Current reading matter

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I remember-- from "Horse Nonsense" ---- There are two kinds of people -- those who HUNT-- and those who don't HUNT !
If you HUNT --- you are all right, and can move in civilised Society
If you don't Hunt--- the best thing you can do, is to bend over and let decent people BOOT YOU !
There is a wonderful section on Equine Diseases, with the most improbable sounding complaints, some of which are genuine --- Spavins !
I think John Betjeman must have read this, before writing the poem"Hunter Trials"------------
"And Margaret failed in her paces
Her withers got tied in a noose
So her coronets caught in the traces
And now all her fetlocks are loose "

And the last verse is sheer genius ---- Does anybody remember Thelwell ?
"Oh wasn't it naughty of Smudges ?
Oh Mummy, I'm sick with disgust
She threw me, in fron tof the Judges
And my siily old collarbone's bust !

[Fjgrogan]

Sounds like Caroline's sort of thing.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Sounds like Caroline's sort of thing.

Well, I've never hunted, and it's been years since I got my fetlock caught in anything, but when I'm having an achey breaky sortof day (like today) I do think of the Thelwell cartoon depicting large thighed, joddy clad girl with smoking shotgun under arm telling someone else's mother something along the lines of 'Toby fell at the water jump and Cynthia broke her femur, so .......'

However, I have just finished Parky's autobiography. No great work of literature, but a pleasant read for someone who has enjoyed his interviews over many years. Was a little surprised that a boy from Barnsley would use the word 'taradiddle'.

And, returning to the previous posts, has anyone else read 'The Art of Coarse Sailing'? I think that there was a series of such books: The Art of Coarse Gardening, etc.

xxx

[englishangel]

I am going to comment on a couple of posts here.

My husband is horse racing mad and although he doesn't know 'horses' (he leaves that to our daughter) he knows the lingo, so when he saw the doctor about a pain in his foot and the doctor told him he was spavined he knew exactly what he meant.

And Caroline, we have on our bookshelves "The Art of Coarse Rugby" and "The Art of Coarse Drinking". Naturally, one leads to the other.


Son bought husband "Parky" for his birthday last year and I queued in the bookshop to get it signed "From one Tyke to another". Why should a boy from Barnsley not use "taradiddle"? He is/was a journalist. My husband has a very similar background and his favourite writer at school (and now) was P.G.Wodehouse. He has all his books, and the DVD box set of Jeeves and Wooster.

[J.R.]

'Angels and Demons'.

I'm not overly impressed ! It was recommended to me.

[Fjgrogan]

I much preferred 'Angels and Demons' to ' The Da Vinci Code' which there was so much fuss about because so many people seemed to ignore the fact that it was actually fiction. I did however read each of them almost at a single sitting, because they were both hard to put down, and that doesn't happen to me very often these days!

[kerrensimmonds]

I read each of Dan Brown's books at virtually a 'single sitting', because they were all hard to put down. But they do all follow the same fast-paced formula, with the goodies being almost trapped by the baddies, time and time again, in a short but action packed 24 hours - during which some innocent people die gruesome deaths.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I loved the "Coarse" series --- remember from the "Sailing" he claimed to have been the only sailor who had put his bowsprit through a shop window ! !
and seem to remember that a Coarse Rugby team always consisted of either 12 or 18 --50% of whom were totally unfit --- I played my last game at 40 --- and how true it was !

[J.R.]

'John Christie'.

I got it from the library yesterday. A small and concise book in the 'Crime Archive Series'.

Yes indeed - All about 10 Rillington Place, Timothy Evans and Reginald John Halliday Christie.

Mostly copies of Met Police statements and trial transcripts with a lot of background information regarding the two people concerned. Loads of photo's I hadn't seen before as well !

A real 'Can't put Down' book !

