crisp history of According to Queenie or Master Georgie, but even a second division Bainbridge like Sweet William was worth the few hours it took to read it.

Original comments
Is that Sam Waterston and Jenny Agutter on the cover? That could be worth something.
Posted by StevieB on Jul. 28 2005, at 4:19 PM

33: it's family, innit?

Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup is billed on the back as a Romeo and Juliet story for a more cynical age. More cynical than an age where women were married off at the age of thirteen to improve their family's social standing? Really? Never mind that though. This isn't really a love story, is, I think, what that reviewer means. It's a story of two people using each other for the sake of convenience. In his case to get a residency visa for South Africa. In her case to get some cachet. Either way, they both get a lot more than they bargain for.

It's a book about politics and religion, sure. But it's also a story about families changing and adapting and being more than you thought they could be. Highly recommended. Doesn't outstay its welcome either.

32: Hey! Rome's full of rude Italians!

If you're looking for a book that will reinforce every stereotype you've ever read about any country in Europe, you've found it here. On the surface, Michael Booth's Just as Well I'm Leaving is an entertaining idea to part publishers and readers from their money. Hey, the high concept says, I'm going to follow Hans Christian Andersen's footsteps across Europe, tell you something about him on the way, and have a good laugh! So far, so standard proposal.

Andersen turns out to be a fascinating character. Crazy, gangly, unattractive, maybe gay, maybe not, certainly in love with the idea of doomed love, a brilliant writer, a man raging with insecurities, a virgin at his death, and so on.

Michael Booth is a bloke who thinks he's funny and isn't really. He even makes a lazy "...and that was just the teachers!" style joke somewhere in here that I can't be bothered to find. True, he does his research well and he cares about Andersen, but he ruins the most straightforward anecdotes with lame jokes, so a book that should be fascinating in its depiction of how much Europe (and the profession of writing, really) has changed becomes merely adequate and much too long.

And there are a lot of printing errors and a couple of factual mistakes in it, which really grinds my nads.
Posted Jul. 18 2005, at 5:10 PM

31: Cosy Moments

Aren't these Amazon scans really poor quality? If I wasn't using them without permission I'd be really pissed off.

Anyway, Psmith Journalist. Last year on ILB, some women admitted to having a bit of a crush on Psmith. I don't see it myself. Or it might just have been this book. I don't think Wodehouse is at his best when he tries to "do" Americans. I'm not sure he ever got the mannerisms quite right and I just am not sure he has the same feel for them as he does for his own social circle back home. So maybe the Psmith books that take place in England are better.

Heaving stomachers

How great is it that the words "heaving stomachers" brings up an ad for the Crohn's and Colitis foundation of America? Brilliant.

30: Interesting times

With a rustle of petticoats and a heaving of stomachers, here comes another Phillipa Gregory book. The Queen's Fool follows on from The Other Boleyn Girl, telling the story of Hannah, a young Jewish girl who has fled the Spanish Inquisition with her father and settled in England. She is begged for a holy fool because she has The Sight of some kind and ends up in the court of sickly young Edward VI and, after him, Queen Mary. The story of the intrigue and terror that gripped all of England at that time is well told and, as I said when reading her previous book, she manages to drum up sympathy for the unlikeliest of people, so you sort of feel sorry for Mary by the end. But only sort of.

It's good to be reminded of how things were before Elizabeth's golden age, how restricted people were in what they could say and write about, how easily today's off-the-cuff remarks could become tomorrow's hanging offences, and how powerless minor courtiers and courtesans really were. It's more of the same stuff. Quality.

Record temperatures

According to the Met Office report at five to six this evening, temperatures tomorrow could reach record highs. The man at the train station in Laytown said that might be a problem. He checked the temperature of the rails today and it was thirty degrees. Apparently if the temperature goes above thirty degrees...

At this point he made some twisty turny movement with his hands and made a kind of 'cccchhhhhh' noise, which I think was supposed to indicate that it would be hard to keep the trains on the rails.

Bloody great. Of course I'll be able to get into work, but not home again.
Posted Jul. 11 2005, at 10:01 PM

Broil King

Man Make Fire!

It's beer o'clock!

Man, it's hot here in Laytown today. People were even swimming in the sea. Good times.
Posted Jul. 10 2005, at 5:34 PM
Original comments
Today was melty all right. We went out to Dun Laoghaire with the folks. Top market in the park action.
Posted by Ray on Jul. 10 2005, at 9:31 PM

To conclude with a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody in full chorus

I can't believe I've posted nothing for nearly a month. And that I'd get the urge to post today, of all days, with all the shit that's going on in London. I suppose it's the urge to do something combined with the lack of ability to do anything useful. It's probably also that fear for family's safety followed by relief at safety of family.

Anyway, last Sunday marked the birthday of our matriarch and we had a huge party. It was top fun. These are the only photos I took, though.
Original comments
Hmmm, what's that I see on the wall in the background of photo 2?
Posted by Ray on Jul. 07 2005, at 2:49 PM
How come Keith never wears that shirt to work?
Posted by Dave on Jul. 07 2005, at 3:13 PM
Ray: Ickle baby Byrnes!

