wendy house

by  Magnus  Mills

Highly recommended for people who  love watching the social dynamics of the British workforce.   This book was  a Birthday pressie!  

4 smiles: Ratings explained

What is the book about?  

A story of gradual social change within a nationalised industry featuring,  tea, cakes, chat, meetings  and canteens.   We watch the gradual decline of a national treasure – the scheme for full employment – through the eyes of an unnamed  employee.   Reminiscent of the decline of the national mining  industry,   national car industry,   and the NHS.  

The reader gradually learns how the scheme works through the daily experiences of  one employees.   We meet his colleagues, supervisers, and learn about what employees should do and what they acutally do.    The manner of storytelling reminded me of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’, as the protagonist appears to accept and observe all that goes on around him.    The short sentences, descriptive focus, economy with works,  make the book  very easy to read.   I wish I could write that beautifully.

Unlike the majority of modern novels this one focuses solely on work contexts.     The action, and sometimes  inaction, all  happens on work time, in work venues.   There is only one female character named and present in this workplace.   The scheme is currently, predominantly,  a boys world of work.

Is the book boring?

Unlike Kafka, the story is full of  situational humour that Mills gradually reveals like clues in a detective novel.   Other reviewers describe the humour as ‘Deadpan humour’.    For me the funniest part is what the scheme for full employment does,   how it delivers value above and beyond full employment.   Many of the reviews I read actually gave this away rather than allowing the reader to discover it within the book.   I am glad that I didn’t read any reviews before reading the book.

How can I visit Alexandria and not know that there is a pillar called Bombay Pompey’s pillar there?  

There is some serious tut-tut-tutting going on

I was drawn to Alexandria  Library  

More wonderful than anticipated.   It was highly anticipated. I spent much of the time there  sitting, listening to the building, watching the students.   The library website has a collection of photographs of the museum, its settings and collections.

The library has a ‘Nobel section’ that is furnished with a replica of the furniture and lighting designed specially for the Nobel Institute in Stockholm and  contains the  book collections of Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature from 1901-2006. I don’t think that fits strictly with the Dewey Decimal system. It is a socially meaningful way to highlight books ‘I’d like something from the Nobel room please…   ‘

There are several museums, a planetarium and a caligraphy centre within the Library.    This  makes sense to me,    being more than a repository of books,   being  a place to explore the world beyond the here and now.   Most libraries are more than a repository of books,   this one has so many enticing advantages through imagination, United Nations funding and gifts from many countries.

I had less than an hour at the Library

The library warranted staying in Alexandria for at least a year….   …seeking sponsorship for specialist research….     ….something more than a tourist walkthrough….

SIGH

 With the quick approach of my HOLIDAY to CAIRO I skipped out  in search of some Holiday reading. Normally I pop into the tiny yet beautiful Reading Oxfam.   The friendly staff and customers chat, the book choice is excellent,  always something to inspire and entice.  

One of my friends has recently moved to Cairo and made a specific request for a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt.   Alas, the local Oxfam cold not deliver.

A short walk to the Waterstones chain, a small Victorian style shop front.   Inside the store is like the TARDIS   it goes backwards and upwards,   from house to house with glass roofs between.   The store is architecturally beautifully designed and maintains unusual features such as  the mezannine floor pictured below.

Once I stopped looking at the architecture and started looking at book shelves   I was lost with no idea of where  the ‘Travel’  section might be.   Looking at the labeling on the shelves only tells you what is here,   not where something that is elsewhere might be.   Unperturbed I wandered over to the foot of the stairs (both of them)  expecting to find a list of the sections on each floor.   Nothing.

The  front door did not offer a guide to the store store layout with the sections identified.     The cash and information desk by the door was being stormed by an outsized  orderly  queue of people.   Glancing  back into  the huge store I felt a little overwhelmed and wandered in looking at shelf labels and the people nearby,   which are the staff who might help me?   Before full panic could set-in, eye contact with a lady….

Lady: Can I help you?

Wendy:   Do you have a map of the store layout?

Lady: What section would you like?

Wendy:   Is there a display showing where the sections are?

Lady:   No,   I’m working on that,  what section would you like?

Wendy: Travel

Lady: upstairs ahead through the arch,   on the right hand wall arranged in alphabetical order by country

Wendy: Thank you,  love the display thing you’re working on

Several pubs I’ve visited recently have bookshelves labeled ‘book exchange’.   Unlike a library, you do not get a wide range of choice, helpful advice, and an occassional dose of ‘shushing’.  This  can be a  bonus  for noisey, decisionally-challenged, me.

