tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28155984316323301922024-02-19T06:29:07.799+00:00South London BooksMusing about books.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-23632250731360339662018-06-09T12:01:00.003+01:002018-06-09T12:44:55.310+01:00Kitchen Confidential<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018</h2>
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Many words have been written about the passing of Anthony Bourdain, and most of them have been written by those much better placed to comment on his life than me. I didn't work in the restaurant business, didn't eat bun cha with him while President of United States, or have the chance pass the time of day directly with him. All that said, when I spent a lot of time working in the US in the early 21st century he was a Godsend.</div>
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Life on the road can be a lonely business. Temporal dislocation, work, and evenings in anonymous hotels; one discovers how walking out the door and finding somewhere else is important. </div>
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In those days the temptation to dick about with your phone was rather less significant, so as a prop or a guard against having to stare into the middle distance one would carry a book. It meant you were never really alone, and it became habitual to spend time in the bars of the wider DC area getting through an awful lot of reading material.</div>
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The lovely thing about bars in the US is that if you sit at a table you're more or less signalling you're happy to be left alone, whereas should you choose to sit at the bar you're saying conversation with a random stranger is something you're pretty much open to. In this light the book I would be carrying would often be something commented on, and when it was something reasonably obscure conversation would move swiftly on.</div>
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But sometimes reading material would catalyse conversation. My then boss had in passing recommended I had a look at Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential', commenting that his early work was excellent but warning that later material suffered from him starting to believe his own hype; it thus made its way onto my to-be-read pile, into my carry-on, and duly onto a bar in Alexandria, VA.</div>
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And what could have been a typical Brit overseas evening, some passing conversations had, some beer drunk, some unhealthy food eaten turned into something else. It transpired everyone had an opinion about 'Kitchen Confidential', everyone had a favourite bit, everyone had a related restaurant story to tell. The book sat on the bar, no reading progress made, as conversation whirled around involving everyone, including the chef who came out to add his 2c worth.</div>
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The book's great, it does say a lot about the restaurant business, and makes you a better eater and probably a better cook (he told me to use Global knives, and I still do to this day), but mostly for me it was something that turned what could have been another jet-lagged forgettable evening into something else. Anthony Bourdain in one evening in 2002 or 2003 made me less lonely, one can only wish he'd had as good a prop of an evening in a hotel in Strasbourg recently.</div>
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Thank you Anthony, you brought a lot to the world, and you are missed.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-5336562346432580522017-05-29T08:09:00.000+01:002017-05-29T08:09:24.484+01:00To Love is to Bury<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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They say to love is to bury.</div>
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In late 2005 we adopted cats from Battersea. Laphroaig came free, he was ill, had so many issues, and Battersea were just grateful that we were willing to give him somewhere peaceful to eek out his last days.</div>
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His first days with us were a challenge. He was shy, he had issues, but he grew on us. He lurked for a long time on the middle landing, and I’d sit near him as he worked out whether this was a good place for him. It was a slow process, with a very tentative cat, but off the back of this we ended up becoming very good friends.</div>
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Battersea told us that Laphroaig would never be a lap cat. I worked out early on that that wasn’t necessarily the case, and anyone who has sat still in our house and experienced the joy of white fur being liberally distributed will know that Laphroaig liked people. I don’t like the thought that Battersea know nothing about cats, but they didn’t know anything about the ‘Phroaig that came to live wth us.</div>
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An endlessly intrigued, friendly, and charismatic cat, Laphroiaig won over our hearts immediately, and didn’t have to try all that had to make friends more widely. He took various illness best described as old cat syndrome in his stride, and worked with us to find ways of making us sit up and take notice.</div>
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Laphroaig loved so many things. He liked being engaged in whatever you were doing, he liked figuring out what people were eating (and if it was cereal or porridge insisting that he has some too) and most of all he loved being outside in his garden, where he could smell things, inspect what was happening, and periodically chase things in a very gentle way.</div>
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As a friendly cat he touched many people. Comments such as how people were pleased to have had chance to give him a little fuss, how from a distance they could tell he was loved and how he adored all reinforced how he was part of our family.</div>
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Laphroaig died on Friday Morning. My last memory of him was standing on my bed, chatting earnestly to me, wanting to know what I’d been up to. </div>
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I found his remains in his garden. Far beyond the couple of months Battersea thought he would live he was with us for nearly 13 years and he lived into his 20s. He brought a lot of joy to us, he shaped our lives in totally positive ways.</div>
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I miss him. I think I’ll miss him every day.</div>
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So long Laphroaig, you were the best of me</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-22392196816953339842016-04-02T18:42:00.002+01:002016-04-07T13:21:26.493+01:00The Reality of Navarone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"War in the Islands", Adrian Seligman</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have many reasons to be grateful to the Society for Nautical Research and their journal, the <i>Mariner's Mirror</i>, but perhaps the single standout point that still makes me smile is <a href="https://snr.org.uk/assessment-voyage-memoirs-erikson-era/" target="_blank">an article on accounts of sailors during the last days of sailing merchant ships</a>. I read it stood at the bar in Beer Rebellion in Gipsy Hill during the summer of 2014, and exploring its footnotes and references duly acquired many of the works cited; of these Adrian Seligman's <i>The Slope of the Wind</i> stood out as a charismatic tale rich in anecdote and appeal. Let's face it, anyone who responds to the triple whammy of failing exams, being informed by girlfriend that she's marrying someone else, and being threatened by their bank, by running away to sea has got to be a good egg.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seligman's a fascinating character, as you find through his work. His <i>No Stars to Guide </i>is perhaps the most memorable - an account of breaking a Soviet icebreaker out from the Dardenelles to the Levant that could quite easily have been an Eric Ambler novel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>No Stars to Guide</i> asked questions. What was the wider war career of people like Adrian Seligman? What did the sailor enthusiasts sucked into war in the Mediterranean do? In <i>War in the Islands </i>Seligman starts to address this question. Taking a series of interviews with those who served with such delightfully named outfits as the Levant Schooner Squadron, the Greek Sacred Company, and Aegean Raiding Forces he applies his own story telling ability to the accounts of plain lives in extraordinary times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Aegean campaign in the Second World War has always felt like a backwater. If you've read or seen <i>The Guns of Navarone </i>(and really, who hasn't?) or encountered <i>Captain Corelli's Mandolin</i> you'll be familiar enough with the theatre, the heroism, and the tragedy of what went on here between 1940 and 1945. Throughout all of this you can't help escaping the feeling that despite the exertions of brave men and women in caiques and schooners what was done here did little to alter the ultimate outcome of the wider war in Europe. What happens here feels different to what we know of Stalingrad or Normandy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Strangely the remoteness of the conflict humanises it and makes the individual stories told in <i>War in the Islands</i> more powerful and Seligman's gift lies in capturing the emotion and motivation behind the disparate group of people who share their experiences. In this he captures the laconic and modest voices of Paddy Leigh Fermor and Fitzroy Maclean, and provides an account that should appeal to much more than the relatively narrow audience of maritime and military historians.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">As a coda, tracking <i>War in the Islands</i> down was an equally rewarding experience. Navigating the shoals of overpriced second hand volumes eventually a nice looking edition was found at a perfectly reasonable price. Duly purchased and package opened to discover the cheerful dedication from the late Adrian Seligman added an appropriately personal and human note to the work. <i>War in the Islands</i> is a deeply personal work, and in encountering a direct link to history like this makes this a more than usually valued possession.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-27714069253064118042016-03-23T20:02:00.000+00:002016-03-23T20:06:55.021+00:00The Spies of Croydon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Icelight", Aly Monroe</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jun/28/guardianobituaries.past" target="_blank">Melita Norwood</a> of Bexleyheath was exposed as a long time Soviet spy in 1999 there was a sense of mild bemusement that a sleepy piece of London south of the river could be linked to the high politics of the the Cold War. Maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise, Michael Bettaney lived in Coulsdon, and there's no real reason why spies who have little regard for the niceties of sovereignty should eschew territory the other side of the Thames from Whitehall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Aly Monroe's <i>Icelight</i> holds no truck with London's north-south divide. Travelling down the route from Victoria neighbourhoods of Croydon, Carshalton, and Sanderstead are given star billing. For those familiar with the terrain there's a ring of authenticity, with pubs like the Greyhound, the Swan and Sugarloaf, and the Red Deer all still being identifiable today. This might raise the question of whether Monroe backfilled present day locations to make it feel real, but even if this is the case, it's perfectly credible that this would have been the landscape of 1947.