Dave: Because that shirt still hangs in the "goodwear" section of the wardrobe. Next Christmas, when he gets a new shirt, it will be relegated.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Jul. 07 2005, at 3:23 PM
On further inspection of the group photo, it's funny how Keith is inspecting his feet as people do during the second verse of hymns or during the national anthem. Even after four years in this family, HE DOES NOT KNOW THE WORDS!
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Jul. 07 2005, at 3:25 PM
Oh I know the words all right. I just don't think it would be politic to tell the in laws that I don't really like Queen.
Posted by watchdog on Jul. 10 2005, at 7:36 PM
They're not in-laws yet, and if there are any more revelations like that...
Posted by Ray on Jul. 10 2005, at 9:29 PM

Dog-walking at Termonfeckin

Yesterday morning we joined in the weekly Drogheda Animal Rescue Centre walk on Termonfeckin beach. Jessica brings along all the DARC dogs from her kennels, and people who have DARC dogs in foster (like us) bring them along too and we all walk or get pulled along by our dogs for an hour. It's great fun and you get to meet some really sound people, as well as some really sound dogs.

I mostly walked Elk yesterday. She had been surrendered to the pound and Jessie took her out. She's a lovely dog. It's no coincidence that a lot of the dogs that rescues end up with are big breeds (lots of GSDs and pointers and lab crosses) that have passed the cute puppy stage but not reached the sensible adult stage, and are hard to control and pretty strong. These are obviously the dogs people bail on. Funnily enough, these are exactly the kind of dogs I'm attracted to.

There was a greyhound there as well, called Ellie. I knew greys were beautiful, but I'd no idea their coats were so soft, like thick fur rather than hair. Just lovely.

Then all four of us came home for some big nap action. Result.
Original comments
Sounds nice. How lovely to see a photo of you!!

Queenie
xx
Posted by on Jun. 25 2005, at 9:59 PM

Another exciting instalment of...

... why play with the toy when you can play with the box it came in?

I love how Milo, a thin, well-cared for dog, manages to look like a fat slob in this photo.

Fat Comic and the Milky Bar Kid

On Friday afternoon our shop was robbed and loads of cash stolen from the till. Luckily, no-one was hurt or even threatened, but we'd had a good day in the shop and there was a lot more money than there usually is.

Ed to the rescue. He organised a lunchtime fundraiser in Cleere's for us, starring himself, Dara, Colin and Max. It was a brilliant gig. All four comics reckoned it was the best one they'd had in the festival and Colin got ten minutes of new material out of it. And we raised enough to replace the stolen money twice over.

Hurrah for the sad clowns.
Original comments
You must tell us when Dara is next on in Dublin, we keep meaning to go see him.

Posted by Ray on Jun. 07 2005, at 11:24 PM
I just keep forgetting, because I don't go myself most of the time.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Jun. 08 2005, at 7:37 AM

29: Oh well, back to sleeping with the light on

I was amused to discover yesterday that I am not the only person who knows which room in my house is the safest place to go in case of zombie/vampire invasion. Friends Dara and Susan have recently moved to Chiswick and have, like me, selected the attic as their place to escape from demon hordes. Of course, they have a Velux window in their attic and I don't, but I'm thinking about getting one. You never know.

I am Legend is part of the the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. It's the third one I've read and every one has been a winner so far. When it came into the shop I remembered having heard the name somewhere, and as I settled down to read it I realised on page one that I was reading the book that inspired The Omega Man, a film that scared seven types of fuckery out of me on more than one occasion. The book is short, and combines SF and horror in a tightly frightening little package. I can't say enough good things about its commentary on the human condition past and present and its ultimately uplifting and profoundly atheistic message.

You should definitely read it.
Posted Jun. 07 2005, at 10:11 AM

28: Hard-boiled Galway

I don't read a lot of crime books, but recently was trying to shift a bunch of them out of the shop and started reading about Ken Bruen. He turns out to be a very interesting man (everyone but me probably knew this already) and highly respected among international crime writers. His books don't show up in the shop very often, so when one did, I jumped on it.

The Magdalen Martyrs is not a happy book. It is crime fiction of the most hard-boiled type. In fact it's boiled, then soaked in brine for a while, then air-dried, then baked, just to ensure maximum hardness. The main character has a drink, drug and general fucked-upedness problem (he also listens to Van Morrison, which I just can't identify with), but he's funny and well-read and doesn't scare the shite out of me in the same way as, say, everyone in a James Ellroy novel would.

The story is fairly simple and doesn't twist and turn like a twisty turny thing, so you can almost disregard it entirely and just immerse yourself in the seamy underbelly of, er, Galway. It's a quick read, it's fun, and I highly recommend it. If you come across Ken Bruen in an airport, definitely take him on holidays.
Posted Jun. 07 2005, at 10:04 AM

27: yarrr

I'm amused to see that the new edition of Scurvy has had its subtitle changed from "how a surgeon, a master mariner, blah blah solved the greatest medical mystery in the Age of Sail" to "helped Britain to win the Battle of Trafalgar". Now that's a pretty good cash in on an anniversary, no?*

Anyway, this book isn't really as interesting as you might think it's going to be. It has plenty of opportunity to be interesting, given that it gets to cover

* the symptoms of scurvy (unpleasant)
* the prevailing medical theories at the time (a bit daft)
* the living and working conditions of mariners in the Great Age of Sail (appalling)
* the career of Captain James T. Cook (brilliant)

But somehow it still manages not be a very interesting story. I think the problem is that the author tries to present it as a narrative, and it doesn't make that interesting a narrative because it's a bit like once upon a time there was scurvy, and some people tried to cure it using X, but it didn't work. Then they tried to cure it using Y, but that didn't work either. Then they tried to cure it using Z, and that did work but it was too expensive to use on a daily basis, so they didn't use it. Then England went to war and decided that scurvy really needed to be cured, so they cured it. The end.