Until now I’d treated the bookshelves of friends and family as book exchanges,  now my net has widened to include pubs….   …some people are releasing their books into the wild then remotely tracking their progress via websites like bookcrossing.

When returning an assessed  cousework essay on UK history in the 19th century to a 17yr old me…

Tory School teacher (TST):   you are very Machiavellian

Wendy:   is that a good or a bad thing?

TST: let me know when you find out

Within a couple of hours I’d  read a copy of ‘The Prince’ .   It was fascinating, written beautifully, based on multiple case study research to provide a  pragmatic set of behavioural recommendations for a leader (Prince) occupying a recently acquired territory to maintain effective control.   In the 1960’s psychology used the term ‘Machiavellianism’ to label a personality ‘Disorder’ with the core theme of  deceiving others for personal gain.      I wish I’d kept the essay that prompted the TST’s comment.        

You  can self-assess yourself for 1960’s style psychology Machiavellianism here.

Today I scored as a ‘Low Mach’.   The results say that I ‘reject’ Machiavelli’s opinions.   Indeed, I am not and have never aspired to be a prince, princess or banker.    Alternatively, I could have lied here and on the questionnaire….

I vote that we rename Machiavellianism with the more topical outbreak of:

Chief Executive Bankerism

find the plot

tie the characters to the pages

order the chapters

push it to the publishers

∞

release your inner book

an autobiographical  Novel of Teri Hien’s early life in Eastern Washington State  that I picked up at the Spokane Museum shop on an excellent weekend vacation

Recommended for people that interested in US social and political history from personal, first hand stories.  

3 smiles:    Ratings explained

Atomic?   The proximity to the Hanford, former nuclear, site that supplied the plutonium for the Manahattan project.   The most radio-active contaminated site in the US.    An American hero of WW2 and the villain.

Right? Stories of the countryside,     pioneer farmers settling and farming the rich lands of Eastern Washington with horses and tractors,   Stories of community and  local Native  Americans.   Funny and poignant

The wrong place? Downwind of Hanford, the downwinders.   The building of the plant, the management of waste and information about that waste, the cancers experienced by family and neighbours,   the deaths.   Sad and disturbing.

by  Fred Vargas (translated from original French by David Bellos)

Highly recommended for people who like innovative twists on crime thrillers, novels that cunningly intertwine history with fiction, and rich characterizations of people living in another country (Paris, France).

4 smiles: Ratings explained

Times Literary Supplement Ruth Morse summarises the content in a recognisable way when she comments that “Fred Vargas has everything: complex and surprising plots, good pace, various and eccentric characters, a sense of place and history, individualized dialogue, wit and style.”
I cannot comment on how the translation had changed the book from the original. David Bellos worked with the original author on the translation.

Ruth Morse makes a scathing comment on the translation writing that David Bellos had ”simplified, adapted and anglicized throughout, diluting the specificity of Vargas’s well-modulated French. This is not a matter of competence, but of style choices. David Bellos’s translation is so free as to amount to wholesale rewriting, at the expense of the atmosphere. Reading his prose is like watching a hastily dubbed film.” David Bellos  replies to Morse’s criticisms.

I wish I could read the original French version because despite not being particularly interested in murder mysteries I was so gripped that I read this book in one, long, day. A rare un-put-down-able experience for me as a single girl and curmudgeonly reader, intolerant of murder mysteries with plots that are either

• easily guessable
• so obtuse its virtually impossible to guess potential plot evolutations

This book managed to effectively walk the line between these two literary traps.

Since 1981 my dress sense has been significantly influenced by Julian Cope.   As the Guardian recently reported:

Julian Cope arrives on my doorstep looking exactly like he does in all his photos. He is wearing leather trousers, heavy boots (it is midsummer) a flowing camo jacket and The Hat. He politely takes his boots off when asked, but The Hat stays on throughout the afternoon

Julian was the front man for one of the first  bands that I saw live in concert, Teardrop Explodes, the band included Alan Gill who co-rote rewards and joined Teardrop from Dalek I Love you   who’s Compass Kumpas album is one of my favourite vinyls.    Through the years Julian has supplied much worth attenting to including a couple of treasured books (e.g. The Modern Antiquarian).   Fabulous fellow.

