August Books

It's  a short list for finished books this month. Partly because we had the grandchildren staying for a week and  partly because I've been falling asleep to a variety of not-books e.g.R4 drama series, stuff on Sounds, the World Service. 

The one falling asleep book I did listen to was Dead Lions, Book 2 of Mick Herron's Slough House series. I then started  Real Tigers, but  realised that I knew it and the ones that follow too well to to want to listen to them all over again just now after all. 

Distressingly the other four are all crime fiction, not that that there's anything wrong with crime fiction but I'm in a 'I really should diversify my reading a bit' frame of mind which might be reflected in the September round up. Meanwhile the other four are ; - 

The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery. First in a projected series and I saw glowing references to it all over the shop so got it on Audible. It might be one of those books it's better to read on the page than listen to; there again it might not. It's a locked room mystery set  pre WW1, with an unlikely pair of crime solvers; an extremely foul mouthed aristocratic old lady and a second footman. I did not see the culprit until over half way which is always a plus, but it did become more and more obvious, especially as the format of the book was to place everyone else under suspicion and then exonerate them. Like I say, very well reviewed and much praised for its originality, but it wasn;t for me.   

Pick of the bunch was Karin Slaughter's The Secrets We Hide , a followup to We are All Guilty Here which I read and reviewed in June.Again I spotted the perpetrator very early on, there is a massive clue in the description of the crime right at the beginning, but that didn't really matter as it's not so much about who did it, but how they got there. I do find myself glazing over at some of Slaughters descriptions of crime scenes, especially the ones where they're analysing bullet trajectories, but I'm sure some people find that fascinating. What I find fascinating is Slaughter's description of what life in a small town in the deep south is like, where families, and family feuds go back generations and everyone thinks they know everyone else inside out , until it turns out they don't. The two central characters, Emmy and Jude and their relationship are all fascinating  and I was happy to hear today that there is a new novel in this series currently being written. 

A chance comment by a friend had me scurrying off to see if there was a new Marion Todd novel I hadn't yet read and there was so I rectified that. I think the best way to describe Todd's series is workmanlike but that's not as dismissive as it sounds. I don't think, despite her best efforts, that her characters have much emotional depth, it's all tell not show on that front, but her saving grace is that her plots are well worked out, and don't stretch the limits of credibility. There was a bit of a shock at the end of this latest one which was called Watch Them Fall, it will be interesting to see the ramifications of that work out in the next book. 

Finally, someone at the book group passed around a carrier bag full of paperbacks that were on their way to the charity shop at the last meeting to see if anyone was interested in any, and someone told me that Lynne McEwen's books were good so I took the one of hers, A Troubled Tide  that was in there. I realise once I got started that I had read the first one of the series a long time ago; this one is number 5 so obviously things have moved on a bit. But it worked perfectly well as a standalone. 

So there you go. Reads like an edition of Crimestoppers! More variety definitely coming next month. 

What a Lovely Weekend That Was!

 Busy, but very enjoyable.

On Saturday I went to Edinburgh and had lunch with my friends V and D. At my suggestion we went to Meze Meze and it was every bit as good as my previous visit. Sadly I forgot to take photos of the food when it arrived, but here is what remained after we all professed ourselves beaten. 

After lunch we walked off a lot of the calories we'd consumed (I hope) by walking to the Dovecote Gallery to see the Cosprop Exhibition. Cosprop is a company founded in 1965 by John Bright and specialises in the making of period costumes for film, theater and tv. Most people would know its work through TV productions like the BBC's Pride and Prejudice or the Merchant Ivory films.  For anyone interested in the history of fashion, or costume drama it's a Must See Exhibition. I took lots of photos; although not nearly as many as I should have probably; here is a very small selection 

Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, BBC Pride and Prejudice

Poirot's suit ITV Poirot

The dress in the background is Marianne's wedding dress from the Ang Lee/Emma Thomson film of Sense and  Sensibility 

Lucy Honeychurch and Charlotte Bartlett Merchant Ivory A Room with a View

and finally a very splendid Russian dressing gown from a very long ago BBC version of War and Peace. 