I suppose the most interesting thing about that is the notion that governments only bother their arses trying to cure fatal diseases when there's a danger that the national economy and/or security will be compromised because all of the able-bodied men and women who are working/defending the country are dropping like flies.

Hmm, I wonder if there's any comparison to be drawn between this and the HIV/AIDS epidemic? Hmm.

*This year is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.

26: BB bollox, back to books

I've been putting off blogging this book since I came back from holidays, because I'm not really sure how I feel about it or what to say. On the face of it, it's the kind of book I like, because it describes a single life-changing event that takes place on a single day and it goes into huge detail describing that day. On the other hand, it's a book that's described in its blurb as being as much about poetry as prose, which normally makes me Run Away!

Because it's an "arty" type of book, any failing I've spotted could well be intentional. For example, all of the characters in the book live together on the same street and do not have names, so you need to remember them by their descriptions and house numbers. Which is fine when the character is The Boy on the Trike or The Old Couple. But some of the younger characters meld together and it's hard to tell which is which. But maybe that's deliberate. It seems, for a book that's trying to be very realistic in its descriptions, to have a lot of very wacky characters in it. But maybe that's deliberate too. Sometimes the timeline seemed a little muddled to me. But maybe... you get the picture.

Overall though, despite my reluctance to embrace anything which isn't a linear narrative, I enjoyed this book. It is beautifully written, the major characters are interesting and I cared about what happened to them. And sure, what more can you ask for in a modern novel?


Posted Jun. 07 2005, at 7:58 AM

Time to paint my name on my shell...

and climb into my hibernation box. Yes, it's the end of May, and for me that means only one thing. It's been nice knowing you all. See you in August some time.

Original Comments
What the hell happened to 'read more books, watch less telly'?

Queenie

25: Tudor groupies

I don't know why I consider Philippa Gregory to be trashy reading. Maybe it's because she wins awards for romantic fiction. Maybe it's the blurb on the back. But it's probably because her books grab me in a way I've rarely felt since I started reading Stephen King all those years ago. The Other Boleyn Girl is the story of Ann's sister Mary and her affair with Henry VIII, and how she was supplanted in his affections by Ann, and once Ann was gone, if the Boleyn-Howard family could have stuck another woman of theirs under his nose, they would have.

But really it's a book about the special powers and powerlessness of women in that time, and the special freedom and servitude of courtiers, especially courtiers to someone as notoriously capricious as Henry. Gregory gets over very well the idleness, the gossipy flirtations that never went anywhere, the huge sums of money won and lost at cards and games while elsewhere people's livelihoods were being ruined for no reason. She is also great at ramping up the tension in a situation where you already know the outcome, but a part of you is hoping that maybe she'll change history, just this once.

But that's another genre altogether.

24: Slender book

Muriel Spark could sure teach modern novelists a thing or two about the soul of wit. The Girls of Slender Means is only a short book, less than 200 pages, but it contains a whole world, a whole social whirl of World War Two and the Blitz and the freedom that young women were beginning to experience and the constraints there still were upon them and their movements and their expectations for the future.

There is a cosiness and a sisterhood here, as well as sadness, wasted potential, seething jealousy, sexual tension. And there's a huge tragedy in the offing.

Somehow the tragic events that are ominously foreshadowed throughout the book and then revealed at the end are not really necessary to give this snapshot of young women living in a "club" for girls of slender means a doomed aura, but the tragedy is there anyway. It's pretty guessable and slightly disappointing, but the rest of the book is perfectly judged and timed.

23:Set sail for...

It's impossible to talk about Cochrane: Britannia's Sea Wolf without talking about Jack Aubrey as well, so I won't bother taking that approach. And indeed, on the back of the book you are warned to have read your fill of Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forrester before you open this book, for once you look upon the deeds of Lord Thomas Cochrane, all fictions will pale by comparison.

And to an extent (a very large extent), this is true. The things that Cochrane did were truly amazing. He took on and beat French ships twice his size. He took so many prizes on one mission that he had only 23 men left on his own ship, not enough to man a gun crew, and then he took another ship by firing only the bow chasers at her, because her crew reckoned that only a maniac would come after them if he didn't have an enormous crew.

Cochrane was that maniac. A fighter in all things, a scrupulously honest man, he was also a parliamentary reformer and (sadly) a bit of a mentalist. He was an inventor and a man to hold a grudge. He was a man at sea on land, just like Jack Aubrey. In fact, many of the scrapes and escapades that Jack gets entangled in come from Cochrane's life.

But take heart, even if you've read this book and are thinking about reading some Patrick O'Brian. This book isn't funny. There is no choosing the lesser of two weevils here. There's no Stephen, no intrigue, and no real character portraits of any of Cochrane's faithful crew (well, you'd be faithful too if you were taking the kind of prizes these guys were), who surely must have been a huge help in carrying out his lunatic plans.

What there is, though, is an excellent account of the life of an extraordinary man, an interesting overview of the senseless waste and corruption that was rampant in Britain at the time, and some fantastic sea battles to re-enact with your cruet set whenever you have friends over for port.

Contestant number three, you are the weakest link

Rizzo (or Beauty, to give her her real name (big points for that. It's almost as original as Lady)) has gone home to her Mammy who got a new name tag for her and a lecture on brushing her bloody dog.

Original comments:
Hey, I'm pretty sure you read a lot of books while we were away. Where are the reviews, huh?
Posted by watchdog on May. 24 2005, at 2:40 PM Delete

Here's contestant number three

This is Rizzo, or at least that's what we're calling her. We found her wandering around our estate for hours on end yesterday and we took her in while we figure out who owns her.