Teardrop Explodes sang Rewards

As part of my birthday treat,   I purchased the 45th copy of AFH’s poetry book ‘Of birds and bees’.   The book is  beautifully illustrated by Jo Thomas.   The first line I read was Jo’s introduction to  the Bee  illustrations:

“In spring 2007 walking,  a bee fell, in front of me, on the pavement, dead. I picked it up and drew it. Since then I have continued to collect and draw found and gifted dead bees.”  

I’ve not yet seen a dead bee.   This summer some beautiful large fluffy bees tended the tea roses at the Wendy house.   This may become a treasure of the past as I learn to collect dead bees as memories.   At 1pm today the British Bee Keepers Association (BBKA) is coordinating a  demonstration In London,   Whitehall outside Westminster palace  and delivering a petition to Downing street (Prime Minister’s residence).    Guidance provided by the BBKA  to potential demonstrators includes:

You need to look your best as you may well be on TV! An umbrella probably makes sense too.

They are demonstrating to raise awareness of the impact of the the lack of government funding provided to avert an impending ecological disaster that has clear financial, agricultural implications.   According to the Guardian:

Beekeepers have warned that most of the country’s honey bees could be wiped out by disease in 10 years unless an urgent research programme is launched to find new treatments and drugs…    

 ….the Department for Farming, Environment and Rural Affairs revealed that bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through their pollination of fruit trees, field beans and other crops. In addition, the 5,000 tonnes of British honey sold in UK stores generates a further £12m

During a conversation about films  that are substantially at variance with the books that provided their original  title and approximate plot and characters:  

Wendy:   W’thering Heights

Bros:   WUH,   Wuh-thering Heights

Wendy: yes,   that’s what I said W’thering Heights

Bros:   Wendy,   Wuh-thering has a U in it

niece & her friend: (snigger,   sniggger,   snigger,   hiding mouths behind hands and flashing smiles at each other and checking to see if we ‘adults’ notice)

Bros:   (shakes his head and tuts)

 Wendy:   (decides not to mention that Bros appears to  have  failed to count the double-u)

The Stranger in Reading is a 2005 Two Rivers Press edition of an  original 1810 book.   It contains  7 letters written, supposedly  anonymously, by Reading long-time resident John Man.   The book documents Man writing  as if a stranger in Reading to a friend in London and includes  a modern preface and editorial provided by  Adam Sowan.   Despite painting a not-quite desirable-place-to-live view of Reading Borough two centruies hence, the book  is a thoroughly enjoyable read that has lead to the Wendy House strapline being updated.

The orginal book is prefaced by  Sowans description of John Man and then by light, within-letter,  explanatory annotations.   The main text maintains the original creative punctuation and spelling.    Sowan cites one example sentence as containing:

 three colons, five semi colons and no fewer than thirty-two commas; yet it is surprisingly readable.

A theme throughout the book is the poor state of the contemporary paving,   depite the Reading paving act providing the following penalities:

ten shillings, by every person leaving any carriage in the street,   except whilst loading or unloading;   driving a wheelbarrow on the footways; throwing dust, dirt, or rubbish in the streets.   Five shillings, by all persons neglecting to sweep the foot-paths before their houses every morning (Sundays excepted) before 10 O’clock. pxxx

An enjoyable glimpse into history that has value beyond people who may be interested in Reading’s history alone.   I discovered  how MP’s were renumerated and elected to parliaiment  and how ‘the corporation’ helped run Reading Borough.

The Victora and Albert Library is a living piece of history.   A free piblic library where the resources themselves are artefacts of beauty.  

The internet provides information,   sometimes that information is beautifully packaged in ‘media experiences’.   The internet has not yet managed to add to its experience the package offered by old libraries of:

book scent

aging parchment texture

 atmosphere of being surrounded by ancient books

the sound of librarian moderated silences

Not an affectionate hand gesture,   a book press.

Small press’ such as Reading’s own ‘Two Rivers Press’  can  target selling their publications to interest groups,   niche markets.    Two Rivers probably refers to   the river Kennet and Thames that meet in downtown Reading.  

It publishes works that  have general intereast and  local significance,  for example,  Adam Sowan’s history of street names ‘Abbatoirs Road  to Zinzan Street’,   the works of the Reading local, international, performance poet (AFH),   and historical treasures such as history and analysis of  what is thought to be the  oldest written song in English (circa 13th century).   The  manuscript of the song, a ‘rota’,  was found in Reading Abbey and now lives in the British Museum.  