Sunday was our wedding anniversary. We went to Perth which was rather damp

We'd chosen it for two reasons - the morning one

It was a lovely exhibition, lots of pictures I recognised, some from seeing previously, some from  reproductions in books, and then some I had never seen before.  I didn't know whether I could take photographs so didn't, although I asked permission to take the entrance sign. as it happened I could have taken as many as I wanted but there you go. Luckily they have a separate J D Fergusson gallery so I took this rather lovely portrait pair of JD and his partner Margaret Morris. 

We'd never been to Perth Art Gallery before and it's lovely. They have a Millais gallery which we had a good look around and others that we didn't have time for. We ended our visit with a mooch around the shop, a few purchases were made, and a very reasonably priced coffee. And in addition to a great collection and a lovely building I have to say the staff were fabulous; friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. A total 10/10 ; if you are interested in art and get a chance, do go. 

And the afternoon one 

Tea at Branklyn Garden. Readers who have been here for a while may remember we did the same thing last year and it has obviously now become a tradition. The tea was delicious and they have a nice selection of hand knitted tea cosies.    

Finally with reference to my previous post about The Odyssey, I note a  friend took heavy issue with my Facebook comments about it.  She'd been to see it three times, thought the script and acting were excellent and that it raised issues about xenophobia, war, women and other things in a way that was relevant to today. And while I still stand by what I said, in the interest of balance I've no objection to putting up the other side of the argument. 

The Odyssey

 

We're trying to take things fairly easy this week. The grandsons left on Monday and we don't have  a lot in the calendar just now and we're trying to keep it that way. This is  partly to recover, and partly to catch up on admin, cleaning and whatever else got left 'until later' while they were here. I daresay I shall chronicle our adventures, such as they were in due course. Meanwhile the OH suggested we go and see The Odyssey. Everyone's talking about it, our sons had been to see it, it was on locally (and cheap!) so off we went. 

If you follow me on Facebook you will already know how I felt about it. If you don't let's just say my impressions were negative. Actually, let's not just say that, let's be honest. We both loathed it. We did get a few laughs and I allowed myself a bag of sweets but that was about it for positives. 

If you're interested then Emily Wilson, recent and skilled translator (as above) of what I daresay Nolan referred to as his 'source text', summed up most of what I felt about it here and expressed it rather better than I could. I don't agree with her giving them a pass on using Americanisms because they jar horribly. How do you feel about references to 'A Trojan vet' (as in, someone who fought at Troy, rather than someone who looked after injured horses) and men calling women 'ma'am' while dressed in an approximation of bronze age clothing and armour? 

The script was atrocious, some of  the casting was  odd, although to be fair some of the acting was fine, although again,  not that much of it) the balance of the storytelling was weird, and it had an ending Homer never dreamed of. The main problem was that it wasn't alien enough. Bronze Age people didn't think or act like we do. Trying to make Odysseus a flawed hero suffering from ultimately resolved PTSD (eat lotus flowers in the company of someone looking like a Raquel Welch wannabe - if only it was that simple ) doesn't work.  This was basically a Hollywood WW2 movie in fancy dress with C20 attitudes and sensibilities. and it was awful. 

It was also far too long and too loud. The action sequences were too drawn out and some of the special effects (Polyphemus, I'm looking at you) not well done.  

It's an accepted thing currently to regard the Odyssey as a text that is about 'Going Home'; do you want to, how do you do it, and how do you know when you've arrived. All I can say to that is that we certainly knew that we wanted to get home long before we were released to do so, and that we had no trouble realising when we'd arrived. 

I'm usually meticulous here in saying 'don't take my word, try things for yourself, just because I didn't like something  doesn't mean you won't think it's great' , but in this instance I'm going to say you have better ways of spending your time and your money than going to see this appalling film. 

Still here and still relatively busy....