Three dogs is hard work. I don't know how they made it look so easy on All Creatures Great and Small.

Oh wait, they lived in the telly. That's how.

Phear teh CUTENESS

I didn't intend to turn this into a dog blog, but sometimes it's hard to resist.
Original comments
They look like a lot of fun, except Keith tells about the 5.30 wake up calls
Posted by Caelen on May. 11 2005, at 3:29 PM

That is true. But ahhhh, look. Ahhhhh.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on May. 11 2005, at 4:20 PM
I'm amazed you're in any position to worry about other people being woken up early, Caelen
Posted by Ray on May. 11 2005, at 4:46 PM

22: Less is more

I remarked on I Love Books that I was not enjoying John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure. One response I got said

"If you don't have a big interest in food, France, classic detective fiction, the Ripley books and so on it would probably seem a bit pointless."

I was forced to admit that I had an interest in none of those things, and so I found the book completely boring (hey! Just like I found The Talented Mr. Ripley completely boring!). Once again, if the blurb on the back had been better written, it could have alerted me to this similarity and I would have avoided the book.

The story concerns a gourmand and bon viveur, a man fond of the sound of his own voice (which is very tiresome and littered with French phrases) and his own opinions on the subject of Art, specifically, what is great art? He is envious of his brother, deluded in his view of the world, lazy and shiftless, and generally a thoroughly dislikeable person. Which would be fine, except that I didn't just register his dislikeability, I actively disliked him. Bit of a problem.

I'm not saying this is a bad book. I just, well, didn't like it.

Dog's life

Really, don't you wish you could spend your days like this?

Sheriff Cody

This is Cody, who is a nine-month old retriever/spaniel cross we're fostering at the moment. He's a bundle of fun and he and Milo are getting on really well. Of all the dogs we've fostered, he's the only one (apart from Milo) who I've really fallen for. It will be a wrench to give him up when the time comes.

21: Simon vs. Simon in the search for popular history

Simon Garfield is trying to muscle in Simon Winchester's turf, is he? Simon against Simon? Well, not really. Simon Winchester is more your natural phenomena end of market, while Garfield, with his previous book about the first death on the trains, and now this book about aniline dyes and chemical discoveries, is more of your industrial revolution type.

The thing I liked most about this book, apart from its high I Never Knew That factor, is that it doesn't really have a thesis. It just tells you about the guy who invented mauve, and how important mauve was. And then it tells you about the process he used, and how that process was used to do other really cool stuff. And some other stuff to do with TB, the Nazis, fabric dying, the First World War, and so on. It's well written, the people it features are a pretty engaging bunch, and he doesn't try to shoehorn in a thesis like it's some kind of school project. Unlike some other Simons I could mention.

20: a third of the year gone and only 20 books read

Alexandra Fuller's Scribbling the Cat has all the hallmarks of the second of a two-book deal. The subject is similar, but not identical to the original book that made her name. She appears to have cast about for a suitable subject, and when he comes along, she jumps on him with the force of a hurricane and takes advantage of the fact that he is in love with her to get him to let her write about him. Yes, they are taking advantage of each other. He uses her to boast to, to confess to, to draw some kind of normality from, and she uses him to get her book done. It's not a particularly interesting or enlightening read, and I don't recommend it.
Original comments
The target is fifty, isn't it, so you're well on the way. Anything more than a book a week is a respectable rate.
Posted by Ray (38) on Apr. 23 2005, at 5:34 PM
I was hoping for more like 75 this year.

Why are you number 38?
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Apr. 23 2005, at 8:59 PM
I'm bragging.
But the point really isn't the raw numbers, is it? Its about how you spend your time - if you're watching less telly, but you're not reading as much as you'd like because you also have to walk dogs now, you're still coming out ahead, right?
Posted by Ray on Apr. 23 2005, at 10:33 PM

19: Books: a drink's too wet without one

Percy and Queenie don't like Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down. Queenie objects strongly to the fact that Nicey's wife is referred to as Wifey, while Percy dislikes their twee Englishness and their insistence on treating everything English as better than everything foreign. When the website was the only thing anyone could come up with to counter Percy and Queenie's accusation that the Internet was nothing but an American colony in cyberspace, Queenie and Percy became quite irate. And to a large extent they were right. Perhaps I should have mentioned the BBC websites instead.

For all that the book of Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down has its flaws (not the least of which is that its hardback form requires two hands to hold it, making it a less than ideal book for browsing while you're having said ncot and a sd), it does contain some interesting facts about tea and biscuits and hydrogenated fats and shortening and where biscuits have gone to that we all remembered from when we were young. On the whole, though, its faults outweigh its virtues, really. A small point for some, but for me it's annoying to see them talk about Kimberleys as a peculiarly Irish biscuit which can't be bought anywhere else, while failing to include them in the section on foreign biscuits, because after all, Ireland's not really foreign, is it?

There are some lovely turns of phrase in the book, and an obvious and genuine affection for the national pastime of sitting around drinking tea and eating biscuits. It's a social option that seems to have gone out the window among my peers in the last ten years or so. Time was, when we were poorer, that it was perfectly acceptable to drop round your mate's flat during the day on a Saturday with a packet of chocolate HobNobs and expect to get through a couple of pots of tea before heading home. Now everyone feels they have to either provide lashings of alcohol (which is a pain for me because I'm always driving) or they have to make dinner, which is a pain for them because it involves a lot of work. The best thing about this book is that it reminds you that there are simple and relatively inexpensive pleasures in the world. Shame that this book isn't really one of them.
Posted Apr. 23 2005, at 3:51 PM
Comments (4)
You do realise (the book refers to it quite a bit) that Wifey is Irish and Nicey was raised in Wales? Twee Englishness? I think not..