A wonderful pocket-sized book with many thematic  block-prints and ebulant multilayered interpretations of the meanings of the rota.   A rota is a song intended to be sung in a round of several people….     Wikipedia describes the Reading Rota in a rather dull descriptive manner,   the author of the Two Rivers book explores possibilities with a cheeky enthusiasm and passion that makes the book a pleasure to read,   its style is  pixie-years  beyond Wikipedia.

…Sumer is icumin in….     there has been much singing in a broad Bristolian burr in the Wendy House recently,   though I haven’t managed to do the minimum 2 or three voices required for a rota.   I am,   at least,   not scaring the cats who defintiely prefer me not to sing in their presence.

 How apt that a small press based in Reading should publish a book about a hand written document found in Reading long ago.

Off to the shops.    The shopping tortutre.   Ick.    Luckily I was  armed with a set of seasonal shopping lists from those short-people*  that must be obeyed because of their lung, pout, and innovative-torturing-technique, capacity.  

Toddling home  armed with short-people pacifiers and a book.   A book that lists Reading street names,   almost but not quite, alphabetically as it outlines the significance of the names.  

Here’s an excerpt from my current Reading, reading, material (my emphasis):

The Reading Paving Act of 1827 – a splendid document written in legalese that never uses one word where three, or better still nine, will do – talks only of ‘streets, Lanes, public passages and Places’. (It also says that occupiers have to sweep the pavement outside their houses, and specifies when they should remove Night Soil or filth from the Necessaries or Boghouses.)

Christmas day 1999

After christmas I found this note from my 6yr old niece  tucked in the cover of a book I’d been reading.   It now marks a poem  drawing parallels between life and staying on a hospital ward where we do not make our beds but we do lie in them by Roger McGough in his  book “The way things are”.  

The note cleverly demonstrates that the word hasea hoase house, unlike home,  is terribly tricky to spell.   Probably because there are three of those infamously tricky vowels  conglomerating in ‘house’.  

Megalithic    graves across Europe.   Populated, or not, 3  to 4 thousands  of years Before Christ.   While in Ireland I toured the Burren and stopped at the Paulnabrone dolmen.   Very atmospheric.   “The Modern Antiquarian” a fabulous book by Julian Cope lists megalithic sites throughout Europe.    The book is one of my most treasured possessions.   Websites selling the book under-detail the sheer volume and depth of research that Julian put into constructing this fabulous book.  

Before the advent of anti-aging products these dolmen represented the celebration of aging,  death,  and life beyond.   Julian Cope is  one of the most  influential celebrity individuals in my formative years,   I blame him alone for a pair of black leather jeans being a main stay of my wardrobe and, or  course, my RAF orignial flight jacket.

By Mark Haddon.  

Highly recommended to anyone who gains pleasure from social  dynamics  or is an  Anglophile.

review ratings explained

Lots of positive reviews of the book available  on metacritic.     The Daily Telegraph provides a succinct summary that maps to my experience.  

“A spot of bother” is a phrase that I understand as being used to play-down the severity of a problem.   It’s like saying,   “yes there is a nasty problem but really you shouldn’t worry because we’ve got it all under control, lets not pay it any more attention“.    It’s not a phrase or technique for managing conversational distance that I’ve encountered in the US.

The story is of  family dynamics across generations situated around an impending Wedding.   Everyone has  an opinion on whether the wedding should happen and why,   and different ways of expressing their opinions,    or not.     The book touches on themes such as prefering silence to talking,   social intelligence versus academic intelligence and the bounds of realism and paranoia.   Some reviews talk about it as a black comedy or farce.   My impression is that it is something other than either genre,    neither funny nor melancholic despite the topics and events.  

Thoroughly enjoyable, I felt right at home.

The first sentence in a novel.  

An excellent writer alludes to the fundamental themes and tone of the book within a simple and provocative first sentence.      This opener from Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs  captured me:

“Ever since I lost mine in a road accident when I was eight,   I have had my eye on other people’s parents.”

.

Sat at SeaTac airport with an hour or so before my flight to Madrid I ordered a nice pint of Bass and started studying my pocket-sized English Spanish conversation guide.  

