august-september 2020 books…

The Last Days Of The Bus Club (Chris Stewart): This is the fourth book of Stewart’s I’ve read - of his life since buying a remote, hillside peasant farm (“on the wrong side of the river”) in Andalucia 20 year something years ago - so you won’t be surprised to hear that I rather like them! Trying to scrape a living during this period has clearly been fraught with difficulties. In order to get by, they’ve found themselves resorting various schemes and mini-enterprises (including sheep-shearing and, of course, writing) and his books essentially provide an account of their ongoing journey. Rather like the “A Year In Provence” book that I’ve recently re-read, it’s the various local characters who provide a wealth of the book’s charm. The “Bus Club” from the title relates to this final year of their daughter’s schooling, when Stewart and two of his Spanish neighbours used to gather together to meet the school bus… and generally ‘put the world to right’ (as you do!). It’s a very special, hopeful account about living simply - a funny, endearing, observant appreciation of life. My perfect lockdown book.

The Princess Bride (William Goldman): This is our next StorySmith bookgroup book (we decided on something of a ‘humorous theme’). To be honest, I hadn’t really come across Goldman before; I hadn’t appreciated, for example, that he was the screenwriter for the ‘Butch Cassidy’ film (I also hadn’t seen the 1987 ‘Princess Bride’ film). He died in 2018, aged 87. The book can probably be described as an action-packed fairy tale (with romance and revenge thrown into the mix). As a boy, William Goldman claims (but remember, this is fiction!), he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern ‘classic’ (pure invention, of course), The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he ‘discovered’ that the boring parts were left out of his Dad's recitation, and only the ‘good parts’ reached his ears… so here Goldman ‘reconstructs’ the book as a ‘good parts version’ along similar lines. I won’t even begin to try and summarise the plot… I’ll just acknowledge that, yes, it’s fast-moving, clever and full of intrigue, humour, love and revenge and an enjoyable, easy read (definitely a welcome change from pandemics and governmental incompetence!). However, I certainly didn’t love the book (unlike the numerous Goodread reviewers I’ve just noted online!). Goldman was much too full of himself for my liking and ended up finding his mocking asides/explanations/observations increasingly irritating! As ever, it’ll be interesting to discover what the rest of the bookgroup think.
All The Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr): I thought this was a wonderful, remarkable novel. It’s set in Germany and France before and during the German occupation of France. Marie-Laure is a little blind, motherless, French girl. She is six years old when the novel begins in Paris in 1934, where she lives with her father, a locksmith and keeper of the keys at the Natural History Museum. Werner Pfennig is an orphan in a German mining town, near Essen. He is a tiny boy of seven with a gift for science (and a fascination for radios in particular). Marie-Laure's father is also the creator of ingenious puzzles and delightful miniatures – of the streets and houses of Paris, for instance. The miniatures teach Marie-Laure, using her fingers as eyes, how to navigate the city. Ultimately she survives the destruction and desolation of the Occupation through the books she can read in braille. Werner's talent brings him to the attention of the Nazis, and he is sent to a national school that trains an elite group of Hitler Youth for the Third Reich. Marie-Laure and her father escape Paris in 1940, and take refuge in Saint‑Malo. Werner's genius is put to work tracking radio transmissions across Russia and Central Europe, until he is sent to Saint-Malo, where Marie‑Laure's great‑uncle uses his radio transmitter on behalf of the Resistance. Their paths ultimately collide… but I’ll avoid spoilers, so will leave it there! It’s a book about the morality and brutality of war; about coming-of-age; about endurance and the human spirit. It’s hauntingly beautiful and, once I’d got into it, I just couldn’t put it down. Wonderfully-written. Remarkable.

Ancestral Vices (Tom Sharpe): I first read this nearly 40 years ago. I used it as another ‘easy-reading-during-difficult-times’ book… on the basis that Sharpe always used to make me smile. Actually, unlike the ‘The Wilt Alternative’ book I re-read back in May, I found this one a little tired and predictable (yes, very funny in places… but also, for me, just too ridiculous and excessive). It felt a bit like a cross between “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em”, “Fawlty Towers” and Miss Marple!! The words on the book jacket summarise matters: “left-wing academics, right-wing capitalists, true blue country gentry, workers, peasants, police and lawyers”. Entertaining, but also excruciatingly farcical (in a bad way). I don’t think I’ll be re-reading any of my other Tom Sharpe books in a hurry.

The Sacred Art Of Stealing (Christopher Brookmyre): I read ‘Ugly One Morning’ (another of Brookmyre’s books) quite recently and, at the time, had commented that I hadn’t altogether been convinced by the plot – which I thought it was a ‘little contrived’. As a result, one of my friends suggested that I should ‘give this one a go’… and so I did… and it was well worth it! So, this is a novel about Dadaist bank robbers and choreographed dancing gunmen in Glasgow’s Buchanan Street (I kid you not!) and a female detective who, in the words of one reviewer, is a ‘connoisseur of crooks’. It took me a little time to get into the book (60 pages of the 400 plus) but, once in, I couldn’t put it down. The plot is intriguing, ridiculous and yet utterly convincing. Very clever, humorous, biting social satire and irreverent. I loved it.

july-august 2020 books…

Girl, Woman, Other (Bernardine Evaristo): Wow! I thought this was a simply stunning book. Wonderfully written, conceived and delivered, the novel follows 12 characters (most of them black British women) through their lives spanning an array of different decades. Each character has a chapter and, in these chapters, their lives overlap. Their backgrounds and experiences are all very different. There is much joy and celebration, but also sadness and struggle. Many of the characters are close – friends, relatives or lovers (I sometimes had to keep referring back to remind myself of the various relationships/links!). Having read a number of books recently on the question of race and colour, this novel only served to underline such issues… while also addressing a wide range of others (feminism, sexual-orientation; politics; class; prejudice; immigration; family etc etc). I’m a little in awe of Evaristo! It’s probably the best book I’m likely to read this year. Hugely readable, clever, entertaining, informative, funny and thought-provoking. Quite, quite brilliant.

This Is The Day (ed Neil Paynter): I first read this book of daily readings and meditations from the Iona Community in 2005 (published in 2003) and turned to it again at the start of lockdown (it covers a 4 month period). As someone who continues to struggle in my spiritual wilderness (which has been ongoing for a fair amount of time), I again found it a useful crutch… particularly the contributions from Kathy Galloway (who I was fortunate to have met during my two months on the island in 2012). The daily readings provided helpful reflections at the start of each day.  

Quite Ugly One Morning (Christopher Brookmyre): An entertaining crime thriller featuring a somewhat eccentric investigative journalist (and cat burglar!), who is happy to ‘bend the rules’ to get to the truth. Starts off with the gruesome murder of a doctor, before delving into matters relating to NHS Trusts (I’ll stop there… *no spoilers*). It’s quite amusing, gory and, frankly, pretty absurd in places. Although I found it an enjoyable read (despite the blood and mess), I wasn’t altogether convinced by the plot and frequently felt that it was a little too contrived.

