more april 2019 books…

Red Bones (Ann Cleeves): This is the third of my ‘Shetland’ books (I’ve just ordered my fourth!) and I just love them. I loved the television series (especially Douglas Henshall’s Perez character) and the books echo the same ‘feel’ of island life and the lives of it communities (albeit with the occasional murder thrown in). Once again, Cleeves comes across as a talented and assured storyteller. An elegant ‘plot’ involving archaeological digs and mysterious human remains in a location where the daily ‘rhythm of life’ affords time for thinking and reflection. Some might regard me reading the ‘Shetland’ novels as escapism… and I think that, in many ways, they might be right… but I’m very happy to make the journey! Excellent.
To Throw Away Unopened (Viv Albertine): I was vaguely familiar with the punk band “The Slits” and, by association, knew that Viv Albertine had been a guitarist in the band. But that was about it. Then, about a month ago, my great mate Si Smith messaged me to say that Albertine was appearing somewhere in Bristol to launch her second book. He and his wife Sue had heard her talk at a similar recent event in Leeds and had been duly impressed… and thought I might like to hear her too. So I attended the book launch at Waterstone’s (I bought the last concessionary ticket!)(but I bought the book from our lovely local Storysmith Books!)… and found her story absolutely fascinating. From a poor, working-class background and largely brought up by her strong-willed mother (whom she worshipped), this profoundly feminist book is a breathtakingly honest, uncompromising (and frequently very funny) memoir about family (including a startling account of Albertine and her sister, both in their early fifties, literally fighting next to their 93 year-old mother, who lay dying!), human dysfunctionality, divorce, loneliness and much more. After her ‘colourful’ life working in music and film, it wasn’t until Albertine was 60 (in 2014) that she had her first book published… and revealed her to be a really wonderful writer.
The Salt Path (Raynor Winn): This is a remarkable true story and a very special book. In 2013, in the space of a week, Raynor Winn and her husband Moth (aged 50 and 53 respectively and married for 32 years) lost their farmhouse home and their livelihood… and Moth was diagnosed with a rare and incurable degenerative brain disease. They were utterly broke and broken… and homeless. As they hid under the stairs from bailiffs, Winn spotted an old book she’d read 30 years before, about a man who walked the South West Coastal Path with his dog… and, then and there, she resolved that THAT was what they were going to do! This is their story of their experiences of walking the 630 miles (which they split over two summers) from Minehead to Poole. A truly inspirational, humbling (and frequently very funny) book about a husband+wife’s determination to drag themselves from the depths of despair to live ‘wild and free’ on a pittance and, in doing so, came to discover a new liberating part of themselves. Winn is an exceptional writer and her book is a testament to the power of the human spirit. I highly recommend it!
Rich People Problems (Kevin Kwan): I read ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ a couple of months ago and this is the third book in the trilogy… and, somewhat typically, I haven’t read the second! Reading it immediately after a book featuring homelessness (‘The Salt Path’) and at a time when Climate Change is so much in the news (Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg etc) made me feel quite ‘sick’. This novel is almost obscene in terms of privilege, jealousy, opulent lifestyles, ridiculous wealth (you only ‘count’ if you’re a billionaire - millionaires are so ‘yesterday’!), flaunting money and wanting even more. But, once again, I freely admit that I found this 550 page book extremely readable and very entertaining! Apparently, there’s also a ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ film… but I’m not interested in seeing it! The perfect summer holiday read perhaps?
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss): This is a wonderfully-informative, well-researched, surprisingly readable and VERY funny book about punctuation (really!)… and quite beautifully written (you can you imagine publishing a book on this subject will have meant her spending painstaking hours checking to ensure that everything was ‘correct’!). Her motto is “sticklers unite” – or it should be! One passage which made me laugh out loud was when she referred to 15^th century Italian printer (who first used colon or full stops to end sentences) in the following manner: “I will happily admit I hadn’t heard of him until a year ago, but am now absolutely kicking myself that I never volunteered to have his babies”. A very lovely book.

wild rose...

