No acquisitions
Books read (8)
BOTM: G. Greene, A Sort of Life
B. Bryson, Neither here nor there
G. Greene, A Gun for Sale
G. Greene, The confidential agent
P.S. Fichtner, Maximillian II
C. James, The Remake
J. Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
Waterfield, Xenophon's retreat
I liked the reading this month, but I don't think anything has been world shattering. Lots of Greene, and the best was his volume of autobiography, which - apart from a overpresent humility - was engaging, interesting and warm. Though, flicking through my previous entries,
I overpraise these kinds of books - I feel I was born a few decades too late. Nonetheless, it pushed into a string of novels by the same author, which are reliably excellent, albeit lacking compared to his various masterpieces.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Bibliography, October 2009
Books bought (0)
Books read (10)
BOTM: B. Bryson, A Walk in the woods
I. Asimov, The Caves of Steel
I. Asimov, The Naked Sun
I. Asimov, Robots of Dawn
B. Chatwin, What am I doing here?
T. Heald, Village Cricket
S. Leys, The wreck of the Batavia
L. MacNiece, The Strings are false
Malammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel
Virgil, The Aeneid
Some real rubbish this month - Malammed's study tedious, Heald's cricket memoir facile and devoid of charm. And I spent a long day rereading whole string of SF that while nostalgic and imaginative, cannot claim literary merit.
However, MacNiece's unfinished autobiography was a flawed masterpiece. Reading it, one is constantly drawn back to that world which has gone. It's beautifully written, but suffers from its lack of editing and finishing, as well some mid century absurd intellectual pretension. The contrast with Bryson, who takes BOTM this time, is striking. Here, we have a writer who really has polished every seemingly throwaway sentence. And it's a better book for it.
Books read (10)
BOTM: B. Bryson, A Walk in the woods
I. Asimov, The Caves of Steel
I. Asimov, The Naked Sun
I. Asimov, Robots of Dawn
B. Chatwin, What am I doing here?
T. Heald, Village Cricket
S. Leys, The wreck of the Batavia
L. MacNiece, The Strings are false
Malammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel
Virgil, The Aeneid
Some real rubbish this month - Malammed's study tedious, Heald's cricket memoir facile and devoid of charm. And I spent a long day rereading whole string of SF that while nostalgic and imaginative, cannot claim literary merit.
However, MacNiece's unfinished autobiography was a flawed masterpiece. Reading it, one is constantly drawn back to that world which has gone. It's beautifully written, but suffers from its lack of editing and finishing, as well some mid century absurd intellectual pretension. The contrast with Bryson, who takes BOTM this time, is striking. Here, we have a writer who really has polished every seemingly throwaway sentence. And it's a better book for it.
Brief technical excursus
One of the fun things about my job is that - just occasionally - I can do pointless things and pretend they are 'interesting' findings. This archive site is great example. I was looking for old versions of the BBC site yesterday - just type that into the Wayback box - and it's fascinating. We're so used to the current versions of things that we forget how recent it all is. I pulled up the BBC site from 1997, when I went to university - and it's mind boggling how bad it is (here's the news site from 1998). The first site at all I can find is from 1996, though I've since seen the 1994 version
Yet I don't remember this being the case at college, and if pressed would have said it was only a bit worse and clunkier than now.
On a second note, and one that I find amusing, the Internet also proves splendidly corruptible. This blog, wonderful though it is, is not an original phrase, but named for the injunction in Paul and in later councils that he who acts / believes otherwise be accursed. Here's Paul in Galatians 1.9: If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. So, it's a good biblical phrase with history, it's then picked up by the early church.
And if you search using Microsoft's Bing, this is what you find. Actually you find
1. Wikipedia's artcicle on the subject
2. Something about a band
3. An article about the Latin term and Greek origins
Tellingly, if you - like everyone else - search on Google, you get:
1. A blog, about how using human embryos is bad
2. Brilliantly, this blog
3. Amazingly, this blog again, highlighting the May 2009 bibliography (BOTM: Phineus Redux)
Yet I don't remember this being the case at college, and if pressed would have said it was only a bit worse and clunkier than now.
On a second note, and one that I find amusing, the Internet also proves splendidly corruptible. This blog, wonderful though it is, is not an original phrase, but named for the injunction in Paul and in later councils that he who acts / believes otherwise be accursed. Here's Paul in Galatians 1.9: If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. So, it's a good biblical phrase with history, it's then picked up by the early church.
And if you search using Microsoft's Bing, this is what you find. Actually you find
1. Wikipedia's artcicle on the subject
2. Something about a band
3. An article about the Latin term and Greek origins
Tellingly, if you - like everyone else - search on Google, you get:
1. A blog, about how using human embryos is bad
2. Brilliantly, this blog
3. Amazingly, this blog again, highlighting the May 2009 bibliography (BOTM: Phineus Redux)
Google own blogger.com
Friday, 13 November 2009
Saying sorry
For the limited (i.e., no) people who miss this blog, for the long silence, I apologise. But, brilliantly, not as much as the Sun has had to apologise for misspelling the name of Jacqui Janes on their website.
On this affair, they've behaved disgracefully, manipulatively and unfairly on the whole issue. While I share their general scepticism of the dregs of the Labour regime, picking up the outrage of a grieving mother to attack the Prime Minister on this is wrong. He had written a letter personally; he did make time to speak in person to the Ms Janes. There (and even before) it should have rested, given it is over a simple spelling mistake - unfortunate yes, but not a scandal.