A Year In Provence (Peter Mayle): I first read this book nearly 20 years ago… and felt that ‘lockdown’ was a suitable time to re-read it. Clearly, Provence is a beautiful place and the Mayle’s adventures in setting up home there are amusing, gentle and frequently very funny… but, while the descriptions of the region are evocative, the descriptions of the local characters are what make the book so delightful. The Mayles made various trips to local village restaurants to eat amazing artisan dishes and consume the odd bottle or two… and I frequently found myself wondering how they managed to drive themselves home after consuming copious qualities of the local vino. Interestingly, in the preface to my paperback edition, Mayle describes his mixed feelings about the effects that the book had had on their lives… wonderful to receive letters from readers etc but “sometimes less wonderful to find the reader on the doorstep, book in hand and tongue hanging out for a glass or two…”. It was also sad to note (from Wikipedia) that the Mayles relocated to Long Island, New York, to get away from fans and sightseers at his home in Provence (although he subsequently returned to France). He died in 2018, aged 78. I very much enjoyed reading it again.

My Name Is Why (Lemn Sissay): I bought this memoir after watching an ‘Imagine’ programme on television. Sissay is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and poet (he received an MBE for services to literature in 2019). At the age of 5 months, the “Authorities” placed him in the hands of “incapable foster parents” and then moved him from institution to institution until he was 18 years old. He describes the ordeal as “imprisonment”. This memoir is a harrowing account of his struggles of those early years and his 30 year campaign to obtain his records from the Local Authority. He suffered years of discrimination and prejudice due to his colour and, although he came across some ‘good people’ (like his social worker, the child psychologist and, finally, a woman from the National Association of Young People in Care), there was also a very long list of people who were cruel, dismissive, uncaring and abusive. Towards the end of the book, Sissay includes poignant, heart-breaking responses from other ‘inmates’ to a blog post he wrote in 2013 – who clearly had received similar life-damaging treatment in similar ‘institutions’. It’s a painful, powerful memoir which pulls no punches (it reproduces extracts from his records)… and provides a shameful reflection on how society treats some of its less fortunate members.   

june-july 2020 books...

Black River (Will Dean): I decided to make ‘lockdown’ my excuse for not waiting for the paperback version to be published (I know). This is Dean’s third Nordic noir crime novel (set in the northern wilds of rural Sweden) written by a bloke who grew up in the English Midlands (who now lives in rural Sweden in a wooden house he built in the middle of a forest). Tuva Moodyson, a deaf reporter, drops everything to return to Gavrik, a small town community in Sweden, to help look for her closest friend, who’s ‘gone missing’. It’s another intriguing, fast-moving, tense, haunting and compelling novel. Dean’s books seem to ‘borrow’ ideas from other writers/authors – but I’m happy to forgive him for that! – Tuva is very much in the same Saga ‘mould’ portrayed in the brilliant “The Bridge” television series (with her Asperger syndrome meaning that she doesn’t act in socially conventional ways) and the books themselves have the same ‘feel’ as Ann Cleeves’ ‘Shetland’ books (and even their titles/fonts bear an uncanny resemblance: eg. Dean’s Black River/Dark Pines/Red Snow and Cleeves’ Red Bones/Cold Earth/Blue Lightning etc)(and the same thing might also be said of some of Peter May’s books). Anyway, I’m not complaining… they tick all the boxes in my book! Predictably, I very much enjoyed this one.

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse): I’m afraid I opted for some more ignore-what’s-happening-in-the-real-world, comfort reading. I last read this book eight years ago… it’s excruciating predictable, but Wodehouse does have a way with words and I constantly found myself with a smirk on my face! Effortless, light reading.

Black And British: A Forgotten History (David Olusoga): This is our “Bloke’s Books” bookgroup’s next book (which was also an excellent 4-part BBC documentary). It’s a very long book (nearly 600 pages) which tells the comprehensive and important history of black Britain and I thought it was quite, quite brilliant. It reaches back to Roman Britain, to Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. I had thought the book would concentrate on the lives of particular black Britons but, although it clearly does focus on some key individuals, the basis of the book revolves around slavery (and the US cotton industry/Civil War). I found the book hugely informative, humbling and, in parts, absolutely shocking. It made me realise that there was so much of the ‘black story’ of which I was quite ignorant or unaware. I knew I’d be depressed by 18^th and early 19^th century accounts of the slave trade but I think what shocked me most the attitudes, remarks and policies adopted by (mainly English) politicians only perhaps 70-80 years before I was born. It also acted as a hugely embarrassing reminder of the shameful colour prejudice views adopted by some members of my own family as I grew up in Birmingham in the 1950s/60s. It’s an authoritative and hugely important book (and the story it tells should surely be part of the school curriculum?) which provides a sobering background to the wealth generated for this nation through slavery and its resulting status as a world power.

An American Marriage (Tayari Jones): This is our next StorySmith bookgroup’s next book (we wanted to choose a prize-winning book and this won “Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019”). It’s about a young African-American married couple; the husband is wrongfully arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit; the devastated wife (who knows her husband is innocent) struggles to comes to terms with events; she turns to their closest friend for support; the husband is unexpectedly released after only serving 5 years; he returns home ready to resume their life together… It’s very much an American novel which tells the all-too-frequent story of black people’s interactions with the criminal justice system (black men are disproportionately represented – 1 in 3 black men are likely to be imprisoned in their lifetime as compared to 1 in 17 white men). It’s also represents a demoralizing and infuriating reality for black families in the US - ripping away parents, children, providers, and supports, leaving vulnerable people and communities even more at risk. It’s a very readable book and Jones is an excellent writer, but I have to admit that, despite the plaudits from such eminent people as Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, I was left feeling somewhat unconvinced. I didn’t really believe in most of the characters (particularly the wife) – and, on occasions, I also found myself being irritated by American dialogue (but that’s problem just me). Maybe I’ll change my mind as I reflect on the book over the coming days (or after our bookgroup discussion) but, as things stand, it just feels like a 7/10 novel.

Lockdown (Peter May): A novel about a deadly pandemic wreaking havoc across the world (but with London at its epicentre) that was rejected by the publishers 15 years ago, because they deemed its subject matter “extremely unrealistic and unreasonable”. Well, who knew?! The story is something of a page-turning thriller involving a struggling detective inspector on his last day with Met who’s trying to track down a remorseless killer against a backdrop of a deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims… martial law has been imposed; health and emergency services are overwhelmed; violence and civil disorder are rife. May is one of my favourite writers and I finished this novel in less than 2 days. It was a little disturbing to read May’s perception of what life in a pandemic might be like (face masks; young people ignoring curfew rules; the race for a vaccine… and even the death of the Prime Minister)… he clearly undertook a huge amount of research. Our present government could definitely have learnt something from him! There were some aspects of the book that I found a little unconvincing but, overall, it’s an excellent, intelligent, thrilling… and somewhat sobering novel (even if there were moments when I found myself asking if this really was an appropriate time to read a book about a deadly pandemic!).

covid-19: social distancing and other matters…

Today (4 July) sees a change in ‘guidance rules’ for the general public from the government – a relaxation of many of the ‘rules’ (the list is quite extensive).

I don’t envy the government in these difficult times… but I’m very critical of the mixed messages they’re constantly giving out.