Another trip to the Watershed – this time to see Tom Harper’s “Wild Rose”. The cinema’s blurb described it as “a heartfelt drama about a Glaswegian single mum who dreams of leaving her dreary life for the bright lights of Nashville”. Why on earth would I want to watch such a film? I don’t even like country music!
The film features Jessie Buckley (as Rose-Lynn) and Julie Walters (as her mother). I’d never heard of Buckley (she apparently won a television talent contest about 10 years ago) but, hats off to her, she was exceptionally good – both as an actor and a singer.
Rose-Lynn’s life is complicated: she’s just come out of prison (after serving a year’s sentence for drug-related misdeeds); she’s a single parent (with 5 and 8 year-old kids); she has very little sense of responsibility when it comes to living her life; and it seems she’s totally dependent on her mother’s help to survive.
She gets a cleaning job for a posh lady with money (played by Sophie Okenedo) who soon becomes an unlikely champion for Rose-Lynn’s dreams of stardom.
There were times when I really regretted the absence of sub-titles due to the almost unfathomable Glaswegian accents, but hey! Oh, and DJ Bob Harris also features!

It really shouldn’t have been my kind of film - it has a somewhat contrived, sentimental, predictably uplifting storyline (which includes Rose-Lynn transforming herself into a caring mother and house-proud adult!) – but I ended up finding it all quite refreshing (and Buckley does have a very good voice!).

A surprisingly good film!

trump state visit?

I am utterly APPALLED that Trump has been invited on a state visit to the UK in June…
You will probably be aware that a state visit is a formal visit by a head of state and is normally at the invitation of the Queen, who acts on advice from the government. Were we, the electorate, consulted? Of course not.
Frankly, it beggars belief.
When Trump visited the UK in July last year, he avoided coming to London (“he did not particularly want to come to the capital if he was going to face protests”!). Even so, the bill for policing Trump’s visit was £18million. State visits usually include a procession down the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace (where the Queen would normally host a banquet for around 150 guests “in Mr Trump’s honour”) and, if this were to happen, you can be sure that the police bill will be FAR MORE than £18million! I can only imagine what measures the US security people will insist on being adopted (armed forces? extensive/excessive kettling of crowds?).
It seems that the visit has been arranged to coincide with the 75^th anniversary of the D-day landings and number10 has indicated that the event would be “one of the greatest British military spectacles in recent history” and would include a flypast of 26 types of RAF aircraft and at least 11 Royal Navy ships in the Solent.
I, for one, don’t want to mark the occasion in such a blatant militaristic way.

At a time when the world is failing to come to terms with Climate Change and the UK is struggling with Brexit (not to mention dire funding issues in education, welfare, health and a host of other issues), it’s as if the UK government has decided that a visit from Trump will deflect our attention from such matters.