Percy and Queenie hang their head in shame. They were more going on the annoying Life in the Day article they read in the Observer about Nicey and Wifey than any in depth analysis of the website. Although they had clicked on the website. It must be said thought, that they don't like Badly Drawn Boy either - the musical equivalent of A Nice Sit Down.
Posted by on Apr. 28 2005, at 4:11 PM
Ah, you need a Scottish friend. We have a Scottish friend who scruples not at dropping round and drinking his way through a pot or two of tea, biscuits and all.
Posted by Myles on May. 26 2005, at 12:01 PM
I think I need to live less than 30 miles away from all my friends. Or get to know my neighbours better.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on May. 26 2005, at 9:42 PM

Foster homed

So Tonka, or Pooka as her new family is calling her, has gone to her new home. They have three kids who seem to really like her, and it was quite funny to get a worried phonecall from the mother of the house saying "I don't get it, we gave her some of our lasagne and the kids have been giving her biscuits and now she won't eat her food." Well, duh.

She was a lovely dog, but not the dog for us. The search for Milo's pal continues.
Original comments
any chance that the dog was rescued from the dodder, its just that she looks a lot like mine
Posted by on Apr. 20 2005, at 12:02 PM

18: The Wild Ones

For some reason the title of this book always reminds me of that Suede song.

Anyway, normally I'm not much of a one for memoirs unless the person in question has been in black and white Hollywood films. Then I'm all in favour. But I had heard good things about this book, and couldn't believe that a book so attractive and so well-known had been culled from the bookshop without anyone wanting to buy it. "I bet if I stuck a recommended sticker on that, it would sell" I said to myself. But of course, to recommend it I have to read it first.

Turns out to be a good book. And Alexandra Fuller seems like a very interesting person who has lived an interesting life during dangerous times in volatile countries. And it's good to hear someone describe the day-to-day lives of the white people who wanted to keep Rhodesia white.

Of course there are imperfections and things to dislike. Her adjective-or-adverb-creating hyphenations do get on my nerves after a bit. Just say you were bored! You don't have to say you were leg-swinging bored! And of course there is something deeply unpleasant about the whole idea of calling indigenous people muntus and constantly complaining about them being lazy (this is Fuller's mother, not Fuller herself).

But really the excepts and buts and howevers are pretty small beer in the face of the total package. The books does a fine job of describing both the everyday and the extraordinary in the lives of Fuller's family, and I do heartily recommend it.

Original comments

Never heard of it myself. Is it a recent book? Did Fuller become famous for something else?
Posted by Ray on Apr. 12 2005, at 11:21 AM
It's fairly recent. As far as I know she hasn't become famous for anything else. I'm buggered if I know where I heard of the book. It could well have been on ILB.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Apr. 12 2005, at 11:43 AM

17: Dug by little moles

Normally I am suspicious of adults who read children's books. No, that's not right. It's more that a lot of people I don't really like have tended to drone on and on at me in the past about how great the Lemony Snicket books are, and how much they're looking forward to the new Harry Potter, and how I had a deprived childhood because I never read any Diana Wynne Jones and the contempt I feel for these people sticks to the books and so I can't read them.

Maybe it's a money thing. A lot of my issues are a money thing.

Anyway, Holes by Louis Sachar is not one of those books that privileged kids read. It's not about other worlds, although it has a strong magical realist spine, and it's not about fighting mysterious and powerful enemies heroically, although there are enemies to be fought.

The writing is the kind I love nowadays. It gets the job done, moves the story along, gives you a clear picture of who's doing what and what's happening while leaving you to fill in some of the visual details yourself.

The story concerns Stanley Yelnats, a boy who is in the wrong place at the wrong time and consequently gets sent to Camp Green Lake, which is nothing like a proper camp, has no lake, and is not green. He is told that he has to dig a hole every day, five foot wide by five foot deep and that this will build his character.

And of course it does build his character. The book is all about pecking orders, fate, curses, symbolism, onions, love, making friends, solving mysteries, and it all only takes a couple of hours to read. I liked Stanley enormously. He's neither innocent nor overly cynical - not Oliver or the Dodger - but somewhere in between.

This book is on the Junior Cert English curriculum, and I think that's a good thing. It's the kind of book that, if you like it, can open a whole world of similar but more complicated books to you. It's got a little bit of Marquez in it as well as some Steinbeck and could easily lead you away from children's books altogether without you even realising you're going.

Original Comments

Great book. Sam and I read it on Eoin's recommendation, given that he ignored us for about a day while we were visiting so he could read the book. Well it was probably closer to one evening in Sally's living room, but you know what I mean.

I don't have any problem with reading kid's books. Sturgeon's Law applies and there's as much crap there proportionately as with other lit. Kids' books are just cheaper to buy.
Posted by Myles on Apr. 14 2005, at 9:48 AM
Funny how everyone seems to have taken my remarks about people who read children's books so much to heart. As is always the way with these things, I suspect the people I was actually talking about will take no offence at all.
Posted by perfectlycromulent on Apr. 14 2005, at 9:16 PM

Best Stoner TV ever!

Yesterday Keith and I came across How It's Made on Discovery. It's the greatest stoner telly I've ever seen, and I wasn't even stoned. Each programme is half an hour long, during which time they tell you how four things are made. Yesterday we learned how honey, fibre optic cabling, pasta, and pills are made. If we'd kept watching, we would have found out how to make classical guitars, glass eyes, flat screen televisions and plasters (or something like that).