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Making perhaps a link with Michael Bettaney, described variously in this <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dvl2z" target="_blank">rather good contemporary BBC News account</a> as a 'solitary bachelor with a tendency to drink', known for 'consorting with homosexuals', and guilty of 'fare dodging', <i>Icelight </i>deals with security service persecution of the gay community and low level organised crime throughout, portraying the period in a suitably bleak light, matching the evocation of a cold winter in the face of continued rationing and economic malaise. Paraphrasing Monroe, this England is a fortress island defended against pleasure rather more effectively than it had been against Hitler's bombs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over the last few years I've had a few encounters with Aly Monroe's writing. I was initially a bit ambivalent of her first, <i><a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/maze-of-cadiz-aly-monroe.html" target="_blank">The Maze of Cadiz</a></i>, finding the character of Peter Cotton a little hard to grasp. Over the years though Cotton's become more engaging, just as reading about has been. 2009's<i> Washington Shadow</i> brought a vein of darkness, and with <i>Icelight</i> there's a distinct amount of steel throughout the character and the narrative. It compels not just with the strong sense of place that's evoked, but with an ambiguous plotline hinting at the richness buried beneath the strictures of late 1940s Britain.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-32936888548405474732016-03-15T23:10:00.001+00:002016-03-15T23:10:30.412+00:00If I Were a Man I'd have a Gun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Girl Waits With Gun", Amy Stewart</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes the tagline 'based on a true story' is all it takes to conjure memories of </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fargo</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> into existence, sometimes however it provides the root of something rather different, if every bit as enjoyable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would be all to easy to describe Amy Stewart's retelling of Constance Kopp's battle with Henry Kauffman as gentle 'cozy crime', an impression perhaps conveyed by <i>The Guardian's</i> endorsement of it as a 'marvellous romp', and on some levels that's exactly what it is. The language encourages you to smile throughout - with characters described as having "all the girlish charm of a boulder" and Constance wistfully describing her aspirations as "All I ever wished for was a good clean job in an office and a salary that would allow me to purchase a cabbage if I wanted one, which I didn't think I would."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However the automobile accident that gives rise to the central path of the novel in fact opens up what is a much richer social commentary on the sexual politics of the early 20th century. Constance's sister Norma opines that self propelled vehicles are a path to lawlessness and social chaos, but in actual fact the cracks in social cohesion are already there in the countryside near New York in 1914, and have been for quite some time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stewart's use of language, while consistently entertaining is still capable of evoking the deeper, more challenging level of women's place in the society of the day. While never explicitly describing the horror of Erik Larson's <i>The Devil in the White City</i> Stewart's sparse language concerning the seduction technique of Singer sewing machine salesmen and the hinted dread of when a young girl is caught on her own by the river by two men lingers with you, and as a male reader unsettles, in a way it probably should.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The triumph of <i>Girl Waits With Gun</i> is that it communicates a powerful social message about female emancipation, 'fallen women', and access to justice all wrapped in plot that draws you in and never preaches. I don't think romp is the right word for this at all - it's something a lot richer and something I suspect will remain with you a lot longer than you expect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I thought for a while about what to title this blog post, considering for a while riffing around the original Swedish for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but ultimately I thought that Constance Kopp, were she in the late 20th century would be a Kristen Hersh or Tanya Donnelly figure, so hat tipping to Throwing Muses and <i>Hook in Her Head </i>from 1991's <i>The Real Ramona</i>, I figure she's transcended needing to be a man to have a gun - and ultimately that's somehow shown to be a good thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Disclosure: A review copy of Girl Waits with Gun was provided by Scribe Books.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-89626789395630184342016-01-20T09:30:00.000+00:002016-01-20T09:30:03.493+00:00Italy Noir<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"The American", Nadia Dalbuono</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Italy's an odd place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's rightly seen as one of the cradles of civilisation, it was a founding member of the European Union, and it's one of the largest economies in the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despite all this Italy maintains a feel and reputation of somewhere a lot grittier. Perhaps it's the legacy of the extreme left and right wing politics of the 20th century, what we could see as long shadow of 'the mafia', and the overall ramshackle nature of their companies and politics, but Italy feels profoundly different to much of the rest of established Europe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm minded of talking to an Italian friend after rashly purchasing a used (but still over specified) La Pavoni espresso machine a few years ago; he encouraged me to look after it, because along with the Vespa scooter and the original Fiat 500 it summed up what good Italian engineering was, and properly maintained would persist long after Italy had collapsed under its own contradictions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's something you can feel on the ground. Working with the technology companies of Bologna and Modena they will sigh if you say need an NDA signed - that will involve getting 'corporate' involved, and thus nothing will happen. Driving through the dramatic hills on the Umbrian-Tuscan border north of Lake Trasimene you periodically catch glimpses on side roads of exotically garbed women on plastic chairs, familiar perhaps outside Naples or Brindisi, but surprising on the edge of Chiantishire. It should be no surprise that Italy provided a fertile ground for Dibdin, Hewson, and Leon, so in this light is there scope for something new?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nadia Dalbuono's first Leone Scamarcio novel, 2014's <i>The Few</i>, introduced the suitably complicated Leone Scamarcio and insight into seamy underbelly of Italy. Fusing a sprawling political sex scandal into the rich backdrop of Rome, the Mezzogiorno, and Italy's strange continuing predilection for prison islands it delivered an accomplished police procedural that kept attention throughout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scamarcio's return deftly avoids the 'difficult second album' challenge, taking promising raw materials found in <i>The Few</i> and refining it into what is a highly polished political crime thriller. Linking the death of Roberto Calvi, the dark days of Italy in the 1970s and 1980s with the confrontation between the Red Brigades and the Italian far right, <i>The American</i> is reminiscent of Frankenheimer's <a href="https://youtu.be/1TIbmB0hY7k" target="_blank"><i>Year of the Gun</i></a>. It's full of moral ambiguity, shifting loyalties and definitions of truth, and shadowy arbiters of power, and where at times it teeters on the brink of sounding like "all that conspiracy crap you find on the internet" it remains critically just exactly on the right side of the line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In exploring the complexities of Cold War Italy, with the Red Brigades, Gladio, and the P2 Masonic Lodge Dalbuono posits how the long tail of the 2008 financial crisis and externally imposed austerity could return Italy to the darkness of 1978 or 1982. This is not however what makes <i>The American</i> a great read. What is most satisfying is how Scamarcio emerges as a compromised, ambiguous, flawed yet charismatic character. The interaction between the cop who wants to be clean, the crumbling edifice of the Italian state, organised crime's long memory, and the stirring influence of international intrigue makes for an absorbing read - and the fact that come the ending perhaps more questions than answers are involved leaves you wanting more - and isn't that always a good thing?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Interest piqued? As part of the blog tour accompanying the launch of <i>The American</i> Scribe Books have made an excerpt available, which <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.com/2016/01/nadia-dalbuono-excerpt-from-american.html" target="_blank">you can see here</a>. On that note, do please have look at the next stop on the blog tour for <i>The American</i>, over at <a href="https://litlove.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Tales from the Reading Room</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Disclosure: review copies of The Few and The American were provided by Scribe Books. The used La Pavoni has been properly maintained and is still making fantastic espresso every morning.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-42649413048222779042016-01-20T09:29:00.000+00:002016-01-20T09:29:01.845+00:00Nadia Dalbuono, an excerpt from "The American" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An excerpt from Nadia Dalbuono's <i>The American.</i></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Scamarcio left the boss’s office, he found the desk sergeant waiting for him in the entrance to the squad room. ‘You’ve got visitors,’ he said.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He was holding open the swing doors for two tall strangers in dark suits. They both wore silver Aviator sunglasses, and their hair was cropped militarily short. Scamarcio’s instinctive assessment was that they were secret service, and probably the Anglo-Saxon variety — English or American.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He walked over to shake their hands, and motioned them to his desk. There was only one spare chair, so he pulled out another from a neighbouring table. The strangers’ arrival was stirring interest among his colleagues, who also knew a spook when they saw one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He had expected the two men to remove their sunglasses when they sat down, but for some reason they chose to keep them on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘English OK?’ said the one on the left, who had blond hair and deeply pitted skin. The accent was American, but Scamarcio couldn’t pin it to a region.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘Sure,’ he said, wondering if they already knew that he had spent time in the States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The one on his right crossed his legs, and Scamarcio spotted a gun strapped to an ankle holster. It looked like a Beretta 92 — maybe their standard issue, if they had one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘The body you found under the bridge this morning ...’ continued the man on the left.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘What about it?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘He’s one of ours.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘A colleague?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘No — a suspect.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘You’re fast workers. I only sent the photo to our liaison a few minutes ago.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The stranger didn’t offer an explanation, so Scamarcio asked, ‘What agency are you from? Do you have cards?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘We’re US authorities.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘That doesn’t tell me much.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘That’s all you need to know.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That settled it. He would give them the bare minimum, nothing more. They were about to piss all over the place — to mark out their territory, as usual.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pitted skin continued. ‘The guy you pulled out from under that bridge was a fraudster, responsible for manufacturing millions in counterfeit dollars. It was a major op. We’d been on his tail for some time, but it was only recently that he came to realise it. When he sensed that his time was up, he decided to end his life.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘Why come all the way to Rome?