Ironically, given the state of UK politics at the present time, one is tempted to wonder who will actually be prime minister or in government by the time of Trump's visit!
I absolutely do NOT want to provide Trump with a centre-stage opportunity to share his bigoted, racist, narcissistic, ignorant, dangerous and fatuous opinions.  
It depresses me in the extreme.
This morning’s editorial in The Guardian got it absolutely right in my view:
"Rolling out the red carpet for a US president ought to be easier than this. Britain and America share a ‘special relationship’ which rests on a common language, histories and ideals. Yet Donald Trump makes building on this impossible. He is no friend of this country. The president has repeatedly attacked leading British politicians, singling out London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. He retweets fascists. On the day news emerged that Mr Trump would be accorded a state visit to Britain, he was threatening to veto a UN resolution against the use of rape as a weapon of war. America has been taken over by a demagogue who sees Brexit as an opportunity for a rabble-rouser to rise here too. He is a dangerous liar whom racists and misogynists think of as one of their own. Mr Trump ought to be held at a distance, not invited for dinner with the Queen… Mr Trump is a media-savvy operator. He uses the world stage as a political advert for his brand of mendacious nationalism. Mr Trump did meet the Queen last year on a flying visit on the way to ceremonies in France to mark the 1918 armistice. Before he arrived, he had attacked Angela Merkel over the level of Germany’s defence spending at a Nato summit. On the day of his meeting with Theresa May he criticised her in an interview with the Sun while lavishing praise on her rival Boris Johnson. He then went to France and mocked the country for not fighting to the last man when under Nazi occupation. One shudders at the thought of headlines generated by a state visit which coincides with the 75th anniversary of D-day.
Mr Trump does not care what Britain, or any other US ally, thinks. He only wants them to know he does not care what they think. That is why Mrs May has failed to change Mr Trump’s mind on the Iran nuclear deal or the Paris agreement on climate change. It is why he rashly committed to withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan without telling allies.
During his last visit, Mr Trump avoided central London due to the expected protests. He will have to endure them this time. John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, refused to offer Mr Trump an invitation to address parliament. He has previously said it was an ‘earned honour’ and not a right. Mr Trump has earned no such distinction. He engineered the most racially divisive US election in years, ranting about Mexican ‘rapists’ and promising a Muslim travel ban. In office his draconian border policy caged migrant children in isolation from their parents. Mr Trump gives the impression of destroying, not defending, democracy. Giving him a platform in Westminster won’t oil the springs of diplomacy. It will just allow another eruption from a fountain of dishonour”.
As I keep saying: “Not In My Name”.

action for climate change…

My friend Richard, who is currently in London as part of the ‘Extinction Rebellion’ demonstrations, posted this on FB yesterday: “XR: Is it a middle class hissy fit?
If you think that extinction rebellion is a time-wasting Waitrose-users irritant using up scant police resources, consider how it will look when societal order breaks down (as it inevitably will) and thousands of hungry families are looking for food. Things will not be so polite in central London.
Please come this weekend and connect with thousands of passionate people to make politicians and businesses take this seriously”.
I didn’t go to London this weekend and I feel bad that I didn’t.
Several hundred of the protesters have been arrested and, no doubt, their actions have induced many ‘tuttings’ and ‘shaking-of-heads’ around the country from the vast majority of the largely apathetic general public who think they should have better things to do.
So, where do you stand? Do you care? What actions have you taken that to reduce your carbon footprint? Have you written to your MP?  
In the UK, you might recall the Climate Change Act 2008 which set strict targets to ensure (amongst other things) that the “UK carbon account for the year 2050 is 80% lower than the 1990 baseline” (the Act also set 5-yearly carbon budgets). Well, 10 years on, in June 2018, Clive Lewis MP acknowledged that: “This week, the climate change committee has reported back that the Government is now way off target with its climate change commitments and carbon targets."
Oh, what a surprise.
Again in the UK, you might recall that in March this year, only a tiny number of MPs bothered to attend the first climate change debate in two years (less than 35 in TV footage I watched – of which less than 10 were Tory MPs).
Oh, what a surprise.
You will no doubt know that, again here in the UK, Michael Gove is the Secretary of State for Environment (and Food and Rural Affairs)(the powers-that-be probably tagged on the food and rural affairs stuff because they thought ‘environment’ wouldn’t give him enough to do?). You might be aware that, after all the damage (IMHO) he caused in education, Gove isn’t one of my favourite politicians. But, in theory, this role ‘environment role’ could have been the absolute making of him… someone the whole country could get behind as he strived to protect the nation, and indeed the world(!), from the dangers of climate change. But no, he’s been remarkably quiet (too busy getting himself involved in all that silly Brexit stuff and those Tory Party leadership campaigns, poor bloke). True, he’s been involved in some laudable, albeit relatively minor, ‘initiatives’ such as: launching a ‘Year of Green Action’ for young people to improve the natural world (I don’t think he envisaged that this might involve school children going on strike over climate change!); banning products with microbeads, banning pesticides that harm bees and sales of ivory products; installing CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses and reintroducing beavers… but, in truth, no dramatic, desperately-unpopular-but-necessary initiatives in our battle against climate change.
Oh, what a surprise.
There are some very determined, intelligent MPs at Westminster, including Caroline Lucas (obviously), who regularly speak out on green/environmental/climate change issues… but they are very much in the minority. Whatever the government and opposition might say, ‘Environment’ is a very low priority in the eyes of the two main political parties (who clearly don’t see many votes in the issue)(don’t get me started). It seems the best we can hope for is politicians making sympathetic, supportive remarks – and certainly not introducing ‘game-changing’ policies… and, whatever you do, don’t mention Mr Cameron and his huskies!! How utterly appalling.
Oh, what a surprise.
But, hey, why should YOU worry? Afterall, it’s people in the Third World who’ll suffer first, not ‘us’ (despite the fact that ‘we’ are the root cause of the problem). Climate Change certainly won’t affect YOU, will it (actually, I think you might be in for a big surprise)? Yes, it might have some detrimental implications for your children and their children – but surely, ‘someone’ will have invented stuff that will sort it all out by then (but, in the meantime, you just enjoy your own selfish, materialistic life)? What on earth can a Swedish 16 year-old or a bunch of schoolchildren teach you about climate change (I think Greta Thunberg might change your opinion!)? So, no, you just carry on doing all the things you love to do… jetting here, there and everywhere… driving big cars… buying lots of stuff you don’t really need… not caring about the amount of stuff you buy/throw away… not worrying about ‘buying locally’ or ‘living simpler lives’… and why on earth would you want to do something like ‘reducing your global footprint’ (whatever that is)? And, in any case, all this stuff about climate change is just ‘fake news’ and ‘fake science’ (you know this because Mr Trump told you?)…
Oh, what a surprise.