There was yet another example of this just yesterday: an exasperated Wales’ First Minister, Mark Drayford, said this in connection with the government’s plans to lift travel restrictions: "Dealing with the UK Government over the last few days has been an utterly shambolic experience. If ever there was an example of making an announcement first and then trying to work out what you meant by it - that is what we have seen since this announcement was first trailed in the press...”.

There have been several such examples.

As far as ‘social distancing’ is concerned, we've all become used keeping a minimum of two metres apart, but the Prime Minister recently announced a relaxation of social distancing rules (due to come into force in England from TODAY) as part of the “next phase of the country's fight against coronavirus”. The new rules encourage members of the public to remain two metres apart "where possible" or "one metre plus" elsewhere. For the life of me, I’m really not sure what this actually means in practice… so I decided to check on the government’s website – and, yes, it contained these very same words… but then it added this somewhat ‘strange’ rider: “Please stay two metres from anyone you meet who you don’t live with”.

Confusing?

I suspect, especially for the young (if they ever bother to read such things), this essentially will be interpreted as “all bets are off, we can do whatever we like”.

I checked out another government website link (dealing with “staying safe outside your home”). This informed me: “The government recommends that you keep two metres away from people as a precaution or one metre when you can mitigate the risk by taking other precautions in this list”… the list include such things as avoiding being face-to-face with people outside your household; keeping hands+face clean; avoiding crowded spaces; using face coverings on public transport or in hospitals; avoiding “shouting or singing close to people outside your household”(!); and advice when at work or in business or public premises.

Two metres or not two metres? That is the question.

I’m still confused.

  

You might recall that it was only a few days ago Mr Johnson was in almost celebratory mood - telling us all it was “back to business”… indeed HM Treasurer almost issued a party invitation to all and sundry with its tweeted message: “Grab a drink and raise a glass, pubs are re-opening their doors from 4 July” (which, of course, it subsequently felt it had to delete). Since then we’ve had Mr Johnson giving a rather more sober message of “we’re not out of the woods yet, let’s not blow it”. It almost feels like an after-thought designed in such a way that, if it all goes wrong and there is a ‘second wave’ or a series of ‘spikes’, he’ll be able to say: “well, I did warn you”… and blame EVERYTHING on the British public!

Moira and I have been self-isolating for more than 15 weeks now.

We’ve been taking coronavirus precautions very seriously and decided from the outset that we would avoid shopping and the like (ie. avoiding people!), that we would maintain 2 metre social distancing, but that we WOULD endeavour to get out and walk every day (for both our physical fitness and our mental health)(still, as far as possible, avoiding people).

For me, most of today's rule changes don’t apply. I’ve been designated as “clinically extremely vulnerable” and so, basically, until 1 August, I need to continue as before. From that date, I’ve been told (by letter from Health Secretary “Matt” – that’s how he signed it!) that I will be able to go to work (as long the business is “COVID-safe”); that I can go outside to buy food and exercise (but need to “maintain strict social distancing”); but that I should remain cautious as I’m still at risk of severe illness if I catch coronavirus, so I should stay at home where possible and, if I do go out, I need to “follow strict social distancing”.

Ah, but is that two metres or “one metre plus” social distancing, Matt?

Rest assured, for the foreseeable at least, I’m sticking to two metre social distancing – whatever the government tells me.

june 2020 books...

The Outrun (Amy Liptrot): This book was recommended to me by my lovely Urban Sketcher friend Judith. It’s something of a lyrical memoir. At the age of 30, the author finds herself ‘washed up’ back home on Orkney. The previous ten years of her life had been a nightmare; she left Orkney, went south, ended up in London and started a downward spiral of hellish alcohol addiction. She lost jobs, a boyfriend she loved, her health and self-respect – and ended up in rehab, with her psyche teetering on the edge of the abyss (I couldn’t see how anyone could survive what she had been through). I had thought of giving this book (which I’d heard very good things about) to a friend as a birthday present but, 100 pages into it, Liptrot’s story seemed so hopelessly pitiful that I changed my mind. Actually, I now regret that decision because I ended up thinking the book was absolutely brilliant. So, Liptrot returned home (she briefly tried a couple of times before without success). She was alcohol-free, but an absolute mess. She retreated to the ‘outrun’ (the name given to a rough pasture on her parents’ farm) and, very slowly, thanks to her amazing resolve and determination, her life is gradually restored and re-formed. For a time, she works on her father’s farm then gets a job on a survey of the endangered corncrake (which immediately set me back with my own memories of the corncrakes of Iona!), and eventually she retreats to the tiny island of Papa Westray, off Orkney. There she walks the hills, goes wild swimming, tracks the wildlife and discovers a new meaning for her life. Thanks to the internet, she constantly learns new things – astronomy, rock formations, history and the like… and, crucially (and wonderfully), for the past two years she’s remained sober (and resolved to being sober the rest of her life). She writes beautifully. It’s an incredibly brave, eloquent and hopeful book… and I doubt if I’ll read a better one this year. I’d highly recommend it.

All Points North (Simon Armitage): This is our next “Bloke’s Books” book (selected by Nick). First published in 1998, the book’s cover describes it as part-memoir and part-excursion” and that seems completely appropriate. It tells of the author’s formative years, growing up and being ‘northern’ (especially Yorkshire!). The observations and descriptions are frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Unsurprisingly, from someone who has now risen to the heights of poet laureate, it’s beautifully-written – and something of a celebration of the ordinary and remarkable things that go to making the wonderful patchwork world in which we live. When our bookgroup ‘meets’ to discuss the book, I think it’s essential that we’re all drinking pints of ale and spending some of the evening discussing who we think should be the new Entertainments Secretary of the Social Club (if we had one!).

Lowborn (Kerry Hudson): This is a pretty amazing book (published 2019). Hudson is a prize-winning author (“with a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books”), but her life today is unrecognisable from the working class and dehumanising poverty of her childhood. This extract from the book’s introduction will give you a flavour: “1 single mother; 2 stays in foster care; 9 primary schools; 1 sexual abuse child protection inquiry; 5 high schools; 2 sexual assaults; 1 rape; 2 abortions; my 18^th birthday…”. In the book, Hudson revisits the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in the UK today… and whether anything has changed. Before becoming a writer, she worked for a variety of NGOs and charities related to poverty and diversity. In her final chapter, Hudson points the finger to a “hostile government who, in the last eight years of austerity, has sought to take from those who can least afford it, to trim fat where there was only bone in the first plave, while offering tax cuts for the wealthy. The result? We live in the world’s sixth-richest economy but one-fifth of us live in poverty. Local Councils have seen a 49% reduction in government funding since 2010-11…”. A hugely powerful book that all members of parliament should be compelled to read.

Much Obliged, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse): I first read this some 9 years ago… It’s been an awful long time since I last read any PG Wodehouse, but I did enjoy this. There’s something rather reassuring about Jeeves+Wooster books – the humour; ridiculous snobbery; language; bizarre characters, the excruciating predictability and the outlandish names of the characters (such as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Stilton Cheesewright et al) and the fact that Wooster refers to his aunt (to her face) as “old blood relation” and “aged ancestor”! Effortless, light reading… in these strange times.