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘He had family here. We think he wanted to say his goodbyes.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘This fraudster have a name?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘It’s need-to-know.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘I need to know.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘We don’t share that assessment.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scamarcio took a breath, and bit down on a pencil. He tasted lead in his mouth, and wished he could wash it away, but he didn’t want to get up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘Listen, Detective, we’re just trying to do you a favour. We know you flying squad guys have your hands full, so we wanted to spare you the legwork and take this one off your slate. We’ll supply you with all the relevant paperwork so you can dot your I’s, cross your Italian T’s. No point breaking a sweat when someone is happy to clean up for you.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scamarcio said nothing for a few moments. ‘You know it’s not that simple. This happened on Italian soil, so I’m obliged to investigate.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘You’re not listening, Detective,’ said the guy on the right, whose southern lilt was deep and smooth like a Louisiana whisky. Although his eyes weren’t visible, his terracotta tan and perfect white smile seemed to suggest that he was much better looking than his colleague. ‘All we’re saying is that we can help you sew up your case nice and tight in time for you to head out to the coast for the weekend. You guys still go to the beach in October? — seems warm enough to me.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scamarcio said nothing. He wasn’t going to be their foreign stooge they could squeeze any which way they wanted. ‘What paperwork do you have?’ he asked eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘It will be on your desk by close of play tomorrow, and then you can head down to Amalfi for a nice bit of R and R. That’s what I’d do in your position. Really I would.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The southerner’s words sounded less like a suggestion and more like a threat this time.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Disclosure: review copies of The Few and The American were provided by Scribe Books. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">See my thoughts on <i>The American</i> <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.com/2016/01/italy-noir.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-85524140127629469532016-01-16T23:35:00.001+00:002016-01-17T23:53:50.471+00:00Doing wine the biodynamic way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Chateau Monty", Monty Waldin</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes a happy accident is just that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My mother will tell you, and indeed anyone who'll listen, that she struggles with Christmas presents, that she never knows what to get someone, but she does sometimes try, and sometimes she gets it very very right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've told my mother about helping a friend with their vine harvest, I've introduced her to more adventurous wine than she's likely to find in M&S, and she's even come to Brockley Market and met the magnificent people at <a href="http://www.latypiquewines.com/" target="_blank">L'Atypique</a>. So she got into her head that wine is something I'm enthusiastic about, and that I'll like the biography of an English bloke trying to make wine in South Western France.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's no surprise here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She's Right. I probably will enjoy it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Initial trepidation that this might be a somewhat sub Year in Provence account of a bumbling rosbif flailing around with the idiosyncrasies of French life are rapidly laid to rest. <i>Chateau Monty</i> is an engaging account of setting up and running a biodynamic vineyard, mixing the homely anecdotes of life in south west France with matter of fact details of what making wine biodynamically involves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Biodynamics? Well yes, I suppose that does need a bit of explanation. It involves taking </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">principles linking growth with elemental 'forces' connected with the orientation of celestial bodies and energies that can be captured and returned to the soil to help growth. There are times when it comes across as nine parts bollocks. The notion that horn manure is powerful because a cow generates more energy than can be used in its existence, thus it all gets stored in its horn, which can then be transferred to manure stuffed in it and then buried might stretch some people's credibility.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-bkVTzZvC0D5kBb6wGzSSTv-g70XwFZD6dgl9t5NDGy4WmdTFJs4gHKf-lTUhYSMyASuwNKbSftVZ48weoWeHe9dVJiVXPgruvt8o7VYoGQaPvLYgORwTjlJ31eIEZRvu-hJQvq40juk/s1600/IMG_20151231_171748.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-bkVTzZvC0D5kBb6wGzSSTv-g70XwFZD6dgl9t5NDGy4WmdTFJs4gHKf-lTUhYSMyASuwNKbSftVZ48weoWeHe9dVJiVXPgruvt8o7VYoGQaPvLYgORwTjlJ31eIEZRvu-hJQvq40juk/s320/IMG_20151231_171748.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A natural wine, albeit not from Monty Waldin's vineyard.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaving aside the skepticism and applying some empirical observation though and there might be something to it. Natural and biodynamic wines can be absolutely fantastic (disclosure, I'm having one now - a marvellous Angevin red from Domaine Mosse) so maybe we should pay attention. There's also something engaging about the way Waldin evangelises about it that makes you want to experiment and see how things might work - after all it doesn't do any harm to plant according to a biodynamic calendar and pay a bit more attention to what sort of chemicals you're sloshing around. If <i>Chateau Monty</i> encourages you to be a bit more creative about what you do with your garden or any piece of land you work, or maybe more realistically drives you to try something slightly more adventurous wine wise than standard supermarket fare then it'll certainly justify the read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amusingly I let my vineyard owning friends know that I was reading <i>Chateau Monty</i>. They laughed and said they'd read it too. They'd enjoyed it, found it useful in the context of how they were thinking about wine, and it helped convince them that they could set up a vineyard of their own. They've now got a magnificent vineyard in Kent, and as <a href="http://woodchurchwine.co.uk/" target="_blank">Woodchurch Wine</a> produce a very good English sparkling wine. For this alone we all should be grateful to <i>Chateau Monty.</i></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vines inspired by <i>Chateau Monty</i> at Woodchurch Wine.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My response to <i>Chateau Monty</i> hasn't been quite as extreme. I've not decided to jack it all in and start a vineyard, but I have thought about burying a cow horn filled with manure on the allotment and seeing what happens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What harm could come from that?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-60511996155049578132015-12-31T22:31:00.001+00:002016-01-01T20:38:57.698+00:00The Last Spike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Rails across Canada: A Pictorial Journey from Coast to Coast", David Cable</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite sharing a telephone dialing code with its more populous neighbour to the south, one area where Canada can hold its head up with a certain level of distinctive identity is in its transcontinental railroad. Just as impressive an achievement as the American drive from sea to shining sea, the twin railroads of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific span the continental lands mass covering over 30,000 route miles of track.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Culturally there's something very resonant about Canada's railways - perhaps it's because in the great north there's more isolation and the railroad provides one of the tenuous filaments connecting elements of civilisation in the opens wastes together. From the iconic image of Donald Alexander Smith hammering home 'the last spike' at Craigellachie in 1885, through E J Pratt's epic similarly titled narrative poem, to the Cowboy Junkies and their spectacularly melancholy ninth track from 1992's "Black Eyed Man". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those looking for a documentary history of the birth of Canada's railways, or indeed an insight into the nature of today's rail system, will not find this in Cable's "Rails across Canada", for this they would be better to start elsewhere, perhaps with Berton's two volumes on the system's origins ("The National Dream" and "The Last Spike"), but as context there is some real value to be had here. In just over 200 pages of photography taken over the course of several journeys across Canada Cable documents the reality of Canadian railways, showing the scale of engineering, the topography dealt with, and the reality that much as in the United States railways in this part of North America are enjoying a renaissance - just one that is comparatively invisible as it is one executed with passengers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a book of few words, but still one that rewards leafing through, discovering Cable's engagement with Canadian railroads and getting a feel for trains draw such a vast country together. It's enough to inspire you at some stage to devote the time to riding the three day journey across the continent, but equally makes you think about the run of the mill elements that through freight stitch the continent together. Can one still dream of hitching a ride on the longest train you ever saw? </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-36873810432685581842015-12-10T23:40:00.002+00:002015-12-11T09:43:14.025+00:00Strange Things Happen at Sea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Death of a Supertanker", Anthony Trew</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For all the efforts of the UK Hydrographic Office and its international peers, the oceans are still uncharted spaces. The rules of normality become suspended and distorted; what is transgressive ashore becomes accepted when out of sight of land. History is littered with such incidents, running through Tudor Piracy, the Russians firing on the Gamecock Fleet in 1905, and countless Cold War encounters. Much of the traditional narrative on this circulates on the high politics of state, but scratch beneath the surface and there is a strand of stories equally rich and somehow more accessible when you look to merchant shipping. As the likes of Rose George point out, the loss of a commercial airliner will be guaranteed to seize the headlines, the disappearance of a merchant ship, unless it comes to grief in sight of land, will often go unreported and uncommented.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anthony Trew (1906-1996), novelist and former South African Naval Officer, first came to me in the 1980s with <i>The Antonov Project</i>, a classic Cold War conspiracy pot boiler which sadly has not aged quite as well as might have been hoped. By contrast <i>Death of a Supertanker</i> resonates of a maritime world more recently exposed to us by the aforementioned Rose George and Horatio Clare in <i>Deep Sea and Foreign Going</i> and <i>Down to the Sea in Ships</i>. <i>Death of a Supertanker </i>brings us directly into a world described in Noel Moster's <i>Supership</i>, and exposes the level to which ships cease to become the emotional engagements that they were in the classic era described by Alan Villiers and Adrian Selgimann, and become financial instruments, there to serve base levels of profit and loss, and where consigning a ship to layup is nothing out of the ordinary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Very much of its time, with a layer of casual sexism, and a reflection of the geopolitical world of the late 1970s <i>Death of a Supertanker</i> is distinctly a period piece, but usefully represents a period where shipping eras overlapped. Simultaneously this was a period when crews could still repair to a bar before dinner but there was the looming prospect of 36 hours loading in the Gulf before a turnaround and another 6 weeks voyage back to Rotterdam. The halcyon days of the supertankers, perhaps best typified by the French Shell vessels <i>Batillus or Bellamya </i>are evoked here, but so too is the long tanker slump, and the prospect of layup and redundancy, ships riding forlorn in Scottish lochs and Norwegian fjords.