Well, I know that the BBC hasn’t exactly been at the forefront of the march to combat climate change (despite that we’ve known about the severity of global warming for years… surely, we need ‘actions’ rather than ‘facts’?) but, at long last (some would say), last night’s prime-time documentary, presented by David Attenborough, MIGHT prove to be an important turning point.

If you haven’t already watched it, then I URGE you to do so.
REALLY.

alice’s ‘ink’ trilogy…

It was SO exciting when daughter Alice’s first novel “Ink” (in the trilogy of the same name) was published in February 2017 (“Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever”)… the book launch in London… the excitement… and the reality of Alice becoming a REAL, published author!!
And now, just over two years later, the third and final book in the trilogy, “Scar”, has been published (“Spark” came out last year)… and, again, to much acclaim (typically: “The perfect ending to an amazing trilogy”). Translation rights have been signed in over a dozen countries (I’ve lost count!).
It’s all been a little overwhelming.

I remember when, more than two years ago, Alice passed on a note her editor at Scholastic had received from an Italian editor about “Ink”… and it made me cry:
“I have three little scars, right between my eyebrows. It’s what varicella left me back when I was a kid, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the scabs to do their own course. Though, those little signs became me as much as they are the shape of my nose, or my bad temper, or the people I know.
When a couple of years ago my cat scratched my first son closest to his right eye, after the initial dread I just found myself thinking that he was now different from how he was born. Life happened to him, somehow: in a parallel universe, there is a different version of him who has not that scar, who is another him than the one I know. And it’s mutual: the one that he knows is the version of me with the three little scars between the eyebrows.
And I do hope that he won’t forget me.
How I loved to become a book. How I loved to be able to have my ancestors’ tales with me. And, of course, to be a reader.
That was what left me those enchanting first twenty pages of INK I had the chance to read before Bologna’s Fair. That is why I insisted so much with the people from Scholastic to keep me posted about the book with the purest, most honest, crystal clearest idea I had bumped into in a long, long time.
Yet, the final text thought me much more. Our bodies heal, our bodies repair. My body doesn’t tell tales on me for every single mistakes. I might have three little scars, but if they are important is because they are my dad coming home to spend some time with me, my mother taking care of me, my sister trying to cheer me up. They are somehow the legacy of a love. Just as the scar on my son is the sign of a cat, and the dread of a father.
I’m not the right kind of anything, like Leora; but I do think that book can save our souls. Can help us remember.
And yes, now, Alice Broadway, I remember you. I will always do.
It will be such a pride to be the one who will make other people in Italy remember you as well”.
Just a bit special when someone writes such things about something one of your daughters has created?  