The fact that it's incredibly cheaply made only adds to its appeal. The production of the object is presented in clear, no nonsense Playschool style steps which lulls you into thinking that making fibre optic cables is no more complicated than making honey. Of course, on mature reflection, making honey might involve getting stung now and again, but making fibre optic cables appears to involve working with highly volatile acids at incredibly high temperatures and then stretching the resulting goo out over a large area and probably being poisoned by fumes. I know which I'd rather.

There is no presenter, so your channel can provide the voiceover in the language of your choice. We were watching the Nice English version. The script says things like "pasta is one of the world's most popular foods, but do you know how it's made?" and "everyone has adhesive bandages on hand for the small accidents of life. But do you know how they're made?" It must be a nightmare to write these little intros for each segment when all you really want to do is say "plasters! They're great!" and get on with it.

The music is great too. It reminded Keith of the videos he had to watch while doing dive training, and it does have the air about it of music that was inserted to cover up the hiss of cheap recording facilities, or to give bored corporate trainees something to laugh about. At least in Playschool they usually had the real sounds of the factory playing. I think. Didn't they?

HEALTH WARNING: Trish and Keith, who are not health experts, recommend this programme as SAFE to watch while stoned. However, we deem it UNSAFE for viewing under the influence of anything particularly heavy or hallucinogenic. You never know when you might settle down to watch some big sheets of pasta dry, and the next thing you're looking at someone painting blood vessels on a glass eye and you can't look at your spaghetti the same way again.

Original comments:
This is my idea of perfect, brain dead, TV. Barbara doesn't mind it either, unlike nearly everything else on the Hilter channel.
Posted by Caelen on Apr. 20 2005, at 10:12 AM
How it's made ROCKS! The only thing better than 'How it's Made' is the reality show 'The Ultimate Fighter'.
Posted by FatStevieB on May. 07 2005, at 3:48 PM

T-O-N-K-Aaaaaay

TONKA!

Albert was out, Tonka was in. She arrived last night and I had to call Ed to come up with a name. "She's a fat corgi" I said. Tonka it is then.

She gets on well with Milo and seems pretty contented so far. Good stuff.

Fastest foster ever

Albert arrrived with us lateish on Thursday night. We were told that he was good with other dogs. Other dogs turned out not to include Milo. He went for him as soon as he came into the house and spent the rest of the evening trying to dominate everyone around him.

He was gone the very next day.

Who needs expensive cat toys...

...when you've got the box the lawnmower came in and the handy strap on the camera?

15:Too much talk, not enough rats

Robert Sullivan's Rats: A Year With New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants promises much in the way of creepy rat-related thrills, as well as promising a history of some of New York's great rat high points, but I felt it failed to deliver on all these promises. Or else maybe my tolerance for rats has grown over the years. I was hoping for more talk about plague and about how rats live and about great rat outbreaks in the city, and I felt I got a little too much of him standing around in an alley with too much time on his hands and not enough rats. I also felt that some of the language likening people to rats was a little much (the scurrying, crowding, spending time in tunnels, living in cramped quarters, eating garbage, etc.) but maybe that's because some previous reader had helpfully highlighted some of these instances for me.

A little disappointing, but still containing some good rat tales (see what I did there?) and it's not a tough read at all.

16:Hercules Hunks and his friend Charlie

couldn't find a picture of this book anywhere. And yes, I know I could scan a picture of the copy I have, but I can't be arsed, see?
CV Wedgwood, as we all know, tramped across all of England and undertook Herculean research into the causes, course, and consequences of the English Civil War. Because everyone else was reading them, I too tried to read her Civil War books, but was not that interested in real history books at the time. However, having read a brief account of Charles I's trial in Virgin Earth (see below), I was interested enough to pick this book up (The Trial of Charles I) from the shop.

It's very interesting. The hilariously named Hercules Hunks was, in fact, a Republican guard tasked with watching Charles during one of his many imprisonments. Charles gave his gold toothpick case away to one of his servants just before he died. It took five days for the news of his death to reach Charles II in Holland, and even then he could only believe what he read in the actual newspapers, because there was so much rumour flying around up until then. This book is chock full of interesting little facts like these, as well as giving an excellent and clear account of how the trial went, and why it went the way it did. I am hooked on Wedgwood's writing style now, and am only sorry (because I am not that interested in reading about Mighty Wars) that she never got around to finishing her book about the English Republic.

Valentine's Day is over

This is Valentine. He's very *shy* and doesn't like having his photo taken, so we weren't able to get any good photos of him. He's a Yorkie who has some trouble with his back legs, but he's a little sweetheart of a dog really.

Poor Valentine was the most scared of all our fosters so far when he came to our house. I think it's because he was with another foster family and not being rescued by us from scary kennels. It took him hours to peel himself away from the front door, and days before he would actually be pleased to see me or Keith when we came into the room. But now he's going back to his other foster home where he can continue the physio on his back leg, and we can continue our search for Milo's best friend ever.

What we have learned from Valentine: Yorkies aren't just little balls of yap. They can be cuddly and they like to run on the beach too.

What Milo has learned from Valentine: small dogs don't like it when bigger dogs step on their heads and pee on them by accident. Also, the side passage of the house leads to the front of the house, so you can bark at your humans when they're around the front of the house as well as around the back (I could have done without Milo learning this, but oh well).