Things We Lost in the Fire (Mariana Enriquez): Our next StorySmith bookgroup book (this month’s theme: short stories). The book’s cover describes it thus: “Twelve stories of ghosts, demons and wild women; of sharp-toothed children and stolen skulls” (it also advises that it’s a “sleep-stealing collection”)! First published in 2016, Enriquez’s stories relate to the crime-ridden streets of post-dictatorship Buenos Aires. In a sense, the stories reflect a country haunted by the spectre of recent dictatorships; they’re sinister, dark and somewhat gothic in character and very unsettling… and men are frequently seen in a pretty bad light. Not the kind of book that would make comfortable bedtime reading (I read virtually all of it at daytime!), but clever, imaginative and hugely challenging.

may 2020 books...

The Last Train to Hilversum (Charlie Connelly): This is a book exploring the place of radio in our world (note: Hilversum, in the Netherlands, was an important radio transmission centre in the early days of the wireless - and many older radio sets throughout Europe featured Hilversum as a pre-marked dial position on their tuning scales). I’d never come across Connelly before (despite the fact he’s apparently a “bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster”). I must say that, when I first started reading the book, I feared it was going to be a cheery, dumbed-down diatribe that an aging Radio2 DJ might have written (not that I listened to Radio2 or was familiar with any of its presenters!)… but I was wrong. It proved to be a fascinating reminder of the importance of radio in the 20^th century – it’s part nostalgic reflection, part social history. I enjoyed it a lot.

That Will Be England Gone (Michael Henderson): This book was a gift from my lovely brother… Henderson, 9 years younger than me shares lots of my own views about the cricket. The title is a line from Larkin’s poem ‘Going, Going’. Henderson wrote the book in the knowledge that the 2020 season (if it ever happens?) would see the introduction of a new tournament, ‘The Hundred’, designed to attract an audience of younger people to the game. Ten 10-ball overs per innings featuring ‘eight brand-new city-based teams’… I’ve blogged about it separately here, so won’t bother repeating myself. Really excellent book for grumpy old cricket-lovers like me!

Tom Purvis: Art For The Sake Of Money (Ruth Artmonsky+David Preston): Somewhat ridiculously perhaps, I’d not come across this ‘commercial artist’ before seeing a recent television documentary featuring Art Deco by the Seaside (or something like that). I’d seen examples of his work, but without knowing the name of the artist. I don’t like all his art, but I absolutely love particular pieces (especially his LNER railway posters from 1925-43 and the posters his produced for Austin Reed. I found this a rather wonderful book (Purvis had something of a chip on his shoulder against fine artists, printers, agencies, art schools and some clients!). He saw himself as a combination of an artist and a salesman (interestingly, he left the typography and layout to others – which I find strange). He had a gift for sophisticated handling of flat colour (and he also produced some impressive woodcuts) and, in addition, the work of his that I particularly admire frequently involves very symbolic, simple, featureless representations of its subjects. One of those books that I’ll be constantly ‘dipping into’ over future years. 

Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie): This is our lovely StorySmith bookgroup’s latest book choice (this month we were looking for something by an African author)… and I thought it was stunningly good. The novel tells a story through the eyes of a young Nigerian woman struggling to come to terms with a world of conflict and strife (Nigeria is a country beset by political instability and economic difficulties). Her family is wealthy and dominated by her devoutly Catholic father - who is both a religious zealot and violent. It’s about religious hypocrisy; about wealth and generosity; about suffering and poverty; about the abuse of power… but also, crucially, about the persistence of love and about finding one's own voice. Adichie is an incredibly gifted writer and I was so impressed by this powerful, compassionate book. I think our bookgroup will love it!

Yes Minister: The Diaries Of A Cabinet Minister, Volume 3 (edited by Jonathan Lynn+Antony Jay): I’ve had this book for over 30 years (it was first published in 1983) and I’ve read it perhaps half a dozen times (the last time was only 5 years ago – I even blogged about it!). It NEVER fails to make me laugh out loud! Essentially, the “diaries” are re-written versions of the old television programme scripts. Interesting to recall the “editors’ note” (by scriptwriters Lynn+Jay) at the start of the book – which is supposedly written from “Hacker College, Oxford” (Jim Hacker is the book’s Minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs) in September 2019 – no doubt in the light of Hacker’s sparkling contribution to British politics! If you’ve never read any of the diaries (or seen the television programmes – including “Yes, Prime Minister”), then you REALLY must – they make a wonderful backdrop to the exploits of our own current batch of ministers (and Prime Minister!) as they attempt to justify their actions’ (or ‘non-actions’?) in connection with the current pandemic. Somewhat ironically, I finished reading the book on the day that saw Mr Cummings, the PM’s ‘chief advisor’, attempt to justify his various trips to Durham and a nearby beauty spot at a time when we were all supposed to be ‘staying at home’. Sir Humphrey Appleby would have bluffed his way through it all SO much more convincingly! Simply brilliant (again!).

very best substitute for cricket in the circumstances…

In these testing times, I realise that there are FAR more important matters than bemoaning the lack of this year’s cricket season (well, probably) but, nevertheless, I am REALLY missing my cricket! 

Never fear, my lovely brother has stepped in to save the day (he really is pretty amazing). 

Michael Henderson’s book “That Will Be England Gone” (a line from Larkin’s poem ‘Going, Going’) arrived in last Friday’s post… no note, no clue as to who might have sent it (but it could only have been from my brother Alan!).

Henderson is a cricket writer and arts correspondent (mirroring the career/interests of one of my cricket-writing heroes, Neville Cardus). I’ve come across articles from him in the past, but don’t really know an awful lot about him. Although he’s nearly ten years younger than me, I think we could both call ourselves ‘grumpy old men’ as far as some of our ‘traditional’ views on cricket are concerned.

Henderson wrote the book in the knowledge that the 2020 season would see the introduction of a new tournament, ‘The Hundred’, designed to attract an audience of younger people to the game. Ten 10-ball overs per innings featuring ‘eight brand-new city-based teams’. The County Championship – which both Henderson and I see as the ‘proper’ form of cricket – would be reduced to something of a farce, with games shoe-horned in to take place at the very start and end of the season. ‘The Hundred’ and Twenty-20 ‘pyjama’ cricket’ (as some of us have described it) would effectively take over the prime June-August slots, alongside some of the Test matches. Cardus used to say that there could be no summer English summer without cricket. He’d be horrified by what’s happening… and so are Henderson and I.

We both share the view that this ‘bish-bash’ version isn’t cricket. Yes, it might be entertaining as a ‘spectacle’, but it DEFINITELY isn’t cricket. The trouble is that we also both accept that the county championship clubs couldn’t survive financially if they had to depend purely on income from Test Matches and championship games. We also both share the fear that the new competitions might ultimately lead to the demise of Test Match cricket (the ultimate version of the game) altogether… or, at the very least, turn it into a dumbed-down adaptation (probably reduced to 4 days’ duration, rather than 5, because batsman were no longer sufficiently capable of staying at the wicket for any significant period).

I’ve blogged at length on the demise of English cricket (well, the county championship anyway) over the years, so I’ll resist the temptation to add yet further ranting! Here’s just one example from last year!