 

On Saturday we went to the Annual Exhibition of Scottish Printmakers which is held at the University of Stirling. I found out about it from a printmaker from whom I get a newsletter; not sure I remember signing up for it - I mean, I'm sure I did, but I have no conscious memory of it. Anyway she was one of the 40-odd printmakers chosen to exhibit this year and I thought it sounded fun and a bit different, so we roped in my friend D and the three of us went for a mooch. 

As you will see from the photo above it was busy. There were three aisles with artists on both sides and this was probably a relatively quiet moment in that particular aisle. Lots of different sorts of prints; both in the way they were made and the subject matter, and obviously not all to my taste but it was fun to see the variety on show. D did actually buy a print, I restrained myself and just picked up lots of business cards for future reference. The OH pointed to me out that Abbie Lois wasn't there, and I pointed out to him that that was hardly surprising since all her stuff seems currently to be in Birnam. 

After our initial trawl around we stopped for a drink. I made the mistake of ordering a white Americano. The cup was overfilled and there was hardly any milk in it so the liquid was very very hot and it was impossible to take off the top, to add sweetener, without being flooded by  hot coffee ( not to mention  scalding finger ends) In the end, when it still wasn't cool enough to go near, even after D had finished her cup of tea I abandoned it - a lesson learned for any future trip to that particular part of Stirling Uni. I'm in two minds about whether to write to the catering manager and suggest s/he ensures that everyone operating their coffee machines has been properly trained. because you know, if I were American, I would be preparing to sue right now :-) But I probably won't because I'm British and we tend to shrug these things off with a 'well there's nothing to be done about it now' .

After another tour round the prints we decamped to the local small town of Bridge  of  Allan which was heaving with people. This made it a bit difficult to find anywhere nice for lunch, but we did manage to find somewhere in the end and we followed that up with a look around a few shops. Bridge of Allan has some very nice shops. And then we came home and I was so tired I watched some gymnastics (European Women's Championships) and then went to bed for three hours. A generally ( burnt fingers notwithstanding) happy day.

And now - 

This can only mean one thing - the grandchildren are arriving very shortly ( in about two hours in fact if the Lumo train doesn't let us down. ) So filled cake tins, and a few flexible plans made for the coming week. Please bear with me if blog posts are neglected while they are here. 

M I A and July Book Review

 

I am still not over my tooth extraction whihc sounds wimpish but it wasn't until yesterday that I managed a full day without a painkiller . Today the pain is at a low level so I am hopeful that it will be totally gone in a couple of days. The gum is closing up nicely and the stitches have gone so that's all progress. 

So, July books. Somehow no J D Kirk! how can this be? but Mick Herron made three appearances. This was because The Catch and Slow Horses were my falling asleep to books in July and I suspect a  re-listen of the whole series is on the cards for the next few months. I also read a physical copy of Clown Town because the quality of the audio book was abysmal and I was sure I had missed things when (trying to) listen. 

Rounding off the crime books this time was the Crime Fiction group choice; The Sting in Her Tale by Mark Ezra. This was generally enjoyed by everyone, including me,  as a 'light summer read' but coincidences and unlikely escapes stretch credulity which is always a bit of a no-no for me. I don't regret the time reading it, especially as it didn't take long , but I won't be bothering with the next in the series. 

I met someone at the Gaskell Society Conference who is doing a Ph D on the uses of fairy tale and the fantastic in other genres, and I mentioned Nicholas Stuart Gray to her. This led to me sending her more info and to a re-read  of The Seventh Swan. It's the story of the seventh brother in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale; the one whose shirt wasn't quite finished in time and who was therefore left with a swan's wing. It's not my favourite of his but I still love it and I took the opportunity of it being down from the shelf to re-read it. 

I took advantage of 2 x 99p deals on Kindle in July and bought and read Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay and The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona Maclean. Written on the Dark was standard GG Kay fare; his writing is quite mannered and I find certain of his stylistic tics irritating but the plots are good and the characterisation done with more subtlety than might normally be expected in books like this. It was fun to read of an alternative medieval Europe in which the English lost Agincourt and Joan of Arc was saved from burning. The Cromarty Library Circle, an historical novel set (where else?) in the small Scottish town of Cromarty in the 1830s was really interesting; a slow burn but a very satisfying one. 