14:Really stretching myself

Wow, a Douglas Coupland followed by an Anne Tyler. I really am pushing my reading to the limits. And The Amateur Marriage feels like a real trudge of an Anne Tyler book, too. It's about families and how they weigh each other down and generate baggage and mess each other up, and all the things that many of her books are about, but somehow this one just seems, well, weighed down and full of baggade and messed up in a way that her earlier books are not.

I suppose it's partly the fact that she strips a lot of the romance out of this book. In a way, it's more real. These people aren't really quirky. They're not lovable and odd with cute careers that no-one has in real life. They don't have funny little mannerisms, but annoying little habits. It's as though, by making her book incredibly real, she has made it incredibly boring. I don't care about these people, and I'm pretty nosey.

13:More bloody god-bothering

After the joy of Hey, Nostradamus, with its bleak outlook on life and total lack of any happy ending, Eleanor Rigby is a return to (for me, at least) Douglas Coupland's annoying, quirky, childish, simplistic view of the world. Oh, if only things could turn up out of the blue to change our lives! Oh, if only we could all believe in God and have love in our hearts! Oh, if only...

He's such a good recorder of people's mannerisms and sayings, such a quick-sketch artist when it comes to pinpointing a mood or a trend, but his plots are ridiculous and his lazy, schmaltzy endings are just too much. The silly scraps of mottoes and supposed visions in this book are like some teenager's dream diary, and I really don't want to read another one of these. Another book about Vancouver, sure. But not this.

12:Time to consult the salmon

Mr. Phillips is not at work today. I don't want to tell you why he's not at work, but you'll find out soon enough.

Instead, he's walking around London meeting different people, calculating the odds against various things happening (Mr. Phillips is an accountant) and thinking about sex. A lot. There is a lot of talk about sex in this book, and talk about closeness without there really being any closeness.

Some reviewers think of this as a slight book, mistaking Mr. Phillips' lack of a rich internal life as a shortcoming of the book, but I can't believe that. I don't know London well, but I was there with him every step of the way. I am not a fiftyish accountant, but I felt like I was looking out of his eyes. A writer this good has not omitted an internal life because he doesn't know what to say, he's left it out because there isn't one. Instead there are calculations and memories of bland conversations, fear of letting other people down, worry about one's family, a whole host of tiny things that go to build up a picture of a complete, if not very exciting, man.

I really enjoyed this book. It's very, very funny. It's a quick read but there's a lot to digest afterwards. Impressive.

Pub Quiz Answers

Here are the answers.

Round 1 -- Fifty!

1. In the song, Lee drops off the key.
2. The film is Sunset Boulevard (of course it is).
3. Peanuts finished in 2000.
4. Paul McCartney released his first solo album in 1970.
5. Tonga was never a colony.
6. Apollo 13 was launched on April 11, 1970.
7. The first published book in that series is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Round 2 -- Films

1. If Moxy Heller's so fucking smart, how come he's so fucking dead?
2. Sex Panther comes from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (or just Anchorman).
3. If first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, and third prize is you're fired, then second prize is a set of steak knives (Glengarry Glen Ross).
4. The classic buddy film is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
5. The Cary Grant protagonist is Mr Blandings, from Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House.
6. The prison scenes for those films were filmed in Kilmainham Gaol.
7. The neat and tidy Meath town is Trim.

Round 3 -- Non-Humans

1. Michael Collins owned a Kerry Blue called Convict 224.
2. The smallest species of penguin is the little penguin. Also called the blue penguin.
3. Bojack Horseman has friends called Princess Carolyn and Mr Peanutbutter.
4. Roquefort cheese is made from sheep's milk.
5. The 9th-century poem Pangur Bán is about a cat.
6. The hirundine family of birds contains swallows, swifts, and martins.
7. A "flutter" is a group of butterflies.

Round 4 -- Byrne Family Mythology

1. The film is Barry Lyndon (which was in Irish cinemas at the same time as Jaws, hence some poor punter's confusion).
2. The Minnesota Vikings wear purple.
3. The Scottish actor was Iain Glen. We were, of course, extremely cool and together about it.
4. We used to get our bread from Spicers, and the press secretary is Sean Spicer.
5. Tommy Tiernan is the comedian in question.
6. The full title is Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
7. Jill Byrne likes Helen Mirren, but she does not like Faye Dunaway.

Round 5 -- Dogs

Those dogs breeds are:

1. Tricoloured border collie
2. Jack Russell terrier
3. Italian spinone
4. Crossbreeds! The best kind of dog!
5. Dandy Dinmont terriers
6. German short-haired pointer
7. Borzoi

Round 6 -- Geography

1. The fictional town is Pawnee, Indiana.
2. Postman Pat and the college from Community are both in Greendale.
3. Oklahoma is the Sooner State.
4. Portugal's highest peak is on Pico, in the Azores.
5. The UK town that has a statue of a Martian tripod is Woking, Surrey.
6. The bright flash in the sky came from Chernobyl.
7. The Irish coffee was invented at Foynes airport in County Limerick. That's where it was invented, that's the place. Not Shannon. Foynes.

Round 7 -- General Knowledge

1. Michael Fassbender swam to New York to apologise.
2. CC stands for carbon copy, even now.
3. Tetris is the second-best-selling paid download game (at time of writing).
4. The Tara Brooch is supposed to have been found on Bettystown beach.
5. The Corrs have been called sticky, shouty, fiddly, and the man.
6. Iron-Eyes Cody was actually Sicilian.
7. Immanuel Kant was a real pissant.