For this book, Henderson revisited several much-loved places last season to reflect on how the game had changed since he attended his first ‘senior’ game of cricket in 1965. Inevitably, many of his cricketing heroes were mine too and so, not surprisingly (despite him being SO much younger than me!), we shared similar memories. His background (public school educated at Repton) is very different to mine, but we do share a common love for cricket and the arts. He sees public schools as almost the ‘only hope’ for cricket’s future stars – there’s hardly any cricket played at state schools these days (and local cricket clubs have to compete with other summer sports, including bloomin’ football, that don’t require giving up entire days to them). I hate to admit it, but I think he’s probably right – with all the consequences that would come with this.

Yes, the book is something of a romantic, nostalgic (almost lyrical) reflection on his life - and, yet, it’s much, much more than that. I love the stories+reflections and it’s frequently very amusing. He and I don’t agree on everything (surprise, surprise), but I SO enjoyed reading it; it brought back LOTS of memories; and it has massively helped me cope with being unable to sit next to the boundary rope. x

Postscipt: What came as a lovely bonus was this reference to conductor Daniel Harding (our families are very close friends from our Oxford days) in the book’s ‘Postlude’ on one of Henderson’s regular visits to Munich: “Some of those visitors occasionally play cricket in the Englischer Garten. In July 1996, I was one of them, turning out for a London XI against MCC (Munich Cricket Club) on a matting pitch inside a running track on the southern fringe of the park. The next day I drove across the Austrian border with Daniel Harding, the young English conductor, to hear Simon rattle direct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival. Eleven years later Danny and I returned to the festival. He was now conducting that great orchestra himself, in ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ no less, and I was listening at quarters that could not have been closer. ‘Sit in the pit’, he said. ‘Wear something dark, and don’t stand up to peer at the audience’. Shades of Noël Coward’s instructions to his actors!”

april-may 2020 books…

The Wilt Alternative (Tom Sharpe): In an effort to take my mind off some of the depressing consequences and realities of the current pandemic, I decided to re-read one of the many Tom Sharpe books I possess (I bought this one in April 1981, 39 years ago!). It’s the continuing sage of Henry Wilt, hen-pecked husband, father of quads and Head of Liberal Studies at the local Tech. As with all of Sharpe’s books, it’s outrageously un-politically correct and completely farcical when it comes to a plot, BUT it’s absolutely hilarious… to say that Sharpe has the ‘gift-of-the-gab’ would something of an understatement. Anyway, it served its purpose… and I frequently found myself laughing out loud (again!).

The Body (Bill Bryson): Bryson is brilliant. I absolutely love his writing. In his book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, he apparently set off to explore the universe and the science of everything in it. Here, according to the book jacket, “he turns his gaze inwards, to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us”. Although married to a nurse and having worked psychiatric hospital in the early 1970s (and despite his ten honorary doctorates!), I’m sure he’d be the first to admit that he is no medical expert… and yet, he has that amazing gift for explaining the most difficult subjects in the clearest possible way (and with humour too!)… As you finish reading the second paragraph of a chapter, for example, you’ll suddenly find him writing: “your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this”! It’s a substantial work (of almost 400 pages), crammed full of fascinating facts and illuminating stories (frequently highlighting amazing researchers whose names have largely been forgotten). I found the best way of reading this tome was to read a chapter a day (23 chapters, each focussing on different parts of the body or on the immune system, on sleep… and the like). A glorious, compulsive book… and one I’ll continue to dip into over future years.

The Glad Season (Ray Robinson): This is a cricket book from 1956. I thought I’d given away all my cricket books but, clearly, this one slipped through the net. I obviously acquired it at some second-hand bookshop or jumble sale ages ago and never got around to reading it. So, I thought I would read it now as acknowledgement of what SHOULD have been the start of the new cricket season (but coronavirus intervened). It’s a book that focuses on young cricketers. The subject matter is interesting - especially in retrospect, when some of the players went on to become ‘famous’ (and others who didn’t) – BUT it’s really APPALLING in terms of writing style (Robinson was an Australian cricket writer 1905-82)! This is just one example: Talking about Australian batsman Neil Harvey, Robinson writes: “Hastily fixing his pads and gloves Neil hurried in, trailing his bat, little knowing that with him went a silent prayer from his anxious captain. With two balls of this cataclysmic over to survive, Neil said to Miller in his crisp, light voice: ‘What’s going on out here? Let’s get stuck into them, eh?’ He turned his back to the bowler while he scraped a block-mark with his toe…”. I won’t bother continuing… it was all like this! No doubt he had his admirers, but I’m certainly not one of them. Just awful. Simply awful.

The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eigenides): I’ve been meaning to read this novel for some time. I knew the basic story – about five young sisters (13-17 years old) from a Catholic family living in Michigan in the 1970s who all, in the course of just over a year, commit suicide. I’m not giving anything away by telling you this because the book’s very first paragraph informs readers that’s what’s going to happen. Moira tells me that we’ve seen the 1999 film of the book, but I only have a very vague memory of this! It’s a haunting and compelling story which is both disturbing and surprisingly funny at times (in a dark humour sort of way). The girls were under the thumb of their tyrannical, disturbed mother, who never allowed them to have dates and dressed them in ridiculously baggy clothes. Their father, a mild high school maths teacher, was sympathetic but docile. It’s written in the first person plural from the perspective of an anonymous group of teenage boys (who were friends of the sisters, as far as that had been possible) – but recounted many years later when most of them had married and had families. They struggle for an explanation of the girls’ deaths… and continued to struggle over the years. Imaginative, detailed and wonderfully-written.

The Gift (Lewis Hyde): I felt I needed to read this book. Moira’s had it for quite a long time (but, interestingly didn’t finish it). Essentially, it focuses on how the creative spirit transforms the world. Margaret Atwood described it as “a masterpiece” and “classic study of gift-giving and its relationship to art”. It refers to the power of art to take us beyond ourselves… and also a call to use the gifts we have been given. But it also tries to address the issue of how a creative artist might be able to survive in a society dominated by market exchange. Hyde himself is a poet and translator and so perhaps it’s not surprising that he concentrates his thinking on the likes of fellow writers/poets like Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound rather than, say, painters or designers. It’s a highly intelligent book which deals with large philosophical issues and, to be brutally honest, I just don’t think I am clever enough to appreciate it – large swathes simply seemed to pass over my head! Sadly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), I finished the book with a huge sense of relief.

bill bryson: the body

I love Bill Bryson’s writing! I’ve just finished his excellent book ‘The Body: A Guide for Occupants’. It’s absolutely packed with fascinating observations and detail. In the penultimate chapter (‘Medicine Good and Bad’), for example, here are just a FEW extracts about health in the US (note: by quoting this stuff, I’m not ‘having a go’ at the US – I’m merely aware that, eventually it seems to me, the UK follows America’s ‘lead’ in virtually everything!):

• “With regard to life expectancy… it is not a good idea to be an American”.
• “For every 400 middle-aged Americans who die each year, just 220 die in Australia, 230 in Britain, 290 in Germany and 300 in France”.
• “America spends more on health care than any other nation – two and a half times more per person than the average for all the other developed countries”.
• “Yet despite the generous spending, and the undoubted high quality of American hospitals and health care generally, the US comes just 31^st in global rankings, behind Cyprus, Costa Rica and Chile, and just ahead of Cuba and Albania. How to explain such a paradox? Well, to begin with, and most inescapably, Americans lead more unhealthy lifestyles than most other people... As Allan S Detsky observed in the ‘New Yorker’, ‘Even wealthy Americans are not isolated from a lifestyle filled with oversized food portions, physical inactivity, and stress.’ The average Dutch or Swedish citizen consumes about 20% fewer calories than the average American, for instance.”