[Vièr Bliu]

I really need to have a sort out of my bookshelves - entropy has set in and various tomes are not where I expect them to be. So far this week I have been unable to lay my hands on my Russian law dictionary (I've been called out by the police twice this week - I was at the police station until 10.40 last night and then had to translate a statement first thing this morning) and "Mapping St Petersburg" by Julie A. Buckler. The law dictionary has now turned up in a random pile among poetry and Late Picasso, while "Mapping St. Petersburg" turned up mockingly in plain view up on the semi-Polish shelf ( I was wanting to read through the section on urban myths in C19th SPb). I also had to rummage for Ruskin's "Seven Lamps of Architecture" which should had been on the architecture shelf (but wasn't). Since I'm trying to get to grips with drafting some commentary for my next book, it was annoying that my volumes of Lebarbenchon's studies of Norman literature had also gone AWOL, but I tracked them down in the office. All of which might suggest that the brow of my current reading matter is resolutely high - but no. I am currently (when I can keep my eyes open) re-reading J.P. Martin's children's classics "Uncle" and "Uncle Cleans Up" which I recently treated myself to (secondhand). I read the Uncle books years and years ago and really enjoyed them and the world of the rich elephant, his fantastic castle and his motley enemies has always stayed with me and it's a mystery why the books have been out of print for so many years - especially with the typically scatty Quentin Blake illustrations. What's interesting coming back to them now is how much I have a certain sympathy with Uncle's enemies, because he is a capricious and pompous plutocrat and the castle probably would be better run as a democratic and liberal city state. The Badfort Gang, though, have no intention of bettering the lives of dwarves, badgers et al - just of getting their hands on Uncle's fortune and spending it on drink. And another interesting thing is the surreal economy of Uncle's world, where prices, costs, payments, rents, wages and incomes all have a dreamlike and disproportionate quality - which also rather applies to the C19th urban myths of Saint Petersburg (and indeed current government spending cuts).

Anyone else have any thoughts on the Uncle books?

[Ajarn Philip]

One for Mrs N the Notorious (if she's not already aware of it) - "From the Land of Green Ghosts" by Pascal Khoo Thwe.

Pascal is a member of the Paduang tribe of Burma (whose women wear a coiled ring around an (eventually) elongated neck) and describes his village childhood in the 70s, his education in a Catholic seminary and then Mandalay University in the early 80s, his involvement with the uprising in the late 80s and a chance (or was it fate?) encounter with a Cambridge don which eventually results in him reading Eng Lit at Caius College.

Fascinating from first to last for anyone with an interest in the SE Asia region (specifically Burma, of course, but there are so many similarities to neighbouring countries), spirituality and anything that reminds us how fortunate we are to have had the opportunities we've had.

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The only other autobiography I have owned concerning someone younger than me was a most thoughtful gift from a good friend. "Gazza" (a second hand copy originally from a WH Smith bargain double sale...) by erm... somebody writing on behalf of Paul Gascoigne (a sophisticated surname for an unsophisticated chap...). It was obviously a joke (although I'm a Spurs fan) and was passed on to another friend in the same spirit. I thought all my friends had a well-developed sense of humour until he thanked me profusely and proceeded to display it prominently on his bookshelf. I'm still not entirely sure who's the bigger joker...


(Incidentally, Neill, the book (not Gazza...) would definitely make an excellent present for Mrs N - published in paperback by Flamingo.)

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Thank you "Teacher" ---- will do !

[Fjgrogan]

Well, I am sorry to all you Gormenghast fans out there, but I have been trying for several weeks now to get my head around 'Titus Groan' and simply cannot seem to get into it. I really do not see the fascination that it seems to hold for others. So tomorrow it will go back to the library and there will remain for ever a gap in my literary knowledge. I also wonder why the library keeps it on Reserve Stock.

[mvgrogan]

so, will you be trynig LOTR next? I have the books and the dvds on my shelf..seen them, not read them! I didget stuck on the first chapter of the hobbit once upin a tome and never got any further!

sorry - typing one-handed with baby wriggling in other hand.

[Fjgrogan]

Sit still, Xander. I just spent ages wondering what a didget was! What a pity you didn't mention that yesterday and you could have slipped something into Grandad's suitcase! Not sure about LOTR - I haven't read them or even seen the films, but it was the sort of 'cult' thing that one ought to know about. I might give it a try!