Questions  

“Do you speak Spanish?”   I don’t think I’ll need that,   I will need “Do you speak English?” but it  is not listed.     The book does provide this question ‘what are you saying?” but without the ability to understand the answer this question would merely be digging myself a confusional hole.   There is  no book  section on useful  ‘Answers’ or a  translation of the ever-useful phrase:  

“I’m really sorry,   I can’t speak your language can we use pointing and acting instead?”  

The Doctor

What about when I fall-over?   If I need a doctor for a broken bone?   The cartoon with the Doctor section is intriguing.   What excatly is the Dr. doing?   I looked for the “I think I’ve broken my arm” phrase but got no further than “Undress please” which seems a bit of a premature suggection for diagnosing a broken arm.   Though,   obviously,   as a single girl,   I need to memorise the phrase:

Quitese la ropa, por favor

Fifteen more books successfully released to the safety of half-price books.   In Exchange, three books paroled to the comfort of my handbag   No cash changed hands.   Bargain,   I gained book-shelf space  and topically useful books…  ..I feel a few more books coming on….  

Libraries are fabulous social resources whose being is radically changing nature with the emergence of the Internet as an archive and social resources.   This Library,   Escorial, near Madrid has just made it onto my list of way-too-many-places I hope to visit.   I’ll have to use the bus* or train to get there   Brrrrrrmmmmmmm….Brrrrrrmmmmmmmm…..    

Without even leaving Madrid I may get to see an Eygyptian temple,  a Palace where the Spanish Inquisition did some of its inquisiting,   fabulous deliberately leaning buildings, a very ornate post-office, a stadium  bull ring, a crystal palace inspired by the London Crystal palace,   bars that Earnest Hemmingway drank in (not all of them),   graveyards, and of course the essential  very tall thing for tourists to go to rather like Seattle’s Space Needle and Portsmouth’s Millenium tower.    

Then there are castles to be checked out,   like the Alcazar…   just outside Madrid…   more buses!!

* I  like  riding on  buses

Forty-eighth post in a Wednesday  series where Wendy fails to meet  someone that  drives singleness out of the House

Reason #48: uninvolved

 When I saw the title of this book,   I suspected that I needed a book on  how to ‘get things done when people are involved’ because:

Firstly,   I have noticed that people can stop me from getting things done.   For example,   the bus driver stopped me from driving my car,   the lady in the Diner stopped me from cooking my breakfast,   and other more shocking things

Secondly, being single is being uninvolved so this book might help me to get involved.    

Meetings  are much more complicated than I realised.

Making the cat laugh.   One woman’s Journal of single life on the margins.   (1995) A book by Lynne Truss,   then chief  TV critic of The Times more recently famous for writing the ambiguously titled “Eats shoots and leaves“.

The book felt like a collection of paragraphs pulled together in no particular order.   Well written,   entertaining and suitably  trivial to qualify purely as light entertainment.   A gift from a friend.   It failed to engross me, enlighten me,  or make me laugh out loud.    Despite the obvious superficial similarities (English girl, single, has cats, her paragraphs like blog posts) I did not find the stories personally relevant.  

Unreasonably long sentence warning.   Take a deep breath now,   go:    

I adore bookshops for many obvious reasons including the way  books magnificiently overcome the merchandising trends of other products by being  mixed irrrespective of colour,   size and pattern.      

Hoorah!  

I feel at home amongst the visual ecclectic of a book store.  

Mr. AFHarrold’s recent book contains hand drawn pictures of animals doing surrupticious animal things  and  real handwriting to explain thier naughty subversiveness in a child-friendly manner.   It’s also quite funny.   AFH has a talent for insight into the secret lives of furrifriends,   rhyming words and prompting a giggle.   But best of all,   for me,  this book sneaked into  my mailbox on a grimm drizzly evening and is making its way to my handbag for those emergency, on the road, poetry moments.

 Yes

Book:   Tis. A Memoir.   Frank McCourt

Franks use of plain language, provides a raw, powerful, funny and poignant walk through the experience of emigrating to America.    It’s an impressive book.      I’ve finally given up trying to read it  half way through.   I’ve no stamina,   I got bored.   The story simply wasn’t gripping enough to make me drool over what might be on the next page.     The rest of this  review is based on  the first  half of the book.  

Ratings explained

Synopsis:

In 1949 a nineteen year old boy, the  author,  from Limerick (Ireland) emmigrates to his dream city,  New York.      The book is a sequel to Angela’s  Ashes that easily stands alone.  