Of course(!), I’ve read all three books and absolutely loved them. My lovely daughter is an amazing writer and storyteller (I knew she could write, but she REALLY can tell stories!). Last week, I was in the living room when granddaughter Iris was finishing the final book in the trilogy… and the sheer joy and pleasure on her face as she closed the book was an absolute ‘picture’. She’d been desperate to read the final book and, at last, she’d done so (and three days before the actual publishing date!). What a gift it is to be a writer and to bring so much pleasure to readers. I can’t remember exactly how old Alice was when she first announced she was going to be a writer (perhaps 10 years old?)… and, of course, my embarrassing parental reaction was something along the lines of “yes, that’s brilliant dear”!     

But, sometimes, childhood dreams REALLY do come true… (and what a story THAT is!).

 

 

march-april 2019 books…

Signs (Si Smith): A new comic-book by my amazing (description not used loosely!) mate Si Smith. I’ll probably read it a hundred times over the next few months based on my experience of Si’s previous stuff (no exaggeration). I’m in total awe. It’s stunning. Beautifully drawn (of course) with telling words and a powerful reminder of some of the important, unexceptional and yet special things. Oh, how desperately we need golden gifts like this in our grubby, bigoted world. I know it’ll be one of my top five books of the year. Simply brilliant. and people that surround us – if only we would “look up” (I love the ‘old gentleman’s’ overheard conversation on the 13A bus: “Oh, they’re angels alright, angels in disguise!”). I just know that I’ll see new things in the images every time I look at the comic… AND it comes with its own Spotify playlist (a lovely Si trademark).
Cassandra Darke (Posy Simmonds): It’s been an awful long time since I read a posy Simmonds book! On the face of it, it didn’t sound particularly appealing… the main character, Cassandra, is a 71 year-old “art dealer, mean, selfish, solitary by nature, living in Chelsea in a house worth £7million… she has become a social pariah and doesn’t much care”. But, actually, I thought it was excellent – beautifully-observed drawings, of course, but also funny and with a rather telling story… almost something of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in some ways (as Moira pointed out).
River (Esther Kinsky): This is a rather beautiful, poetic book (elegantly translated by Iain Galbraith), published in 2014. An unnamed female narrator (based on Kinsky herself?) moves to a London suburb (Kinsky lived in London for 12 years) and takes long solitary walks by the River Lea, observing and describing her surroundings and the unusual characters she encounters. Over the course of these walks, she amasses a collection of found objects and photographs. Her riverside walks remind the woman of her childhood beside the Rhine, where she grew up (and where Kinsky also grew up); the Saint Lawrence; the Hooghly; and the Oder. It takes the form of a series of essays(?)(fiction? memoir? or perhaps a combination of the two?). Not a book to be rushed… it seems to urge you to read it gently and take in all the sights and the sounds.
Thinking On My Feet (Kate Humble): This sounds pretty awful (sorry) and I’m sure there will be lots of people who disagree with my opinion, but I found this a rather unremarkable book… the kind of book I could easily have written (ha, some hope!) – about the pleasures of walking (in my case urban walks, not Humble’s daily rural walks with her dogs) and observing. It’s effectively her year’s occasional diary. Perfectly pleasant, easy reading about the joys of walking (and running) but, as I say, unremarkable. It’s amazing what you can get published if you’re a TV ‘celebrity’… and I got pretty sick of the endless references to her dog ‘Teg’! 
The Choice (Edith Eger): This is a remarkable, powerful, hopeful book. In 1944, 16 year-old ballerina Eger was sent to Auschwitz. She was separated from her parents on arrival (and never saw them again) and had to endure unimaginable experiences (including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele). When the camp was finally liberated, she was pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive. Again and again, I found myself reading in disbelief at episode after episode of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow man. Frankly amazing that anyone could survive such experiences. A little over a third of the book is taken up with Eger recalling her harrowing wartime memories but, for the remainder of the book, she tells of how she learnt to live again… to marry, have children and, ultimately, to become an inspiring, sought-after clinical psychologist and lecturer. An amazing story of incredible resilience, determination… and hope.