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a certain poignancy to this too. Many seafarers dream of managing to make the leap back ashore. As <i>Death of a Supertanker </i>closes one of the officer's secures what to him is a plum job - a loading master in Abadan, Iran. With the benefit of hindsight that the passage of time grants us one can't help wondering if that was the smartest move for him...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At its heart <i>Death of a Supertanker</i> is about maritime economics and the shady criminality that can exist at its boundaries. Decisions taken in small anonymous Swiss headquarters impact on the lives of the ordinary sailors aboard the <i>Ocean Mammoth</i>, and while it may frustrate the reader that at this level there are many hanging threads regarding whether or not the fraud leading to the loss of the supertanker pays off or indeed really how it all took place, in many ways this reflects the shadowy nature of the industry, and contributes to a feeling of realism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Would all this appeal to someone not au fait with how shipping works? The truth is I suspect it might not. <i>Death of a Supertanker</i> is an ambiguous novel and there's a lack of certainty to it throughout, indeed I challenge anyone to be able to say conclusively really what the narrative chain of events described should be. Don't come to it looking for a parcelled up self contained novel - for this maybe Justin Scott's <i>The Shipkiller</i> might be a better bet, but instead use it as an insight into seafaring life in the 1970s, and one which still resonates.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-13793943908805004972015-11-22T22:41:00.001+00:002018-06-09T12:48:10.665+01:00Four Kinds of Fish<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Day of Atonement", Jay Rayner</span></h2>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSxntxE1x8XrJDuKHw1rCB_bg-zzPcZSLnYIhH2Vg6TNP9bxU6XrtD1yMQ-JwaxRCXeOlYyexIKUf7Dy57mwxj2qb8xp1xK7Jtc-8h-pjyfqoN_l0h2kMFBBeRB7ShkPKNEPAPC4kOqc/s1600/day+of+atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSxntxE1x8XrJDuKHw1rCB_bg-zzPcZSLnYIhH2Vg6TNP9bxU6XrtD1yMQ-JwaxRCXeOlYyexIKUf7Dy57mwxj2qb8xp1xK7Jtc-8h-pjyfqoN_l0h2kMFBBeRB7ShkPKNEPAPC4kOqc/s200/day+of+atonement.png" width="128" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are times when you end up with a novel that confounds expectations. Tempted by a free promotion on it for Yom Kippur, Jay Rayner's <i>Day of Atonement</i> has been sitting on my phone for a while, and when, stuck for something to read on the tube, it was opened, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The last cookery novel I can recall reading (and I'm sure there's been something since) was going through Anthony Bourdain's <i>Bone in the Throat</i> and <i>Gone Bamboo</i>, which managed to be simultaneously entertaining and depressingly dark, so in terms of expectation management Rayner's <i>Day of Atonement</i> has a bit of baggage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Starting with an elderly ex con on the contemporary Kent coast there's an initial feeling that we might be in Bourdain territory, but that's soon stripped away and we've got an engaging wide ranging rites of passage cultural narrative of London Jewish entrepreneurs through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. There's a rich sense of place and culture with the distinctive argot of London's Jewish community richly captured combining veracity and an ability to make you smile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Deep down <i>Day of Atonement</i> isn't really a crime novel, but it's not one where the expected deeply bad things happen. Somehow while there are where you suspect it might be about to turn all a little bit Goodfellas it doesn't. People don't end up necessarily in a shallow grave, and a level of cocaine dependency in the 1970s shouldn't really come as a huge surprise to anyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So <i>Day of Atonement</i> was free, so I can't even ask a question of whether even as a discount purchase, was it worth it? But there is a more sophisticated question revolving around whether it rewarded my time and here happily things can be a lot more conclusive: of course it was. Mal and Solly become characters whose stories compel as they move from adolescence to old age, and while it is at heart a morality play, there is a sense of predominantly reasonable wholesome fun (even including Judy the Blow Job Queen) that suffuses the novel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And yes, it does make clear that the epitome of a good and lavish party is making sure that you don't just have three, but four fishes served. This is probably a life lesson for all of us, gentile or otherwise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jay Rayner <a href="http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/144626/jay-rayner-novel-took-me-surprise" target="_blank">makes it clear</a> that this is a pre 9/11 novel, a product thus of the very short 21st century where there was a window to see the world through something of a different lens, which gives Day of Atonement it's particular flavour. Try it, I think it's one you might relish, a little like chicken soup.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-54479186907647838652015-11-14T16:37:00.002+00:002015-11-22T21:56:19.251+00:00Got wood?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way", Lars Mytting</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Autumn took a while to get going this year. Barely a week ago we were talking about how unseasonably mild it was. That said there have been a few times when November dampness creeps into the bones, and there's nothing quite like a wood fire to sort that out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course now we're properly into blustery autumn, and I'm eyeing up my woodpile, wondering how far through the winter it'll get me, and very grateful for the wood stove in the sitting room (a Charnwood C4 for those interested in such details).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Into this environment comes <i>Norwegian Wood</i>. Not a track by the Beatles, nor a Haruki Murakami novel, but instead a beautifully produced tome on, you guessed it, Norwegian wood. As a country Norway does winter rather more profoundly than the UK - that's geography for you I guess - so it's maybe understandable that their approach to chopping and burning wood is a little more thoughtful. Not for them the indifferent net of soggy logs procured from the petrol station - in Scandinavia it's a process that involves taking a long view, something to go with aquavit and lutefisk to help you through the long dark winter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is something that suffuses <i>Norwegian Wood</i>. It's not the sort of work that you can read linearly, instead it rewards dipping into, grasping an element of wood lore that you can apply to your own wood piles and fires, and through this gain an insight to the accompanying cultural context.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Looking at this way <i>Norwegian Wood</i> is a genuinely useful book. To take one example, people have long told me that contrary to popular wisdom of starting with paper, layering kindling on top, and then some small logs, really you should set a fire using a top down approach. Nothing about this seemed to make sense - heat rises right? So surely starting from the top is counter intuitive and flying in the face of reason? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Norwegian Wood</i> in a matter of fact way explains things. Put a bed of logs on the bottom of your stove, then build paper and kindling on top, this will generate enough heat to help the bigger logs to start to smoulder, and their gasses, rising up, will then combust as they meet the flames from the kindling - simples. It means the process of lighting the fire is less a case of earnestly monitoring it, adding carefully selected pieces of wood, and more a matter of lighting it and letting it run. It's a small thing, but makes a difference.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's <i>Norwegian Wood</i> in a nutshell. It's a combination of small things that can make your experience with a log fire inherently more enjoyable. It's probably not something to have as your train book, nor necessarily one for bedtime, but there's an argument to be made that having it around where you can pick it up as you go about your day will improve your life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Disclosure: a review copy of this book was supplied by Maclehose Pres.</i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-1957551512561688332015-09-13T23:29:00.001+01:002015-09-13T23:42:09.829+01:00Larsson exhumed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Girl in the Spider's Web", David Lagercrantz</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a theory out there that says you should never go back, and trying to find something that all evidence suggests is gone is always going to be a fool's errand. Most of the time I apply this sort of thinking to revisiting authors from my formative years, but the same point could be made about publishers going back to deceased authors and having a bash at resurrecting them. I can see why they do it, I can see why people are keen on reading them, and I'm also aware it often ends being a little unsatisfactory. Even when it's a talented author revising a mostly finished manuscript there's <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/abducting-general-kreipe-operation-and.html" target="_blank">something lacking in the resulting book</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So how do I feel about David Lagercrantz picking up Stieg Larsson's mantle? I loved the original trilogy, warts and all, and there was a certain excitement about the arrival of the posthumous fourth. The largely positive reviews in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/27/the-girl-in-the-spiders-web-david-lagercrantz-review-millennium-series-late-stieg-larsson" target="_blank">Guardian</a> and <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-man-with-the-reputation-to-live-up-to-lisbeth-salander-s-new-writer-1.2339009" target="_blank">Irish Times</a> helped, and realistically, this was always going to be a book I was going to buy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And you know what? It seems genuinely pretty good. Lagercrantz captures Larsson's voice effectively, the universe is familiar, and the familiar characters are there, like long lost old friends coming back, welcoming in you in despite all the years that have passed. There are some other promising points, <i>The Girl in the Spider's Web</i> isn't a sprawling vast tome stretching the bounds of what can be printed, instead it's a slimmer more focused volume, which raises the prospect of a tighter narrative. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So does it really work?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a train and bedtime companion for the last few days, and happy long morning saw it finished today, and while I want to write that I'm a touch ambivalent about the book I'm conscious this is selling it undeservedly short. There's the familiar Larsson sprawling plotline ranging across media, politics, and Swedish society, there are the linkages to the deep Salander family storyline, and a topical information age conspiracy to deal with. All of this feels like familiar Larsson territory, but here's where somehow the conciseness of <i>The Girl in the Spider's Web</i> ends up falling a little short. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel is relatively short, but attempts the sort of wide ranging plot lines we had in the first three books, and ultimately there's not the real estate there to do them justice. I often think big doorstep volumes, much like the latter Larssons threatened to be, would benefit most from a strenuous edit, but intriguingly this too feels like it should be a fundamentally better sorted book. The end feels syncopated, and while most hanging threads are tied off, there's a level to which you feel that had Larsson had his hands on this they would have been dealt with in a touch more detail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But let's not carp. <i>The Girl in the Spider's Web</i> is still ultimately a well paced engaging thriller that ticks all the boxes when you're looking a Scandinavian crime thriller. We can't bring Stieg Larsson back, but if you, like me, have a hankering to know how the Millennium sage evolves, seeing subsequent volumes like this will give us something honestly fine to think about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to paraphrase the Guardian here, but if you didn't like the previous Larsson books this won't change your mind, but if you did you'll probably enjoy this. It's not high literature, and nor is it quite on the level of first encountering <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i>, but it kept me engaged and warranted it's space in my backpack though my daily commute. It's flawed, but I'm pleased it exists, and I'm pretty sure I really want to see the series continue.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-24699572790945316932015-08-31T23:12:00.001+01:002015-08-31T23:12:17.270+01:00Crusaders and Tigersharks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At some point in my impressionable youth I came across Barrett Tillman's <i>On Yankee Station</i>, a simultaneously accessible and authoritative account of US naval aviation during the Vietnam War. Following on from that I read his <i>MiG Master,</i> a study of the Vought F-8 Crusader, an undeservedly forgotten carrier aircraft, and enjoyed it too. I reacquainted myself with both in my 1990s flirtation with academia but otherwise Tillman ended up filed in the recesses of my mind, probably resurfaceable with a bit of context, but otherwise one for the past.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sparked a little bit by Singer and Cole's <i>Ghost Fleet</i>, I've nosed around such things as Command: Modern air and Naval Operations, musing that perhaps as a non existent summer segues into autumn maybe some time spent in front of a PC recreating sundry old Harpoon like scenarios might be mildly diverting. Connected with that a dig through their archive surfaced a mention of a <a href="http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_030.pdf" target="_blank">Barrett Tillman work of fiction, <i>Warriors</i></a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Long out of print, <i>Warriors</i> is still relatively easy to track down for not very much, and it's worth a look. Techno thrillers suffered with the end of the Cold War, and the story arc of Warriors was rapidly overtaken in period by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm ushering in the short 21st Century, but the passage of time serves to unearth some of the inherent value to narratives like this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Positing a scenario whereby in 1990 Saudi Arabia takes an unorthodox approach creating a parallel air force trained by Western pilots and equipped with the in real life stillborn <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-20_Tigershark" target="_blank">Northrop F-20 Tigershark</a> and becomes enmeshed in a sprawling recapitulation of the Yom Kippur war </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Warriors</i> is unusual (very much so for its time) in taking an ambivalent view towards the role of Israel in the Middle East. It's a stance which did not make the novel popular in some quarters at its time of release, but viewed from a perspective 25 years after its publication you can see its point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Warriors</i> is capable of surprising; where initially it feels like a typical late Cold War military thriller with female characters spatchcocked in as an afterthought, the plot is more well rounded and nuanced than first impression suggest. It's unflinching in its approach to mortality, and much in the vein of Bob Forrest-Webb's <i>Chieftains</i> is not a novel which rewards those who become attached to core figures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The description of an evolving Middle East and a pan-Arab consensus against Israel rings hollow in an era of Islam's great war of religion and the rise of Islamic State, but the notion of a fragile Saudi monarchy, an interventionist Iran moving beyond the shadow of Khomeini, and a <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4696268,00.html" target="_blank">Russia increasingly enmeshed in shaping the region</a>, does indicate that maybe there are aspects we can still learn from, despite the manifest changes the world has seen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do we now read 1980s works of this manner in the same way we read pre WW1 war scare fiction? I don't think we do - and if we're being realistic in the same way as the literature of the early 20th century had its ups and downs there's a lot of fairly forgettable material that rode in on the wake of Clancy and his peers. <i>Warriors</i> is not high literature, but when dealing what Tillman knows best it's well written, thought provoking, and keeps you interested throughout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Worth the investment, and more than that, worth reminding me that Barrett Tillman has written some fine books about aviation.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-55849909196979615962015-08-13T23:33:00.000+01:002015-08-13T23:33:14.197+01:00The Iconic James Bond<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a Thursday night, I've come home interested in something burbling in the background, and lo and behold in the outer regions of things satellite there's a Bond film to be found. It's For Your Eyes Only, it took me a while to figure out the name, and I figured that it's not quite a proper Bond film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">James Bond's interesting. I grew up somewhere in the 1970s or 80s (boundaries are vague) and so the Roger Moore era of high kitsch was introduced to me as somehow serious spy fiction. The formative me viewed Moonraker dispassionately, thinking that chemical weapon labs in Venice, transhipment hubs in Rio, and hidden launch platforms in the Amazon were perfectly feasible (<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=V08f6BdNoC0C&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">and who says they're not?</a>). That small me had no problem when a couple of years later I read the original Fleming and discovered that he didn't have hijacked space shuttles, cable cars, or space marines in the book at all, and really it was much more about the s<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Energy-archaeology-explosives-manufacture/dp/1850747180" target="_blank">outh coast of England and the mundanity of the nascent British space programme</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a theme the lovely Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club guys explored with <a href="http://riddleofthesands.net/wordpress/2015/08/10/a-sort-of-inn-where-they-were-drinking-pink-gin/" target="_blank">Pink Gin and the Man with the Golden Gun</a> a while back, but it's worth disconnecting Fleming's books from the film cannon. The films are escapism, and they reflect the mores of their time; this means they sometimes date a little, showing how society has accepted and sometime celebrated less savoury approaches towards women and displayed unfortunate ethnographic stereotypes. So, when this evening I described "For Your Eyes Only" as somehow not resonating as Bond film what was I thinking?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vague relative <a href="https://twitter.com/seafrontpage" target="_blank">@SeafrontPages</a> suggested it was something to do with the uncertainty of the Thatcher era and a Sheena Easton soundtrack. He's probably got a point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Colleague <a href="https://twitter.com/unfortunatalie" target="_blank">@unfortunatalie</a> asked if it was because there wasn't quite enough misogyny in it? She may also have a point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth is probably somewhere else though. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: right;">Bonds should have an iconic location?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FYEO has the whole Greek monastery scene</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bonds should have a massive plot?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, when they captured the Ambler vibe in Casino Royale (Craig) they worked impeccably</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bonds should be more misogynistic?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Skyfall is maybe the most challenging here in terms of exploitation, FYEO is way more accommodating</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why not remember For Your Eye's Only? Maybe because inherently it's just an okay film. It's not outright bad like the later Dalton or Brosnan works, yet not as good as high points of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, From Russia With Love, or The Spy Who Loved Me, and as such we forget about it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe it's time to go back and read some Fleming and see if there's something to be found.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-38227307690901403202015-08-03T11:42:00.000+01:002015-08-13T23:48:24.364+01:00Neuromancer meets Red Storm Rising<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PG9QbP-ZJODxj5kcRbkcDK8W30HPjmTdYH5KNECgkz4eFjcrnVaJCnqCEj_-S8WycD-6z_v0PrqTNg0fwkvey5ypniA8-lq1Tl_SCy6kPW3lakxFyhLX0AAElXkiw7bGmm2wR5vdlgk/s1600/Ghost+Fleet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PG9QbP-ZJODxj5kcRbkcDK8W30HPjmTdYH5KNECgkz4eFjcrnVaJCnqCEj_-S8WycD-6z_v0PrqTNg0fwkvey5ypniA8-lq1Tl_SCy6kPW3lakxFyhLX0AAElXkiw7bGmm2wR5vdlgk/s1600/Ghost+Fleet.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the summer of 1987 my teenage
mind was captivated by a weighty tome lent to me by an American friend. The
wide-ranging narrative and a whiff of authenticity that somehow overmatched
everything else in the techno-thriller cannon. I was ahead of the game, I read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i> pleasingly before it
got its release in Europe, and when it broke on European shores it became a
phenomenon that even my parents managed to pick up, prompting a somewhat
curious “are they talking about that book you read on the television now?”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Red Storm Rising</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> probably
wasn’t the first of its type, General Sir John Hackett certainly got there
first with his <i>Third World War</i>, but it undeniably spawned a genre. Along with
Clancy, the likes of Larry Bond, and Hank Brown mined a rich seam like a gift
that kept on giving until the end of the Cold War cut them off at the knees.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The techno-thriller went through
a long fallow patch. The 1990s weren’t kind to them and even the long wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan failed to spark a credible narrative that recaptured the
majesty of Clancy in his pomp.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a reader it was fine, we
found other things to read. Charles Cumming captured the Eric Ambler quiet
school of espionage fiction, we ploughed back into history with John Biggins,
and when feeling virtuous we would read something a little more like (whisper
it) respectable literature, with Alan Hollinghurst, John Irving, and a newly
grown up William Gibson.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remember that last name, because
the arrival of Singer and Cole's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost
Fleet</i> has made most people refer back to Clancy and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i>, but as I progressed into it I found myself
remembering another novel I read in the mid 1980s rather more than I expected
to. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> may well be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i> for the 21st Century,
but if so it’s every bit as much an homage to Gibson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Neuromancer</i> too - and in a nice touch it’s this which gets the
namecheck from Singer and Cole in the running text a bit more than the Clancy
