Gertsamtkunstwerk

Passion

A book by Louise Bagshawe

!!!CONTAINS SPOILER!!!!

Yet another book I purchased in pursuit of 'chick lit'. She is described as a 'chick-lit' author but I do think this is an unfair and derogatory - there isn't a similar term to embrace low-rent male-oriented writers such as Dan Brown and Andy McNab.

When I bought this book I knew nothing about Louise Bagshawe except a name that I frequently see when browsing the 3-for-2s at WH Smith. I subsequently found out she is a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Conservatives; I didn't wish that to prejudice my reading or review of the book.

There is a lot positive to be said for the book. It has a page-turning quality, and is well structured. I found the prose style very readable and spotted few stylistic tics, no real contradictions and no slapdash syntax. About the only annoyance on that level was repeated use of the cliche/buzzword 'is a player'. Legitimate to use in dialogue, it's lazy to use in a descriptive passage about a (fictional) Sultanate.

It's a fairly good book straining to be a very good book. A racy and complex plot, demonstrating some impressive grasp of details. But, unfortunately, there are too many holes, inconsistencies and details lacking to consider it of any great merit. A few minor errors were irritating but shouldn't detract from the overall narrative:

• the hero, Will, takes the heroine, Melissa onto the Tube, takes an Oyster card from his pocket and swipes it twice to let them both through
• Melissa is initially described as a research fellow (at an English University) but is often described subsequently as a professor;
• Will gets 'designer' suits shipped from Saville Row (if they're Saville Row, they're not 'designer'; if he gets them 'shipped' they're just off the peg)
• Melissa and her father (really a Professor, of Physics) communicated occasionally by telephone and letter - he died a year before this book was set, which references the credit crunch, the Lehman collapse, YouTube and Flickr - but no emails!
• Melissa goes from 'soft and unfit' to being able to take a running jump between two Manhattan sky-scrapers 8 feet part, within days, as a result of working out, albeit for several hours a day
• There is passing reference to the President of the USA (ie he's not integral to the plot, merely exists) as being an impotent old fool with a son - if you're writing a fiction about a US President, of course it has to be a fictional one, but I believe it' s okay to namecheck real people in fiction if they have no involvement in the plot. In my opinion, Obama is the third consecutive US president without a son, who couldn't honestly be described as old

And they kept on coming! 

The characters are unbelievably two-dimensional.

Will is described as having grown up in a Barnado's home; this is the explanation given for why Melissa's parents dislike him; there is a vague hint that his background was a motivation behind his success. But there is no further reference to this having an  effect on his character, not once is he seen to wonder about or resent his ignorance of his parents.

Melissa, despite being a research fellow in history is never once portrayed as having even a passing interest in anything historical.

Will's fiancée Olivia is described as being a rich Socialite heiress who also happens to be a doctor, specialising in Oncology. As an American,  she would have made the decision to study medicine post grad, and then decided further on what specialism, which seems entirely at odds with her portrayal as a shallow self-obsessed girl about town.

The other characters are cardboard cut-outs, which is tolerable for the narrative, but a better portrayal of the main supporting roles would have enhanced the book.

What is so stupid is the sheer lack of plausibility in the main plot-line.

!!!SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!!!

Melissa's father has 'discovered' how solar energy can be generated to end the dependency of cars on oil. Within days of Melissa smuggling the solar cell to Israel they (Israel) are producing solar-powered cars and oil-rich states of the Middle East have collapsed.

Now I have to confess to knowing less about the science of renewable energy than Louise Bagshawe presumably found out from the internet, so I decided to take this from first principles.

I know from observation that the technology exists to generate solar electricity, at least in buildings. One of the obstacles is finding a way to store it for when the sun isn't working. I don't think it's going to take a massive breakthrough of theoretical physicists to do this; more a case of refining a process down to a practical usable level.

Supposing that this solar cell he invented has the capacity to solve this problem, there would still be work needed to develop a mechanism to transfer the energy to the car's engine. I don't think this is 'rocket science' but something that needs attention from mechanical engineers specialising in car design. I don't think this would be developed in Israel, and not just in a few days. They do have car manufacturers there, but innovative engineering design seems a lot less important than developing robust bodies.

And, even if all those arguments I present are complete tosh, even if it were possible to develop, in just a few days, vehicles with no dependence on oil, and assuming that the costs of running such a car made it an absolute no-brainer, it's still going to take several years for the worlds' car manufacturers to build capacity to meet the demand for hundreds of millions of fuel-free vehicles.

This doesn't address oil-fuelled air travel or heating/lighting fuel - either directly or to produce electricity and gas (although I suppose these could all be superseded by the solar cell!), and it doesn't consider the demand for oil to make any number of by-products.

I accept - and desire - that, in the long term, oil will be replaced by renewable energies, especially solar power. But I don't think this scenario has been properly thought through by the author and her editor.

The basic principles of producing solar energy are so widely known that it would be futile to kill the small handful of people who might know the details of Melissa's father's research. Similar research happens at numerous institutions throughout the world.

The book is predicated on the assassinations being crucial to stopping immediately and for ever the reliance on oil, whereas I contend that it could never happen immediately and that a cessation - or more likely a reduction - is going to happen eventually, anyway.