first day of the 2019 cricket season…

I had originally planned to travel down to Taunton today to watch Somerset play Kent, but the forecast was for light rain all day. I ended getting on the number 75 bus to the Brightside Ground here in Bristol (the forecast looked much more promising) to watch Gloucestershire against Oxford MCCU (a combined team formed from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University)… with the added bonus that entrance was free! The other attraction was that I could cart all my cricket books across town and donate them to the Club Shop’s secondhand bookstall.

Well, the day didn’t quite go as planned:
1. I set out from the house (suitably dressed for watching cricket - in several layers of clothing, including thermal underwear, fleece, waterproof, scarf and gloves… as you do) and, just as I was about to get on the bus, realised that I’d left my bus pass and bank cards at home. I duly retraced my steps, collected the aforementioned articles and eventually caught my bus.
2. The journey was fine and I arrived 25 minutes before start of play. I went straight to the Club Shop (I tell you, those books were bloomin’ heavy and I couldn’t wait to present them to the grateful shop manager!). Sadly, he told me that they weren’t ‘doing’ secondhand books this season… “Tony’s still going to persevere with the books off his own bat* (* that’s a cricket joke!), but he won’t be around until the Cheltenham Festival games later in the summer”. So I ended up having to lug all the books around with me… despite the temptation to leave individual books in secret places around the ground, just to lighten the load.
3. When I first arrived at the ground, the groundstaff were busy clearing away the cricket covers and huge tarpaulins ready for play to start at 11am… but then it started to rain. So the groundstaff had to reverse what they were doing and reinstate the covers/tarpaulins accordingly.
4. And so the crowd (numbering about six in total at that time?) sat around and waited for the shower to pass… which it did, eventually. In the meantime, there was an announcement that it had been decided that the players would be taking an ‘early lunch’ at 12.20pm, with a view to starting play some time around 1pm.
5. So, the ground staff recommenced their work… a tractor busied itself around the outfield clearing the surface rainwater, the senior groundsman started painting the white lines for the batting creases, the stumps were set up… everything was ready for the first ball of the season to be bowled.
6. Well (and you know what’s coming, don’t you?!), at around 12.40pm, it started to rain again (quite hard, steady sort of rain) and dark clouds surrounded the ground. I waited for a while in case there was an improvement…
7. By this time, I was feeling pretty cold and pretty miserable (yes, me!)… I’d been sitting out under cover reading for most of the time (NOT one of my cricket books!) and had also done a very quick stand-up sketch of one of the sightscreens (I know!). It was time to go to the bar, get myself a pint of beer and maybe a pasty… then I thought, do you know, I think I’ll just get on a bus home, get myself some lunch and settle down with my book in comfort!
In fact, play did start (just before 3pm). Gloucestershire batted and, it seems, made a terrible start (reduced to 17-3 at one stage) but slightly recovered to 51-3 before, you guessed it, it started to rain again! They restarted some time after 5.15pm and managed to play for another 40 minutes.
So, yes, I’ve attended my first game of the new cricket season… BUT I’ve still to see a ball being bowled in anger.
But, hey, it’s not ALL bad news. At least I was RIGHT in deciding not to go to Taunton… there was no play there at all due to rain.
Next time. Next time!
Photo: Being a member of the ground staff on a wet day is no fun!
PS: It’s feels somewhat ironic/nostalgic that Gloucestershire were playing Oxford University as, from the summer of 1968 until the mid-1970s, I used to go down to The Parks regularly to watch the cricket – featuring the likes of Imran Khan and Vic Marks.
PPS: Obviously, if you fancy giving some old cricket books a good home, please do let me know (seriously!)(I could let you have a list of titles).