link that most reviewers (and yes, my hand is up here too) initially introduce
things with.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Linking with early Gibson
introduces what one of the key subthemes of the novel - Dave Eggers caused some
controversy in 2014 with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-circle-dave-eggers.html" target="_blank">The Circle</a></i>,
and while I read and enjoyed it, I could see why it simultaneously annoyed
those in the technology community and may have been a little inaccessible to
those outside it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> works
very well as a cautionary tale about society's reliance on devices to tell us
things. This is powerfully linked as the novel reaches a climax, as a US Navy
officer peers at a data screen rather than a horizon and reflects
that "[t]he anxiousness he felt at that one missing piece of data
flow was a reminder of how quickly people took for granted the sea of
information they floated in. He only hoped that being thrown back into the dark
would be even more disorienting for the Directorate generals and admirals who
had enjoyed a war of such data dominance so far."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaving the roots aside, what’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> like as a read? Gratifyingly
it’s good, and part of me wants to say it’s very good. Just like Clancy (and
indeed Gibson) it’s absorbingly pacy, with a series of vignettes telling enough
of a story and creatively using negative space to create the vision that what
you read is part of a far larger and more sprawling narrative which,
critically, yields an interest in knowing more about what’s left unsaid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's an authenticity to the
Singer and Cole's universe. Revolving around a Mahanite geopolitical view
references to how we arrive at the setting from a contemporary point of
departure all feel perfectly credible, with notions such as the Second Timor
War, the Dharan dirty bomb, and the New York Quake all feel real, and like the
unsaid elements of the conflict in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost
Fleet</i>, become part of a broader story that you want to know more about.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The style of writing can raise a
smile, insights into the fate of Richard Branson, the ultimate expression of
Tour de France doping, and victory drives involving children surrendering
tablets to be harvested for microchips all make Ghost Fleet a pleasant as well
as interesting read.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it this century's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i>? In truth I'm not sure,
but then again I'm also the thick end of 30 years older than I was when I read
Clancy's book, so maybe it's about perspective. While lapping up <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> there was a part of me that
whispered it wasn't quite as wide ranging and magisterial as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i>, but equally saying so
felt like needlessly carping, because remember, I was having fun reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i>. Either way, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> is a rattling good read, and
sticking with the 21st century, remember, you still can't get an eBook of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Storm Rising</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Disclaimers and disclosure</b> are good things to includes in anything published. Here's a personal bit of disclosure: my PhD looked at the
USN of the 1970s and 1980s in some detail, and as such the personality of Chief
of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt featured strongly and positively. In an era
when the notion of heroism is brought into question by Donald Trump, I'm
delighted that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet</i> salutes a
great surface ship sailor in Elmo Zumwalt.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">You can get your copy of <i>Ghost Fleet</i> from Canelo <a href="http://www.canelo.co/books/ghost-fleet/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Disclosure: an advance copy of Ghost Fleet was provided by Canelo Books.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-69337798639390296472015-08-02T22:51:00.000+01:002015-08-02T22:51:11.020+01:00Tony Southgate in his Own Words<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few years ago I read <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/from-drawing-board-to-chequered-flag.html" target="_blank">Tony Southgate's autobiography</a>, which as motor racing books go is right up there with Vic Elford's <i>Reflections </i>and John Horsman's <i>Racing in the Rain</i>. If you've not read it and like the idea of motorsport being a freewheeling innovative place please track down a copy of it - trust me, you'll like it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's probably not the sort of book that would reward reading as an ebook. and I'm guessing your local bookshop won't have it in stock, so if you're looking for a bit of instant gratification have a listen to the <a href="http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/history/tony-southgate-podcast/" target="_blank">latest Motor Sport Magazine podcast</a>, where their usual roster of suspects travel to Northampton to sit down with Tony Southgate and produce an hour and a half of utterly absorbing conversation about racing car design touching on the period when Southgate worked and the present day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a hallmark of a great podcast it's not just crammed full of brilliant insights (not least Southgate's persistence in not enunciating the 's' in Arrows) but leaves you wanting to hear more - the Osella years, for example, always appealed to me, but aren't covered in the audio. As they say, this could have been an 8 hour production, and there's a lot of me that wishes it had been.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seriously - go and have a listen, in an era of over sanitised commercial motor racing it's a breath of fresh air. For those of you of a South London persuasion (and my sympathy if you are not) it's also worth having a listen for the references to Lola's origins in Bromley - I've been trying to track down where exactly they were - there's a school of thought holding they were in Ravensbourne Road - but does anyone have anything more precise/accurate than that?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-64180498318310095102015-07-06T23:29:00.001+01:002015-07-07T09:44:58.803+01:00Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTdKvMr3fN2dEZN9cRh-GpaHEec1hI0-3-XGKu-nZXOrEeNWMQg8LTFaLR_6kDYWRjfeqEtKyIP9FzcB703YUtJ_qQjfdu0ttmx_S1uZ1sfvVcSqmKtNc-AD1y4OsU3hCR3yz77p42Gc/s1600/IMG_20150702_183035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTdKvMr3fN2dEZN9cRh-GpaHEec1hI0-3-XGKu-nZXOrEeNWMQg8LTFaLR_6kDYWRjfeqEtKyIP9FzcB703YUtJ_qQjfdu0ttmx_S1uZ1sfvVcSqmKtNc-AD1y4OsU3hCR3yz77p42Gc/s200/IMG_20150702_183035.jpg" width="200"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In one of the <a href="http://riddleofthesands.net/wordpress/" target="_blank">Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club</a> podcasts (or was it one of their blog posts) the opinion was offered that Erskine Childers’ “Riddle of the Sands” may not be written in a way that immediately appeals to contemporary (and younger?) readers. I initially bridled a bit at that sentiment, then thought back to my teenage years, when I refused to countenance the notion of reading John Buchan’s “Greenmantle” because it sounded as though it was probably old fashioned, and thus much less appealing than whatever techno-thriller subfodder I was subjecting myself to at the time.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of a decade later I corrected this, read “Greenmantle” (along with the rest of Buchan’s wider Hannay universe) and looking back I suspect the 13 year old that spurned Buchan made a grave error - he’d have loved the rich sense of history, the exotic location, and what is fundamentally a genuinely good read.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Riddle of the Sands” sits in a similar space. My father, an Anglo-Irish amateur sailor (his sole claim to a straightened upbringing was that he had to buy his own yacht) whose life missed overlapping with Childers by a scant few months, was unsurprisingly a fan of the novel. When the film came out in the late 1970s there was enthusiasm around the Synge household about going to see it, but for reasons lost to my then young mind, it never happened, and while since then I’m sure I’ve seen at least bits of the film, it’s only recently that I’ve consciously watched it (in an almost unwatchable blurry VHS rip format), so it was an appealing prospect when the rather marvellous Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club proposed showing it on a biggish screen in the company of like minded folk.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rewinding a little, the Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club is a fantastic initiative. It’s a pair of enthusiastic eccentrics who want to retrace the route described in the novel, which is ‘curiously specific about dates and places’, and in doing so explore the social, literary, and historical context of the novel, and how this is reflected in the terrain of today. Their podcasts are tremendously entertaining and I genuinely hope they raise enough cash to set out on their adventure. I’ve put my hand in my pocket, and I’d encourage all of you to do so too. <a href="http://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sands" target="_blank">You can do so at Unbound here</a>.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But back to the screening and the chance, 30 or so years after the family failure to see the film? It started with an </span><br>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPX5bmWsXNOKeFQBzuoA1SyiRKCVA5Vfx56yR-DvP5sWPKVpYRw6elNN3p1xxvpWjTMeUmxe-bVTofVvgsnQxtrxIhWjvdX6NLfAwiPoCBVzg2Fy_6MOWjjkGa2TEDBfaunJ388gTxy8/s1600/IMG_20150702_182432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPX5bmWsXNOKeFQBzuoA1SyiRKCVA5Vfx56yR-DvP5sWPKVpYRw6elNN3p1xxvpWjTMeUmxe-bVTofVvgsnQxtrxIhWjvdX6NLfAwiPoCBVzg2Fy_6MOWjjkGa2TEDBfaunJ388gTxy8/s200/IMG_20150702_182432.jpg" width="147"></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first instruction - rendezvous in a ships' chandler.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">instruction to meet at the last ships chandler in London, a lovely small shop on Shaftesbury Avenue full of arcane materials and enticing books about hidden anchorages on the Brittany coast. It proceeds to the parish rooms at St Giles, tucked away behind the church and bedecked with a slightly curious list of parish luminaries on the wall. It has an industrial looking improvised screen, the film’s overture on a loop in the background, and it has Lloyd and Tim (both engaging and fun people) being enthusiastic about what they’re trying to do. And there’s grog.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An intriguingly varied group of people are gathered to watch the film. There’s someone who owns a Rippingille stove, there’s someone who’s painted a seascape of the Dulcibella, there’s me and my wife, who just like this juxtaposition between history, travel, and London.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A quick introduction by Lloyd and Tim, <a href="https://t.co/7h6RDArFyL" target="_blank">duly Periscoped</a>, a quick word from the composer of the film’s soundtrack, and it’s into the screening. The film’s good, but it’s of its time. It’s easy to forget that the 1970s were quite a long time ago and almost closer to the dawn of cinema than they are to us. There are bits in the film where lingering long shots on eyes owe a lot to Eisenstein and D. W. Griffith, notes that today presumably would be superseded by something CGIed.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a hot evening, one of the hottest London’s had this year, and parish rooms are not known for being airy. My experiences of the Ems estuary and the Waddensee are more wintery, but I’m sure they can be close and airless too. It’s nice to be given the opportunity to focus on a film in the way it was supposed to be seen rather than having it in the background while you dick about on a second screen. As a film it’s lasted better than others from the period, and can appeal to even the non-geekish amongst us. It’s even better watched amongst like minded folk.