Although Bryson (who was born in Iowa, but a British resident for most of his adult life) is enthusiastic about the UK’s NHS, he points out: “For Britain, cancer survival rates are grim and ought to be a matter of national concern”.  He’s also critical about the UK spending “too little” on health care: “The ‘British Medical Journal’ reported in early 2019 that cuts to health and social care budgets between 2010 and 2017 led to about 120,000 early deaths in the UK, a pretty shocking finding”.

Fascinating (and sobering) stuff.

and this will all end…

“In dreams we remember what was, we think about what is, we imagine what might be, what can be, what will be” (Eva-Jane Gaffney speaks Sarah Coffey’s words in “The Pheonix”). These words are taken from a really beautiful Irish Covid-19-inspired video about love, loss, hope and strength (if you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do so by clicking here).

The video manages to captures many of the emotions we’re all feeling at the present time… the sense of gratitude; the kindness shown by others; the awful suffering; the amazing heroes; the precious lives lost; and the enormous strength shown…

We probably all have our ‘wish lists’ of the things we will treasure when all this ends. Those MANY things that perhaps some of us have taken for granted… those simple pleasures… those things that help to make us who we are.

We will never ever forget it and we will never ever let go again.

And this will all end…

But before we get carried away by it all, it’s VITALLY important that we also never allow the people in power to forget the things that they got SO wrong and at such cost:

• The Prime Minister is very good at putting a ‘positive gloss on things’, but conveniently fails to acknowledge that the death toll in the UK is amongst the highest in the world; that NHS staff and other healthcare workers have not had the protective clothing and equipment they needed and would have expected; that the government could have increased testing, tracking and tracing capacity weeks earlier than the current timetable; and that care homes have been woefully under-protected.
• The Prime Minister skipping five crucial meetings on the virus (as reported by The Sunday Times on 19 April, in its massively-critical assessment); when he did attend in early March, it was almost certainly too late (the virus was already upon us) - failings in February probably cost thousands of lives; calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears (check out this week's 'Panorama' programme if you think I'm being unfair).
• The Home Secretary making disparaging remarks about low-skilled workers (when it transpires that the majority of people employed by the sector are low-paid care workers - who are responsible for providing daily help to older and disabled adults in care homes and the community).

Writer Philip Pullman doesn’t hold back in his criticisms of the existing system (in an essay in ‘Perspectives’ for Penguin Books): “It’s all got to change. If we come out of this crisis with all the rickety, fly-blown, worm-eaten old structures still intact, the same vain and indolent public schoolboys in charge, the same hedge fund managers stuffing their overloaded pockets with greasy fingers, our descendants will not forgive us. Nor should they. We must burn out the old corruption and establish a better way of living together… And let’s reform the voting system. At the very least, let’s do that without delay. It’s no wonder that people feel disconnected from politics when most of us live in safe seats, and might as well not vote at all. We must be able to see that our opinions are accurately reflected in the composition of our government, not completely disregarded as they are now. So it might lead to coalitions: excellent. Discussion, compromise, working together are exactly how to run a decent country”.

And when this will all end, you’ll ask me dance.

And I will say, yes, let’s dance.

I desperately hope that we come out of it all determined to make the world a better place.

I desperately hope that we remember the people and the jobs that make our day-to-day lives worth living.

I desperately hope that we truly decide to care for our planet.

I desperately hope that we can move away from the old world of greed and power, of the haves and the have-nots. My fear is that some will have very short memories and revert back (if ever they budged) to lives governed by wealth and influence.

I desperately hope that such individuals and corporations are overwhelmed by the voices of those who know there’s a better way.

We’ve learnt so much from this awful coronavirus experience. Let’s use what we’ve learnt to make the world a better place.

And this WILL all end…

We will cry… oh we will cry!

Photo: Banksey’s ‘Girl With Pierced Eardrum’ gets a Covid-19 facemask.

april 2020 books…

In My Mind’s Eye (Jan Morris): Published in 2018, this is a ‘Thought Diary’; a set of daily meditations on her long life of writing and the rituals of her existence in north Wales. The result is a mixture of her memories and musings, her tastes and prejudices… and her observations on life (ranging from funny, blunt, touching and kind). I love Morris’s writing and this is a rather lovely, gentle book. As perhaps one might expect from a 91 year-old, she ‘bangs on’ about somewhat repetitive themes, including her dear old Honda Civic Type R car; her dislike of zoos; her republican tendencies; her agnosticism; her daily thousand paces walk up and down the lane by her house (always whistling); her despair of today’s world; the decline of the Royal Navy; robots; marmalade; the arts; her partner Elizabeth; the great American songbook; her library (of several thousand books)… and, of course, the key to EVERYTHING in her eyes: kindness. I think my favourite sentence in the book was: “Alas, I never met Leonard Cohen… but I did once meet his mother”! She’s an institution… and I love her.
Scoop (Evelyn Waugh): First published in 1938, I first read this book ten years ago and decided to re-read it as ‘light relief’ from all the current depressing coronavirus matters. It’s an irreverent satire of Fleet Street and tells the story of a young man, William Boot, who lives in genteel poverty in the West Country and who contributes nature notes to Lord Copper's Daily Beast, a national daily newspaper. He is bullied into becoming a foreign correspondent, when the editors mistake him for John Courtney Boot, a fashionable novelist, and is sent to Ishmaelia, a fictional state in East Africa, to report on the crisis there. The novel has been described as one of Waugh’s “most exuberant comedies” but, frankly, this time around – although there are several very funny passages – my overriding reaction to the book was a sense of disgust at Waugh’s several awful ‘stereotypical’, distasteful descriptions of many of the African characters (‘darky’, ‘coon’, ‘nigger’, ‘blacks’ etc). Yes, I appreciate that it’s “of its time” and perhaps rather reflected Waugh’s reactionary character and his negative image as “intolerant, snobbish and sadistic, with pronounced fascist leanings”, but I don’t think I’ll be re-reading the book again.
Tissues For Men (Alan Coren): I re-re-read this almost 40 years since I first read it… in an attempt to gain some emotional relief from all the current coronavirus reports. Even the book’s cover acknowledges a similar sentiment: “At last, the complete cure for gloom and misery!”. Coren, former editor of Punch magazine was an incredibly funny and hugely gifted writer… with an imaginative talent for seeing humour in even apparently mundane subjects. Laugh out loud humour at its brilliant best.
Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl (Andrea Lawlor): This is my StorySmith bookgroup's latest book and this time we chose ‘LGBT’ as a basic theme. Elisa Gabbert in her review for ‘London Review for Books’ summarised the novel thus: “For a cishet reader like me, (the book) offers an education in gay experience in the 1990s – full of lore, zines and raves – but it’s not preachy or didactic; there are no sneaky lessons, or if there are, they’re so sneaky I barely noticed them” (note: I had to look up what cishet meant: “a person is cishet if he or she is cisgender, meaning identifying with his or her assigned-at-birth gender, as well as heterosexual, or attracted exclusively to people of the opposite sex). Well, it certainly provided ME with an education into gay life! The book’s protagonist, 23 year-old Paul/Polly Polydoris, is able to change sex whenever he/she wants, with no magic wands required… and, believe me, the book is FULL of graphic descriptions of Paul’s/Polly’s NUMEROUS sexual experiences (and these frequently seem to occur on a whim – as a result of a chance glimpse, a casual gesture or a calculated pursuit). He/she is constantly looking for new sexual experiences and opportunities… and sees such encounters as novelties as he/she moves from Iowa to San Francisco (and all this against the backdrop of Aids). I loved Lawlor’s detailed and lengthy descriptions of lots of the key music from the time and of the various elaborate clothes combinations. It’s a love story (admittedly quite unlike any love story I’ve previously read!); it’s very well-written and it’s frequently outrageous and often very funny. I have to admit that I didn’t find the book ‘an easy read’ (not because I was shocked by all the sex, but perhaps a little by the seemingly never-ending number of sexual encounters?) and it took me longer to read than I might have anticipated. Nevertheless, I think the book has received widespread critical acclaim and so I’ll be absolutely fascinated to discover what my lovely bookgroup makes of it.
Mrs Fox (Sarah Hall): This is one of a series of short stories celebrating Faber+Faber’s 90^th birthday (it won the BBC National Short Story Award 2013). It’s a somewhat haunting tale that focuses on the relationship between a husband and wife… about the outward appearance of perfection their relationship portrays to the outside world and yet something is perhaps not quite right… the couple’s situation changes in an instant… how do they react? The book cover puts it like this: “In language harvested from nature, Sarah Hall tells a story of metamorphosis, of wildness and fecundity, and of a man reaching for reason, who cannot let go of the creature he loves”. Beautifully-written and a bit magical.