And finally  a whole bunch of people  recommended A Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans to me. I didn't think I had heard of her before but I find she wrote the book on which the film 'Their finest' was based, and which I did see and enjoy years ago.  It seems a lot of her books are set in or just after World War 2. This one is a 'Just After' one and I loved it. What there is of plot is quite gentle but the characters, while being based in some cases on recognisable types, are finely and sympathetically drawn. It's not at all sentimental though as Evans can be quite caustic in her descriptions, but it's very honest and all her people are understandable and most of them you feel some empathy for. I'm not generally fond of small children in grown up novels but there is one here who is a triumph; instantly recognisable by anyone who has had experience of a toddler. Wholeheartedly recomnended by me and I plan to read some more. 

A New Jigsaw

 I know, what excitement (slightly sarcastic sigh!) 

This is another from the 'Dinner With ..  an artist ' series; obviously this one is Van Gogh. I'd had it on my Amazon wishlist for several years and no-one had bought it, so recently, when I was looking for something to take me over the limit for free postage I treated myself. 

Like all of these puzzles it's lovely when finished. They're generally just challenging enough; I have to say this one was perhaps the hardest of the ones I've done,because the sky was a pain, but I persevered and overall I really enjoyed doing it. Definitely a keeper but I must get around to doing some more that are destined for the charity shop soon. 

It also kept my mind off how rubbish I was feeling after my dental surgery. That was on Thursday and it wasn't until last night (Saturday) that I started feeling anything like my usual self, and that was a usual self operating at about 50%. Just another reminder that the older you get the longer you take to recover I suppose. Feeling even better today so I suppose it's onwards and upwards from now. Hope so anyway. 

Happy Birthday - from me to me.

 I'm not five, so I'm not going to do a list of 'wot I got for my birfday' , but  since it was a milestone one  I did treat myself, and bought a one day weaving workshop from Radical Weavers in Stirling. They do several different ones, but this one promised me that I would bring home a three coloured scarf so that was the one I went for. Most of August was booked up when I looked, but they had one space left on 1st August, just before my birthday, so I booked it. 

It was an early start, I had to be in Stirling and ready to go by 9.30 which is  a bit of an ask, depending on how ready you are to take a risk on the train that gets you somewhere just in time not being cancelled - that's not a risk I'm particularly willing to take when I've shelled out a significant amount of money for an all day activity. 

I've wanted to try weaving for a long time - hence the purchase of the tiny weaving kit while on holiday and which excited me enough to spur me into looking for a local workshop. There was someone in Orkney who taught weaving, but it was in six week blocks and we were never in Orkney for six consecutive weeks when she was doing the lessons. And then, when I had decided I would make sure that we were there, by dint of not booking anything until the dates for the weaving classes went up, they stopped appearing and when I messaged to enquire I got ghosted. Turns out the teacher and her husband were all caught up in building themselves a new house and she had no time for teaching,  but I can't help feeling that she could have found two minutes to message me with that information. 

Leaving that aside, now I've had a grumpy rant about it, I did finish the Stirling workshop and I did come away with a three coloured scarf and I am more or less happy with  it.. Here's a photo. 

If you've been paying attention at the back you'll realise I used the same inspiration photo for this as I did for my dyeing at Lay Family Yarn in June. Same picture, totally different effect. I'm not happy with the edges which, despite my best efforts, are a bit iffy but I know that's mainly because it was my first go and therefore a learning experience and that if I were to continue weaving they would get better. 

However I am not going to continue weaving*. I had not appreciated quite how tiring it is physically. We worked from 9.30 to 5.30 with about 40 minutes for lunch and I was exhausted long before  finishing time. Also I was bored. I know lots of people find weaving meditative and mindful and that's fine, but I didn't. I found  it dull and repetitive and totally unstimulating. I'm obviously not wired to be a weaver. But at least now I know! 

*well except for finishing the kit coaster which I'm 2/3rds of the way through.