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club probably doesn’t have a commercial leg to stand on, which is why those of us who support it just because it’s a fabulous idea need to stand up and make sure it keeps going. They stage intriguing events like this, they entertain and engage with us in their podcasts, and their finished product is the sort of metanarrative that should be encouraged. Please, go and find them, explore what they’re doing, and chuck them some cash so they can tell us what the Frisian Islands interpreted through the eyes of Childers are really like. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-78446856860075394452015-05-19T07:46:00.001+01:002015-07-06T23:30:52.687+01:00Dalkey Book Festival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a good quarter of a century since I left Dublin in general and Dalkey in particular, and in the main I've not really looked back. For all people gush about it as a city, for me, like most youths, it was mainly just a place to grow up. Sometimes I've thought about going back in retirement, but increasingly that ebbs away as an idea, and I suspect a line will get drawn under that in the none too distant. South London is home now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All through the period of the Celtic Tiger, when Dublin did its level best to transform itself into London in the 1980s it didn't really appeal, but post crash there seems to be a new pragmatism about the place. Some of the vulgar excess is gone, but they've preserved the will and ability to do extraordinary things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, when I read about the <a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/">Dalkey</a><a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/"> </a><a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/">Literary</a><a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/"> </a><a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/">Festival</a><a href="http://www.dalkeybookfestival.org/events-on-one-page/">,</a> in particular things like PJ O'Rourke in St Patrick's, I can't help thinking it appeals. I'm generally doing something else in mid-June, but if I wasn't I might well be tempted to head west for this.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-4228224464163815852015-04-23T00:20:00.001+01:002015-04-23T00:23:51.805+01:00Traversa, a postscript<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the cover of <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/across-africa-by-foot.html" target="_blank">Fran Sandham's "ˇTraversa"</a> there is the somewhat non-commital endorsement from The Guardian reading "I found myself increasingly gripped". Since publishing this and fishing around for what others thought of the book I found</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/09/travel.features" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">the Guardian review it came from</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- interesting reading, and a pointed comment on how marketing latches onto a snippet and does what it can... I'm currently reading Mazower's book on Salonica, and its cover features a quote from a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview2" target="_blank">somewhat non-commital Jan Morris review</a>, I like Jan Morris, I'm enjoying Mazower, I'm sure my purchasing decision was uninfluenced, but nonetheless it's fascinating to see how 'documents' about documents are created.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People always say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Should we respin this to say don't judge a review by the pullquote used on a cover? Or is that descending too far into a meta-narrative?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-74295715893165718042015-04-22T13:22:00.003+01:002015-04-22T13:22:41.110+01:00Across Africa by Foot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4m5Dq2Rb-6sy3BzsDg1acqwv0H5SzPDQOGGnwIfKkSmRfodQM89cFV2Vdrg46l9zopV8DR-ve0xWWQ3UIjvLXpUTOFyw7ZBqQ6-Ywq2PdmZfWGtycAkUrq0IEFcuHdunJGqoFl2zBXk/s1600/sandham+traversa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4m5Dq2Rb-6sy3BzsDg1acqwv0H5SzPDQOGGnwIfKkSmRfodQM89cFV2Vdrg46l9zopV8DR-ve0xWWQ3UIjvLXpUTOFyw7ZBqQ6-Ywq2PdmZfWGtycAkUrq0IEFcuHdunJGqoFl2zBXk/s1600/sandham+traversa.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Traversa", Fran Sandham </span></h2>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Often when I've left a job the parting gifts provided by colleagues serve to indicate that while you may well have spent a long time in proximity with these people, they haven't really worked out who you are. It was thus with some real pleasure, after almost a year in the library of a financial institution I was seen off with a copy of Fran Sandham's "Traversa", the sort of gift that carried with it a sense that real thought had gone into it, and which was very much appreciated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The central premise of a lone walk from West to East coasts of Africa in the footprints of Stanley and Livingstone carries with it a certain quantity of baggage. One anticipates reading of an earnest, driven and somehow unattainable person undertaking a feat of endurance and adventure that few of us could aspire to. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a time and a place for intimidating tales like that, I've read and loved Paddy Leigh Fermor, Rebecca West, and Adrian Seligman and felt a little bit in awe of what they've achieved. Similarly there's a time and place for "Traversa".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walking across Africa, as "Traversa" makes clear, is not something to be undertaken lightly, okay it's not the journey into the unknown experienced by Livingstone, but mentions of places such as Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip and a brief mention in the first chapter when Sandham plans his route recall the long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s and early 21st century, sometime referred to as Africa's Great War. Sandham's periodic concerns about landmines remind the reader that not so long ago this undertaking would be undertaken only by lunatics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Traversa" is imbued with a rich sense of humour; featuring sclerotic Afrikaners, recalcitrant donkeys, and amorous backpackers "Traversa" reassures the less intrepid that epic adventure is not beyond us. Indeed there is some genuinely useful advice for those of us who are not quite as ruggedly capable as a Ranulph Fiennes, including the priceless gem that when in a treehouse take care to not urinate on the head of a fierce dog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any journey like this will reveal that Africa is not affluent, and that concepts of poverty and hardship that we apply in the developed world have a completely different meaning in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sandham doesn't make this the focus of his work, but makes clear that there is little romance to poverty, and the reality of existence can be nasty, brutish, and short. There is also the challenge that a lot of tourism doesn't necessarily help, and the reality that motivations for some, in particular an older American with "a keen eye for young girls" encountered by Lake Malawi, may not be the most wholesome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Works like these are inherently autobiographical, as much about the author as the journey; in this light there is often a temptation to see them as voyages of personal discovery, in the process witnessing the author undergoing some form of catharsis of self realisation or mid-life crisis. Sandham, for that all his motivations for his traversa stem from a dissatisfaction with a life defined by commuting from Wimbledon to Waterloo, escapes this. Fleeting moments of wistful introspection - perhaps best encapsulated by an encounter with a beautiful girl in Livingstone which ends with him walking her to a bus stop and knowing he will never see her again - serve to illustrate, but not define the work. Reading "Traversa" is not an insight into a troubled soul, it is much more akin to a genial friend's recollections.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not a long book, and like many such works, the real pleasure is in the early game, when there's more discovery to be had, but it's a highly enjoyable read that bears taking some time over. You have fun reading it, and by the end of the process you feel edified. I'm not sure you can really ask for much more from a book?</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-10759854587915212102015-04-14T13:19:00.002+01:002015-04-14T13:19:54.267+01:00"The Assassin", Clive Cussler and Justin Scott<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARYis4dOcRZ35wP6FA9GcOUKL1kOvDclwygByfL91PEJBszH8vjPT9OkzI3SE6rpgKyJcoU6pKRfeykznxVnZPuiSIXi4i7h9keiKgwbyCno1GBtQxzutJQvEPIGasbXtm51t1rjUQRQ/s1600/cussler+scott+assassin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARYis4dOcRZ35wP6FA9GcOUKL1kOvDclwygByfL91PEJBszH8vjPT9OkzI3SE6rpgKyJcoU6pKRfeykznxVnZPuiSIXi4i7h9keiKgwbyCno1GBtQxzutJQvEPIGasbXtm51t1rjUQRQ/s1600/cussler+scott+assassin.jpg" height="200" width="129" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a certain serendipity to this. A couple of weeks ago, sitting at Gatwick waiting to board a flight east to Tbilisi, I was struck by the sort of mild panic that the onset of the Kindle has hugely eased. Fretting that none of the packed books or downloaded JSTOR articles would quite be enough to keep me entertained for the week, a quick ferret yielded a pair of Clive Cussler books, guilty pleasures perhaps, but reassuring knowing that whatever else, I was unlikely to be stuck abroad with nothing entertaining to read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As luck would have it, both Cusslers went unread on the road, <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/citadel-kate-mosse.html" target="_blank">Kate Mosse's "Citadel"</a> providing all the leisure reading needed, and it was only once returned, driven by the exigencies of crowded trains, that attention moved to Cussler and Scott's "The Assassin". As I've <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/wrecker-clive-cussler-and-justin-scott.html" target="_blank">blogged before</a>, I've got history with both, the two, amongst others, providing much of the escapism my teenage self sought. I've grown up, and they still know their market. The Isaac Bell series, of which this is the 8th, are straightforwardly written and don't contain too much in the way of surprises. Part of me wants them to be richer and deeper novels, but the realist in me is pleased that this combination of easy access, good storytelling, and engaging surroundings exists, and serves in a small part to locate the early 20th century in the minds of readers and may encourage them to think more widely about the world of this period.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back to serendipity though. "The Assassin" deals with Standard Oil and the personality of Nelson Rockefeller, and the middle section of the book takes place in the Caucasus, then and now a booming oil rich region. Baku in the throes of the 1905 revolution provides a dramatic backdrop to one of the significant set pieces, and leads Bell, Rockefeller, and sundry other protagonists struggling to escape west. A wry smile was thus evoked when around page 270 they reach Tbilisi. Often the appearance of exotic or obscure parts of the world set in the past offer scope for an author to indulge in creative licence, so there was a huge level of pleasure on my part to be able to recognise the view of old and new Tbilisi from Mtatsminda park and the funicular railway providing a route down to the city.