Round 8 -- Fill in the Blanks

1. Lady Gaga was in the 2018 A Star is Born.
2. Henry Cavill took over as Superman in 2016.
3. Johnny Depp played Ichabod Crane in 1999.
4. Little House on the Prairie was published in 1935.
5. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published in 1798.
6. Destiny's Child are Kelly, Michelle, and Beyoncé.
7. Billy Dee Williams was rebooted as Donald Glover.

Round 9 -- Mash-Ups

1. Croke Park Chan-Wook
2. Rio Ferdinand
3. As-Da Da Da
4. Jason Alexander Hamilton
5. Clon-Mel Giedroyc
6. Johnny Logan's Run

Sunshine on Laytown

Freezing cold this morning, yet somehow Lady is managing to struggle through what could be her very last day with us.

I think I am a bit of a rubbish fosterer. I get too attached.

Also the house smells of wet dog now, because Milo's just had his bath. Having been used to the titanic struggle that ensued whenever Layla had to have a bath, I had completely cleared my schedule for the afternoon to allow time to recover, but Milo just stood there and took it like a little trouper.

We won't know the extent of the trauma till the next time, however.

Original comments:
We're thinking of getting dogs when I'm finished on tour. We think we'll get a great big dog like a Bernese Mountain dog and a teeny little one like a Jack Russell. That will be funny!
Posted by Ed on Mar. 07 2005, at 11:14 PM Delete
And will the big one be called Tiny?
Posted by watchdog on Mar. 08 2005, at 3:28 PM Delete
no reckon he's going to be called bert or sid and the little teensy one will be called tarquin or crispin, and have a little bruiser with a posh name running around and a really posh dog with an ordinary name. oh the irony
Posted by on Mar. 08 2005, at 5:44 PM Delete
oops i didn't say who i was
Posted by bunty on Mar. 08 2005, at 5:45 PM Delete
Maybe we should add the ability to change the name after the comment is posted. Hmm.
Posted by watchdog on Mar. 08 2005, at 6:02 PM Delete
Seems a shame we haven't had time to put up any photos of Valentine (crap name, cute dog) yet. Lady is so last week.
Posted by watchdog on Mar. 08 2005, at 6:08 PM Delete,

They never tell you this in Country Life

Caelen said "so this is what life is like in the country", and of course, it is one big round of dog-walking and fun. The great thing about being out here is that when the weather is cold and crap you could be anywhere, but when you've got a sunny morning, like this morning, you can really take the dogs out and let them run their little legs off. They've stopped bickering now, anyway, and are asleep in the kitchen.

The thing they don't tell you is that you're far more likely to get some sort of cold-related skin condition. I've had this terrible dermatitis for the last few weeks. The backs of my hands are red and itchy and sore and the skin is starting to crack on them. This condition has now spread to my legs, specifically the backs of my knees. I've never had anything like this before. The chemist said that he is seeing a lot of this at the moment and it's because it's bloody freezing outside and everyone's got the central heating on, so you're going from cold to hot to cold again. So far, so normal.

The thing is that out here in sunny Laytown we've got two extra factors that exacerbate the condition. One: the wind from the sea has salt in it, which saltblasts your skin. Two: the water is really, really hard here.

The only good thing is that the treatment for this skin condition is Silcock's Base, an aqueous cream that costs €4 for an enormous great tub of it. I'm not sure I'd go putting it on my face, because it is grease city, but it seems to do the trick.

Original comments:
Yes, Big Sam Glendenning suffers from this every year and swears by this stuff. Also that Norwegian hand cream that's in the ad with the norwegian woman who is wearing a wooly jumper and wellies and NO TIGHTS in a rowing boat.
Posted by Lorraine on Mar. 01 2005, at 4:39 PM Delete
I've become very familiar with Sicock's base of late. It's Denali's fav after bath threatment
Posted by Caelen on Mar. 01 2005, at 6:21 PM Delete
It's bloody great stuff. I shall never be without it again, even if I do have dreams about swimming the English Channel when I have it on in bed.
Posted by trish on Mar. 02 2005, at 12:47 PM Delete
Silcock's Base is great. I too have to slather myself in unguents (ooh er missus) in weather like this, or else I get horrible dry cracked skin as well.

If you feel like treating yourself to something more expensive but nice-smelling, Lush do a fancified version called Dream Cream that has various skin-nicening essential oils in it as well. It is lurvely, and doesn't frighten my sensitive skin.
Posted by Lisa on Mar. 08 2005, at 12:03 PM Delete

Stay Lady, Stay

This is Lady. She's staying with us for a while to be a friend for Milo. She could end up staying with us for a very long while, but hopefully her owners can be traced. Someone bothered to have her spayed, quite recently too, and she's a cutie of a dog. She has massive ears and big brown eyes and she likes to run like a loon. She gets that great greyhound face on her when she runs really fast, as if there are several Gs pressing her face into a grin.

For all that I'd love her to stay here, it certainly was easier to manage just one dog, and she could well have an owner out there somewhere pining for her.

Original comments:
She's a very pretty, dog though it's a shame that her tail is docked. She seems very *fond* of milo.
Posted by watchdog on Feb. 28 2005, at 3:01 PM Delete
It's very funny to see the dynamic between them. Lady keeps finding old bits of bone in the back garden from when Ned was here. She brings them inside and chews them and Milo takes them away from her when she's not looking, because they're his toys, even if he never showed any interest in them before she came along.
Although he was very excited this morning to have another dog to run around with, he's now in the mood for his afternoon nap, and she's a bit too perky for him.
Posted by on Feb. 28 2005, at 3:34 PM Delete
So this is what life is like in the country
Posted by caelen on Mar. 01 2005, at 1:38 PM Delete