“that’s what you’re faced with when you come to America, one decision after another” p54

Themes:

• Immigrants: Everyone is American and something else laden with prejudices.   Spicks,   Mickeys, Polacks, Pueto Ricans, Natives, Greeks, Swedes, Chinks.   Rather than an absence of prejudice the book paints  a complex, explicit and diverse prejudices.  
• Poverty:   America’s not like you expect it to be after watching films,   there is poverty here too.   The book makes explicit comparisions between poverty in Limerick, Ireland, and New York.    
• Health: nealry every character’s health is vividly  described,  conjunctivitus,  arthritus, blood infections,  alcoholism.   How these conditions effect their ability to  earn money and pay for  health care  et.
• real Americans:   just like you see  in the movies.   We see these  people from a  distance as they go to church or stay in hotels.   These people go to college,   have blond blue-eyed girlfirends,   are healthy, smell clean have  amazingly white aligned teeth,   always  have food available and warm homes:

“they can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they’d be lost forever” p59

March 15th 1984

It  will take several months to read the varied  scrawl of miss-spelt ramblings in my early diaries.    Mumzie recently  discovered these diaries in a  dark corner of her home.    The diaries stop in 1984 when I switched to letter writing…

A second sheet was added to this  1984 entry during my first year at University.     The day went something like this:  

A morning of contemplating whether  a fascinating but somewhat screwed-up boy  should have the benefit of my influence in his life.    

An  afternoon  sketching portraits of 2 handsome boys while they supplied me with lots of tea.   The tea taking isn’t explicitly mentioned because it is  understood as a part of  the ‘spending an afternoon with a handsome fellow’ process.   The boys  had the afrontary to  keep the sketches.   Sadly,   I don’t actually have copies of any of the portraits I used to produce.   I was fairly prolific with my sketch-book as well as in my diaries.    

The evening involved drinking ‘side cars’ in a disco and  helping a girl-friend disrupt the dancefloor during some of those slow girl-boy cuddling dances by jumping around between the soppy-people.    

A  fabulous day indeed.

For a  photo-story of the Wendy House, 24hr Power outage, click this picture of my reading a book by candle-power:

The Wendy House was lucky,   only 24 hs without electricity and a gas-fire for warmth.   The Seattle PI reports that more than 1 million Washingston State residents lost power. The all to frequent sound of siren’s passing the Wendy House re-inforced the risks associated with a suddent lack of traditional power sources.   The smell of woodsmoke, prevalent in the air, took on an ominous tone.   Did it  herald a burning home?

Memories of my childhood:  

January 1974,   11yrs old, the UK was suffering from a power crisis.   The Conservative government under Prime Minister Edward Heath introduced a ’3 day week’ to conserve power.   At that time the UK’s main source of electrical power was the National Coal industry,   electricity from coal.   The country was suffering from extreme inflation.   To try and curtail inflation the government introduced wage-capping.   The Miners were not happy about their wage cap.   The Miners union introduced a ‘work to rule’,   they only followed the detail of the job description nothing above and beyond.   This severely curtailed coal production and reduced the power available to the country.   Unable to negotiate a solution with the Coal Miners representative,   the Union, the government introduced a 3 day week.   Power was only available on 3 consecutive days in a week.

To  an 11yr old this  is exciting and  fun.   4 days a week where the evenings were by candle-light and no hot-water for bathing.   As a family we would play cards by candle-light. It was like camping inside home.    We wore several layers of woolly jumpers and fingerless gloves indoors.   We used a camping gas stove to brew tea and make the occassional hot meal.  

After the Heath Conservative government was replaced by  Harold Wilson’s  Labour government the normal working week returned.   Wilson was a working-class boy who excelled in English the educational system.   A Yorkshire boy,   like Wallace, with a quick wit.   The last great intellectual Prime Minister that lead Britain.   The last true Labour Prime Minister.   With some impressive political thinkers in his cabinet such as  Tony Benn  and my personal favourites Denis Healey and Micheal Foot.

The exploitation of  oil  from the North Sea helped Britain to avoid severe economic disaster,   and assured that Scotland would not gain independence before its natural resources ran out.   That would be approximately…. ….now.   Britain is begining to face a renewed energy crisis and despite a thrashing by Thatcher the National Union of Miners is still a voice at the lobbying table.   The fancy new Labour party, Blair’s government, is being criticised for its lack of long term planning.

In my ‘retirement’ I  want to live in, or below,  a Windmill, to  be self-sufficient then sell extra power back to the country in  an emergent decentralised power system.  