march-april 2020 books…

Trieste And The Meaning Of Nowhere (Jan Morris): I just love Morris’s unconventional ‘travel books’ (this one published in 2001); they’re a unique combination of fascinating facts, history and people but, far more important for me, also Morris’s meditations, memories and insights about the place… and I just loved this book. My friend Mike gave it to me to mark our first meeting earlier this month. I visited the city in the summer of 1968 with my student friends John and Ron (£15 return coach trip from Dover – or was it Ramsgate? – to Trieste!)… we camped just up the coast at Muggia and I have vague memories of catching trains from Trieste to Venice… and to Rijeka (in what was then Yugoslavia)… and sleeping overnight in Trieste railway station awaiting our return coach back home! Sadly, we failed to explore the city at all (a big regret). Clearly, Morris (who first encountered the place during WW2) loves the city and, especially, what she describes as its European cosmopolitanism (“multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-faith…”) - rather poignant comments given our recent abandonment of the EU. The book which, at the time, was supposed to be her ‘final’ book (thankfully she’s written more since!) is very much a reflection of her experiences at what she regarded as the ‘end of her life’. I loved this passage at the end of the book (no apologies for quoting it in full): “Much of this little book, then, has been self-description. I write of exiles in Trieste, but I have generally felt myself an exile too. For years I felt myself an exile from normality, and now I feel myself one of those exiles from time. The past is a foreign country, but so is old age, and as you enter it you feel you are treading unknown territory, leaving your own land behind. You’ve never been here before. The clothes people wear, the idioms they use, their pronunciation, their assumptions, tastes, humours, loyalties all become the more alien the older you get. The countryside changes. The policemen are children. Even hypochondria, the Trieste disease, is not what it was, for that interesting pain in the ear lobe may not now be imaginary at all, but some obscure senile reality. This kind of exile can mean a new freedom, too, because most things don’t matter as they used to. The way I look doesn’t matter. The opinions I cherish are my business. The books I have written are no more than smudged graffiti on a wall, and I shall write no more of them. Money? Enough to live on. Critics? To hell with ‘em. Kindness is what matters, all along, at any age – kindness, the ruling principle of nowhere!”. Special book. Special person.

Such Small Hands (Andres Barba): Our bookgroup ALMOST chose this book as part of its ‘sadness-to-be-leaving-the-EU’ selection acknowledging authors from across the EU… and, although I’m not usually one for reading scary novels, I was very brave and chose to buy a copy for myself! It’s no more than a novella but, somewhat hilariously you may think, I decided NOT to attempt reading it immediately before bedtime (my nighttimes are disrupted as they are!). Marina, a 7-year-old girl, has been wounded in an accident that killed her parents; she is taken to live in an orphanage… and she also takes with her a wide-eyed doll, also called Marina, which is her constant companion. Both the child and the doll become the focus of the other girls’ attention… part adoring, part cruel… and, soon, uneasy playfulness develops into a shocking nighttime game. Eeerie, sinister and a bit terrifying (but impressive).

Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi): This is our bookgroup’s latest book. In the late 1990s, Azar Nafisi (a former professor of literature at Tehran University) invited a group of seven young women to meet at her apartment in Tehran every Thursday morning to discuss Western literature. I found it a pretty remarkable book… and, somehow, reading about her experiences of detachment and isolation in her Tehran University teaching post (and her mini-teaching community) formed fascinating, and humbling, contrasts with the experiences we’re currently encountering through the coronavirus pandemic (and, somewhat ironically, I finished the book on the day the government announced its various isolation restrictions). Bizarrely, and hilariously, reading her description (in the very first chapter, P4) of the two contrasting photographs of her women’s reading group (one dressed in their black robes and the other in their ‘normal’ clothing) gave me a mental image of our own bookgroup posing for two contrasting group photographs – one in normal clothing and the other where we’re all dressed as ‘book characters’ (oh dearie, dearie me!) - the fact that I started reading the book a couple of days after ‘World Book Day’ might have influenced my thought processes at the time!? I also thought it was somewhat ironic to read of people gathering together in secret at a time when we ourselves have to remain apart! I found reading about the attitudes to and the treatment of women (I knew much of it already, but…) in Iranian society was hugely depressing – and yet I was also profoundly moved and heartened by the courage and determination of Nafisi and her students. I hadn’t read lots of the books studied by the group (eg. Lolita, Daisy Miller, A Doll’s House, Washington Square), but that didn’t matter. I loved how literature, during very difficult and challenging times, brought the women together and how it provided surprising insights into their own very different lives. Frequently, Nafiisi’s words made me feel as if I was reading Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or ’The Testament’. There was SO much in this book that I loved (eg. ‘The Magician’ character)… and I was also hugely moved by a number of passages (eg. student Nassrin’s little parcel containing transcribed words from all of their classes over the past 3 years; and Manna’s inspiring words at the very end of the book).