This should teach them to refrain in future, but sadly, of course, it will almost certainly affect them only trivially. But we can hope.
On this affair, they've behaved disgracefully, manipulatively and unfairly on the whole issue. While I share their general scepticism of the dregs of the Labour regime, picking up the outrage of a grieving mother to attack the Prime Minister on this is wrong. He had written a letter personally; he did make time to speak in person to the Ms Janes. There (and even before) it should have rested, given it is over a simple spelling mistake - unfortunate yes, but not a scandal.
This should teach them to refrain in future, but sadly, of course, it will almost certainly affect them only trivially. But we can hope.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Manufactured outrage
I always think it's bad when po-facedness wins, even when there are cheap points to be made. I'm equally keen on people not taking all this very seriously.
So, well done Jack Straw for this response to a question about the hours worked by his Special Advisors:
As working for me as a Special Adviser is, I am told, pure pleasure and stress free, my Special Advisers work exceptionally long hours, often at weekends and late into the evening without complaint, and have not therefore felt the need which they otherwise might to complete timesheets to show that I was sweating their labour
I thought it was funny (for it is). And poor form for the right in pretending to care.
So, well done Jack Straw for this response to a question about the hours worked by his Special Advisors:
As working for me as a Special Adviser is, I am told, pure pleasure and stress free, my Special Advisers work exceptionally long hours, often at weekends and late into the evening without complaint, and have not therefore felt the need which they otherwise might to complete timesheets to show that I was sweating their labour
I thought it was funny (for it is). And poor form for the right in pretending to care.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
We're in this together
Anna's furious with George Osbourne's speech at conference for his 'patronising' use of the first person plural in his speech. What really riled her was 'we all borrowed too much'. Amusingly of course, the papers and the Today programme have been highlighting Osbourne's reaching deep into his children's DVD collection for the phrase 'we're in this together', apparently a key policy line from the makers of High School Musical (though as Disney spent a lot of the mid century fighting furiously with various Unions, there is a certain irony about that).
They're both wrong though. HSM cannot take credit for 'we're in this together.' It's a generic phrase. Perhaps Osbourne was really focusing on the Nine inch nails song of the same title (I've heard neither). Equally, A's quite wrong to complain that Osbourne's wealth makes him somehow unqualified to comment. Let's be clear, he's keeping the stupid 50% tax, and imposing a cut on MPs and ministers, as well as exempting the lowest paid public sector workers from the freeze (and the front line military - nice touch).
Crucially, and I cannot stress this enough, he's right because we're fucked. We have no money and a debt with more zeros that High School Musical sales. So of course we need to cut jobs and freeze pay and work harder. Labour has been poor in response claiming:
a) they'd cut harder because they've promised to halve the deficit (just as they promised to abolish boom and bust)
b) the Tories would hit the middle class. It's a long way from Labour when people earning over £50k are the class they worry about
I think it's good stuff. The public sector workers being banned from earning more than the Prime Minister is nonsense, and their caps on pension just absurd. Were they to come into force I'd have to move out of the Public sector, but they won't.
Roll on May.
They're both wrong though. HSM cannot take credit for 'we're in this together.' It's a generic phrase. Perhaps Osbourne was really focusing on the Nine inch nails song of the same title (I've heard neither). Equally, A's quite wrong to complain that Osbourne's wealth makes him somehow unqualified to comment. Let's be clear, he's keeping the stupid 50% tax, and imposing a cut on MPs and ministers, as well as exempting the lowest paid public sector workers from the freeze (and the front line military - nice touch).
Crucially, and I cannot stress this enough, he's right because we're fucked. We have no money and a debt with more zeros that High School Musical sales. So of course we need to cut jobs and freeze pay and work harder. Labour has been poor in response claiming:
a) they'd cut harder because they've promised to halve the deficit (just as they promised to abolish boom and bust)
b) the Tories would hit the middle class. It's a long way from Labour when people earning over £50k are the class they worry about
I think it's good stuff. The public sector workers being banned from earning more than the Prime Minister is nonsense, and their caps on pension just absurd. Were they to come into force I'd have to move out of the Public sector, but they won't.
Roll on May.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Bibliography, September 2009
Bought (o)
Read (6)
G. Tremlett, Ghosts of Spain
A. Christie, Murder is easy
M. Druon, Le Roi de fer
J. Lovegrove, The Hope
A. Tabucci, Requiem: a hallucination
A. Trollope, The Duke's Children
I'm far to busy to read much this month. Other than holidays I have barely read anything this month. The best though was Tremlett's (the Guardian's Madrid correspondent) book on post-Francoist Spain, which I have had for some time and never quite got round to reading. It's fascinating, insightful and very well done.
Read (6)
G. Tremlett, Ghosts of Spain
A. Christie, Murder is easy
M. Druon, Le Roi de fer
J. Lovegrove, The Hope
A. Tabucci, Requiem: a hallucination
A. Trollope, The Duke's Children
I'm far to busy to read much this month. Other than holidays I have barely read anything this month. The best though was Tremlett's (the Guardian's Madrid correspondent) book on post-Francoist Spain, which I have had for some time and never quite got round to reading. It's fascinating, insightful and very well done.
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