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTpEs2_4c5JjnAumKYDFmTvSPiIwD8dwwDyEgUydTv4uDTo1nJu1rUWCQ3S5uAOd1E-T0XEiFdZE3VkplZSMAr8fPZhVITXnx_LCMs6uZ9LYn9tLSbzonlQDts_q2O75C1xI-dNydO_k/s1600/IMG_20150331_145435.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTpEs2_4c5JjnAumKYDFmTvSPiIwD8dwwDyEgUydTv4uDTo1nJu1rUWCQ3S5uAOd1E-T0XEiFdZE3VkplZSMAr8fPZhVITXnx_LCMs6uZ9LYn9tLSbzonlQDts_q2O75C1xI-dNydO_k/s1600/IMG_20150331_145435.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The view of Tbilisi seen by Bell from Mtatsminda, 110 years on.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I shouldn't have been surprised. One of the hallmarks of Justin Scott's work has always been a keen attention to historical detail, but it's something oft overlooked. It doesn't cost the author much to get it right, and it's so pleasing to see it as well executed as it is here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An effective sense of place aside, "The Assassin" romps along in an effective way. It's not high literature, and when read carefully there's not much that will really surprise, but most importantly it entertains and mainly edifies. There's a time and a place for the erudite and thought provoking, but so is there time for this. Maybe it didn't need to save my reading life when in parts foreign, but it made the commute through South London a good deal more pleasurable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I've said before, more of the same please.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-19321163919080087672015-04-06T12:13:00.002+01:002015-04-06T12:13:35.269+01:00"Citadel", Kate Mosse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuG56ewP5BilglpuORpJCrcI0PORUjJ6dtlIHvfUeGuuDK8IKj7lMYNS0g9gm3-4SfSiFKgS0nKikFndPgaQH0_3NZrNYrDs93KxeWVFG6BjaneFDeZr7fHN1Pk0oEtQULlcMlsk8g3tk/s1600/Kate+Mosse+Citadel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuG56ewP5BilglpuORpJCrcI0PORUjJ6dtlIHvfUeGuuDK8IKj7lMYNS0g9gm3-4SfSiFKgS0nKikFndPgaQH0_3NZrNYrDs93KxeWVFG6BjaneFDeZr7fHN1Pk0oEtQULlcMlsk8g3tk/s1600/Kate+Mosse+Citadel.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some books require the right time and place to be read. Having wholly enjoyed the first two of Kate Mosse's Cathar trilogy there was a lot of enthusiasm when "Citadel" came out in the run up to Christmas 2012; I honestly believed it would be a book that occupied hours through the Christmas break when respite from the barrage of family that the season invariably involves was needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This didn't happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead "Citadel" has been sitting in a magazine box beside an armchair in the sitting room pretty much since then. A couple of abortive attempts to start it went nowhere, and when heading off on travels eastwards last week, picking up "Citadel" was accompanied by a tacit bargain that if it returned from Georgia unread then it would go to a new home and I'd file a level of wonder at why it had failed to grasp me in the way the previous novels had.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe it's because I've been thinking about the Languedoc recently, idly thinking about <a href="http://www.catharcastles.info/" target="_blank">Cathar castles</a> (and yes, I know, most of these post-date the Cathar period) and pondering whether an Albigensian crusade of my own was a feasible road trip, but this time "Citadel" gripped. I tried to think at what point I bulldozed my way through whatever the previous sticking point in the novel had been, but to be honest I was considerably past it by the time it became a serious consideration, and by that time I had identified sufficiently with the characters and been engaged by the plot to not really worry about why previously the book hadn't worked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking a similar twin narrative approach to the previous two volumes, the focus of the book is Carcassonne and the Languedoc between 1942 and 1944, covering the period of German occupation and French collaboration and resistance. It's not a particularly pretty piece of history, and Mosse doesn't shy away from making clear the level of atrocity perpetrated and the way in which communities tore themselves apart. While there are still the notes of magic realism that ran through "Labyrinth" and "Seplulchre", this time it feels somehow darker. Here the good guys don't always win, and in sending this message it makes "Citadel" a useful text when thinking about post-1940 France.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's probably reliant on you being in the right frame of mind, and wanting to put yourself in the Languedoc in a dark time more readily recognisable than that of the early 13th century, but "Citadel" does reward and serves to make you think in a way that marks it out as rewarding literature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe I will find some time to head to the deep south of France this year.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-54734145766678929932015-03-08T15:53:00.002+00:002015-03-08T15:54:32.668+00:00"Ferries Across the Humber", Kirk Martin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz7D8p5FHkyDdgZOWyDwu-mxaiquYoT8QBFqYhyphenhyphenAv-lEeUiz_tVeNXE3m1KQNJzTGbr8qPRtjlPSanwvqgdwOrAoBQw7QFIlFXn5h2RBneumkxrZmHD24JaewZUtCW_HJDUTvFxuzN4e8/s1600/kirk+martin+ferries+humber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz7D8p5FHkyDdgZOWyDwu-mxaiquYoT8QBFqYhyphenhyphenAv-lEeUiz_tVeNXE3m1KQNJzTGbr8qPRtjlPSanwvqgdwOrAoBQw7QFIlFXn5h2RBneumkxrZmHD24JaewZUtCW_HJDUTvFxuzN4e8/s1600/kirk+martin+ferries+humber.jpg" height="200" width="152" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you’ve ever been out of an evening on the north bank of the Thames near Charing Cross station you may well already be familiar with the Tatershall Castle. Known affectionately as “The Belgrano” by the MoD staff whose office is just across the road, it’s something of an institution, a floating bar often a convenient place to meet, but one suspects that few if any of its patrons give much of a thought about where she came from.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this lavishly illustrated and engagingly personal account Kirk Martin sheds light not just on the origin of the Tatershall Castle, one of the last steam powered paddle steamers in service in the UK, but traces the history of Humber crossings from the earliest times (citing archaeological of the trade across the river by the Parisii and Coritani tribes and the Roman 'transitus maximus' between Lincoln and York) to the opening of the Humber Bridge, which brought ferry traffic to an end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Central to the narrative, the Humber is portrayed as a complicated river, wide, with an extensive network of sandbanks, affected by tides and the vagaries of the weather, put simply, it is a "treacherous stretch of water, with mists and fogs that blot out everything and make the trip three miles of anxious hooting and peering from the bridge" (p.75) and groundings were frequent. Compounding this, in the early 20th century facilities for passengers were austere, New Holland pier is described as being "far more miserable to look at than Hedon Road Gaol" and the ships were little better, the "so called passenger steamer ... more like a farmyard than a passenger boat" (p.65).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this context the arrival of the three "Castle" ships in the 1930s brought in new levels comfort and an ability to deal with the new demands placed by increasing car traffic. Spared war service due to the strategic importance of the trans-Humber trade the Castles were in use until the end of ferry services in the early 1970s, their longevity being partly explained by a lack of enthusiasm for investment in new ferries due to the shadow of bridge construction hanging over the route.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Martin's account spurs you go and look for the Tatershall Castle and you're worried because you can't spot it on the Embankment worry not - as of early 2015 she's been taken off for a refit, fittingly being carried out in Hull.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Disclosure: a review copy of this book was supplied by Pen and Sword Books.</i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815598431632330192.post-12559243205301681672015-01-30T23:30:00.000+00:002015-01-30T23:30:29.889+00:00"The Missing and the Dead", Stuart MacBride<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"And it's the same people, day after day, shift after shift. All the time, the same manky minks, with their filthy houses and smelly clothes and drug habits. Or drink. Or both. Never mind the nutters."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It maybe takes a while to work out, but Stuart MacBride's latest Logan McRae novel is a tale of purgatory and redemption. Exiled from Aberdeen CID to uniformed policing in the wilds of Banff he finds himself in a countryside prone to the law enforcement challenges of escaped livestock, petty shoplifting, and murdered children. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the changes to Scottish policing meaning that every real opportunity to regain his position is frustrated by the arrival of Major Incident Teams and a usual dose of abysmal fate being chucked in his face, this could so easily be another predictable episode in the increasingly dark oeuvre of Stuart MacBride.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Except it really isn't that at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The early McRae novels were undeniably violent and not to everyone's taste, but there was a certain joi de vivre to them, which progressively was stripped way to the point where 2011's <a href="http://southlondonbook.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/shatter-bones-stuart-macbride.html">Shatter the Bones</a> felt as though MacBride and McRae were entering into a very nihilistic spiral towards a bleak place that didn't offer much in the way of hope or light.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Missing and the Dead" bucks this trend. Sure, there are moments of real unpleasantness, but the humour persists throughout, and there's a real level of justice running through the text. It almost reverses the concept of tragedy, in that there are places were good things happen for the worst of reasons. McRae is nowhere, but he manages to deliver, and along the way there's even the hint that good things might happen to his life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I ran towards the final third of the book there was a feeling in the back of my mind that inevitably MacBride would throw something into the works to strip away the predominantly cheerful feel of the book. The end isn't all sweetness and light, but it's a long way from the shell shock that can permeate finishing other MacBride books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">McRae feels redeemed by "The Missing and the Dead". While I've shied away from revisiting some of its immediate predecessors I can see myself picking this up again, and who knows, it might even qualify for a place as an audiobook on a roadtrip.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13420235913245821752noreply@blogger.com0