Three Men In A Boat (Jerome K Jerome): First published in 1889 (our/Moira’s copy 1969) is the well-known story of three men (and a dog) on a boat, making the journey from Kingston to Oxford along the Thames (and back again). This must be at least the third time I’ve read it but, in these ‘difficult times’, something humorous seemed to be required. I think it had originally been intended for it to be a travel book, but it seems that the humorous elements rather ‘took over’. It’s obviously incredibly dated and ‘of its time’, but it really is very funny and beautifully written. All accounts of their journey invariably get side-tracked by recollections of other, often completely unrelated, events (a bit like Ronnie Corbett’s old long drawn-out stories on television?). Some lovely references bemoaning the “pace of nineteenth century life”… and a rather pertinent comment about “people’s changing tastes” and things that had become “unfashionable”: “Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimney-pieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd?...”. A very enjoyable read. 

The Three Dimensions Of Freedom (Billy Bragg): This book is something of an extended essay (it’s one of the publisher’s, Faber+Faber, new series of political pamphlets). Most people know that, as well as being a revered musician, Bragg has also been a life-long activist (I’ve previously read a couple of his books). His views are left-wing, but not extreme… and I found this a fascinating, eloquent assessment-cum-diagnosis of the crisis of accountability in western democracies. He identifies ‘The Three Dimensions of Freedom’ as: Liberty, Equality and Accountability… and I found myself underlining (in pencil!) whole sections, page after page. This provides a flavour: “At a time when opinion trumps facts and truth is treated as nothing more than another perspective, free speech has become a battleground. While authoritarians and algorithms threaten democracy, we argue over who has the right to speak…”. Lots and lots of food for thought… and I found myself agreeing with him, time after time.

coronavirus and us…

So, this is the scenario:

Saturday 14 March: We hear, via Robert Peston’s ITV blog (for example), that the “People over 70 will be instructed by the government to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months, under a ‘wartime-style’ mobilisation effort by the government likely to be enforced within the next 20 days”. Peston’s post goes on to say: “According to a senior government source, the perception that ministers are reluctant to make difficult and costly decisions to battle the virus is wrong. It is simply that the chief medical officer Chris Whitty and the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance are waiting for the optimal time to force restrictions on our way of life that will be very painful. They are deeply worried that some older people will simply die at home from neglect, after they are quarantined, so want to start the quarantine as late as possible - sometime within the next five to 20 days”.

Sunday 15 March: Health Minister Matt Hancock confirms (on SkyNews) that action to isolate the UK's over-70s for an extended period to shield them from coronavirus is planned in the coming weeks and that the government would “be setting it out with more detail when it is the right time to do so”.

I wonder when that’s likely to be?

Well, Moira and I are certainly NOT going to be ones who will “simply die at home from neglect”… but, over the course of the next few days, we’ll be reflecting on the various implications that strict quarantine rules would have on our lives… and those of our families, our friends, etc.

Yes, we can simplify our own lives fairly easily (in relative terms, compared with those who have already been directly, and even more seriously, affected by the pandemic)… but with somewhat depressing outcomes and implications (no classes, no groups, no sport, no cafés/restaurants, no cinema, no theatre, no concerts, no church, no meetings with family/friends etc etc). At this stage, we haven’t any holiday arrangements scheduled over the coming months… and I suspect there won’t now be any.

I assume we’ll be ‘allowed’ to get out into the ‘fresh air’ to walk and maintain our levels of ‘fitness and well-being’ (assuming we don’t get within 3-4 metres of another human!)? I also assume I’ll be allowed to sit in some isolated outdoor location and sketch (on my own!)?

We live quite simple lives. We’ll cope...   

Coronavirus will obviously have a huge impact on a whole range of other day-to-day issues for so many people. I suspect that (perhaps by the Easter holidays?) schools, colleges and universities will shut… (with all sorts of implications for young school children – where grandparents frequently pick up the childcare ‘slack’). Without support, some firms will collapse and others will be forced to make redundancies? What about the lack of statutory sick pay for the self-employed? Mortgage/rent payment implications? Paying monthly bills? Holiday bookings?

The list goes on (and on)…

So, at this stage, it seems to be all about what the government is ABOUT to decide (or not!)… and everyone thinking of their own contingency plans… and, of course, some people selfishly ‘going overboard’ and stockpiling. The government will no doubt receive lots of criticism (and maybe even some plaudits?) regarding its handling of the pandemic… but it’s difficult to be certain about anything in such circumstances. My heart goes out to all those working in the NHS – at the ‘sharp’ end of things and having to cope with ‘unknown issues’ set against a backdrop of several years of under-funding.

On a personal level, I have very mixed emotions about the government wanting us oldies to self-isolate (I really feel for my lovely family). As far as possible, I want to see the help and support concentrated on younger people… and yet I absolutely appreciate that it’s better to try and prevent the ‘old’ becoming infected (ie. due to their much greater vulnerability) in the first place – and thereby, hopefully, reducing funds spent on them once they’ve been admitted to hospital. Ridiculously perhaps, if I did contract the disease, I’d much prefer to be ‘killed off quickly’ (I know!) than to have large amounts of money spent on me, at my stage in life.

In the meantime, as someone who avoids using the telephone as much as possible, I think I’m going to have to learn to Skype PROPERLY (my past attempts have been pretty awful – with me watching an image on my laptop screen and listening to what’s being said on my mobile!!)(really), so I can keep in touch with family and friends effectively from my ‘isolation den’. Perhaps, for example, I can continue (ie. a couple of times/week) to prepare meals* for Iris+Rosa - pass them on to Ruth/Stu for cooking at their home – and then Skyping the girls so we can continue our hilarious chats over the 'dining table' (while I sip my glass of red)!?

As they used to say on ‘Hill Street Blues’: “Let’s Be Careful Out There”!

(now wash your hands…).

PS: * but, of course, I probably wouldn't be allowed to cook for others!

portrait of a lady on fire…

I went along to the Watershed this evening (yes, night time! it cost even old codgers like me £8.50 - but tomorrow is its final day at the Watershed, so…) to see Céline Sciamma’s film “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”. The synopsis goes like this: In 18th century France a young painter, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) without her knowing. Therefore, Marianne (posing as a walking companion) must observe her model by day to paint her portrait at night. Gradually, the two women become closer as they share Héloïse’s last moments of freedom before the impending wedding…

It’s a very beautiful film – beautifully-paced; beautifully-acted (I thought Haenel and Merlant were perfectly cast); and with beautiful cinematography. Essentially, the film’s about female desire, hidden love and art… and also, in the words of the Watershed’s blurb, “the gaze”! The observer observed as it were.

There were a couple of arty aspects that I found difficult to fully take on board, namely: a) being able to remember someone’s features sufficiently (in the pre-camera age, of course) in order to be able to paint a likeness is utterly beyond me… and b) Marianne being able to sketch a likeness of a sleeping Héloïse when she’s actually sitting right next to her head and even the best contortionist would be hard-pressed to come up with the resulting ‘front on’ drawing, but…

I found the final scenes set in the art gallery (a reminder that, despite it being an important time for women artists, art is very much male-dominated) and in the opera house (Héloïse had earlier admitted never to have heard an orchestra, so Marianne had given her a ‘taste’ by playing some Vivaldi on the harpsichord) utterly enthralling.

I would very highly recommend it.