A poetry book, like a dictionary, is a book I never finish reading.   Unlike dictionaries I will voraciously read all the words in a poetry book  cover-to-cover upon first discovering them.   Obviously this is after having removed my stickly little digits from the tea mug.    Both are reference books,   pulled from the shelf again and again.  

The dictionary gets pulled when I’m unsure of a word’s meaning,   range of meanings,   origins,   relationship to other words.    Assured of  discovery, my question promptly answered.  Inevitably a rewarding experience,   how can anyone fail to fall in love with dictionaries?   I’m very loyal to my one paper dictionary, it cannot be replaced.    The  Collin’s Concise (1983) was  a present from an elder brother.   When I look at its faded binding  I see my 21 year old brother standing  at the top of Park Street outside Georges with a white plastic bag in his hand held out towards me saying

“you’re leaving home?   You’ll need your own dictionary“.  

A very different experience from pulling one of the several poetry books from the shelf, floor, table, chair, cooker, mantle, washing-machine.    The favoured  books are scattered around the Wendy House where they afford the opportunity of unpremeditated rediscovery in a moment of undirected reading.   Picking up a book,   flicking through the pages to a title that catches some thought  and reading that poem.     One book purchased in a tizzy in 1989 insists on falling open to specific pages,   poems I found powerful in the early 1990s.  I have to fight against its insistence on taking me to specific emotional places.  

Poetry book use  is  not all so sporadic.  There are specific places I’ll go  when I’m happy,   because I’m sad,   or I want to find the words that describe what it is that I’m feeling because I just don’t know.   They are often there,   wrapped in the ambiguities and soothing rythms, but one can never be sure of Dictionary-like success.  

With that thought I’ll return to the vacuuming

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Mark Haddon.   This is an outstanding first novel.   Recommended  

3 smiles:   ratings explained

Reviewed by charlotte Morre in the Guardian.   The numerous reviews I’ve read are full of praise for this novel.

Christopher, 15yrs, is writing a murder mystery novel.   This is Christopher’s Novel.   Christopher’s presentation is a carefully contructed stream of consciousness.   He provides details about each character,   something interesting or different, to describe the character.   What Christopher finds interesting or different does not follow common patterns of describing a person.   The jacket cover descirbes Christopher as being autistic,   this is an artistic construction of the writer,   the contents should not be taken as representative of Autism.  

goodness discovered:

• Christopher as author:   works exceedingly well to carry the reader through seeing the world through the authors eyes and allowing the reader to have  a privileged view of dramatic irony. As reader we can see the impact of Christophers behaviours and understand these behaviours in a different value-set from Christophers.  
• Christopher describes and demonstrates  his values.   Clearly,   entertainingly.   Christopher attributes values and priorities to events in a different way than is generally socially acceptable.   I found some of his reasoning clearly descibed,  easy to follow,   consistently applied thoughout the story.   For example the meaning of specific groups of different car colours.  
• innovative illustrations.   The book is illustrated,   not with ‘pictures’ provided by an illustrator, with pictures from Christophers perspective.   As pictures per-se they provide little extra information.   As choices of important information selected by Christopher they are powerful story enhancers.

not so goodness

• lack of empathy with other characters.   This is a by-product of working with having Christopher as the protagonist.     There is insufficient detail to build empathy with any other character.   I suspect this was an explicit decision made by the author.   I would have valued the opportunity for a deeper understanding of some of the peripheral characters.   It’s not clear how the author could have achieved this connection within the books clearly implemented perspective.
• Inconsistency.   I found it difficult to follow why  Christopher made some, plot-critical, decisions  and did not become distressed by events that had already been established as distressing to him. For example, it is established early  in the book  that he does not like people shouting.    Later he witnesses shouting without any documented personal reaction.   As if the author temporarily forgot his protagonist in favour of placing  plot manipulating events.  

Aside:

• There are plausible rumours that people who exhibit symptoms of Aspergers syndrome and Autism experience successful application of their strengths in the software industry.   A quick search of the internet finds no real evidence,   just plausible arguments.   Software developers are able to procreate and this ‘syndrome’ is genetically conveyed to offspring.   Evidently,   in December 2000 ““Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer its employees insurance benefits to cover the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children.”    (Wired Magazine).  This could easily just reflect the excellent pro-active healthcare provision by Microsoft as a company.   As a Seattle local,   this Wendy  wonders….