It's a shame, because the chase, the actions of the assassins and so on are entertaining reading. But the logical flaws in the plot and the lack of interesting/plausible main characters turn a potentially excellent thriller into a mediocre disposable read.

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met his Match

by Wendy Moore

Another book I picked up by mistake in my search for shallow chick-lit. Firmly in the genre of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and The Other Boleyn Girl, this makes shallow chick-lit look meaningless, and, surely, is crying out to be turned into a film.

I suspect this sort of book would be dismissed by the History Snobs as being about a lightweight unimportant subject. It would be ignored by the glossy mags and their airhead journalists as not being 'relevant'. It would also be dismissed by feminist academia for not containing sufficient long, made up words, interminable sentences with multiple sub clauses, and for not being hectoring enough.

It seems to be a well researched book relying heavily on primary and contemporary sources (with pages of end notes citing these sources). Unlike The Other Boleyn Girl, the author does not make any disclaimer about fictionalising, and, other than projecting thoughts and feelings, I regard it as straight account.

It is a biography of Mary Eleanor Bowes, a summary of which is available at Wikipedia. Not a new story, the 'worst husband' was the subject of Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Wendy Moore comments on how for three centuries, Mary Eleanor Bowes' story has been told and retold in a way to cast her in a poor light.

For example, only in 2006 a man published a book called The Trampled Wife: The Scandalous Life of Mary Eleanor Bowes; the publisher's blurb describes her as a 'termagant', a word whose meaning I had to look up.

I recognise that every good historian writes with a Point of View; nevertheless, I find this book to be revelatory and shocking historiographically. In other words, and in reference to the academic sisters, it's about time that history became herstory.

Twin and interlocking themes in the book: extreme domestic violence and the oppressive, tyrannical, thieving property and marriage laws  - not properly (if that) amended until my lifetime, that meant that the woman was the property of her husband. That was no abstract concept. This meant that a married woman had no legal personage, so could not take legal action in her own name, had no rights to any property inherited from her father, and, on separation, had no legal rights to access her children, let alone be their caregiver. Mary Eleanor Bowes was unusual in that she was able to be an exception to this. Eventually.

If you read my review of Daughters of Shame, you will recall I wrote:

I simply don't see that rape, child marriage and imprisonment are race issues. In any case, similar oppression was typical of white European Christian society until fairly recently.

I wrote that before I had even read the cover of this book, and this book appeared next in the pile serendipitously. I found the first few pages difficult because the writing style is so very different from Jasvinder Sanghera's, but I soon settled into it, and after a few slow short sessions, read most of it yesterday.

In a perfect world, I ought to be reading weighty academic tomes, but books like this are far more useful. It's 96 in the Amazon (UK) sales rank for books, perhaps assisted by it being part of the Channel 4 TV Book Club (whatever that is...). This shows there is a market for this kind of book, possibly an insatiable market.

This reaches more people than academic tomes; those who read it are by definition literate, and, probably, well educated and already aware of the issues. Being part of a book club and - eventually, I guess, - a film, will mean that the message reaches a wider audience.

No doubt, some of that wider audience will say 'Oh didn't Kiera Knightley (or whoever) look mint; fancy coming shopping; I don't see the point of feminism" but a lot more will realise that progress has to be won, is slow and is fragile. Conversely, the reader might consider "that's history, thank goodness the only thing we have to worry about now is the emo angst and body image obsessiveness of a modern Bridget Jones".

It's a generally well-written and edited* book. My main criticism of the style is repetition. You know when you watch a Channel 4 documentary and after every ad break, they recap what's gone before, tell you what they're going to say, say it, and then recap it, before telling you what they're going to tell you after the next break. It wasn't quite that bad, but it's a habit I detest on TV and I don't want it to become the norm in books.

Like Georgiana, this is a biography of an ancestor of a future monarch. I suppose there is little documented evidence of the lives of ordinary Georgian women, but it's sad that after three centuries that the same small group of people 'matter'. There is (probably) more interest in Royal Ancestors than in people whose line died out or descended into obscurity.

A couple of years back I went to both Hever Castle and Harewood House, both of them using their tenuous Royal Connections to attract paying customers to their (admittedly extensive) grounds, indifferent gardens and overpriced gift shops.

I used to wonder why so many people were monarchists despite the overwhelming logical arguments to support a republic. But I didn't understand - still don't - the quasi-feudal system which ensures so many people are dependent on the Royalist spin-offs. It would seem inimical to their interests to kill the golden goose, although I am sure many people are happy to visit homes and gardens with no obvious current royal connection, as long as they're worthwhile in themselves.

Perhaps this won't become a film - the beatings, rapes and imprisonments are so grisly that a a faithful account might not pass uncensored; a watered down version would risk trivialising a seminal legal case and its context.

* editing matters: 2 or 3 years ago I read several books that made me want to wield the red pen to eliminate padding - I read one which said something like 'I realised I found myself entering through the door into the room', an understandable first draft, or instant-publishing flaw, but in a book that costs real cash money?

Daughters of Shame

I don't fully remember buying this book; I think it was in an impulse bulk-buy of fluffy inconsequential chick-lit. It couldn't be further from that genre.

Jasvinder Sanghera ran away from the prospect of a forced marriage and set up Karma Nirvana to support women - and then men, too - in similar circumstances. This book tells the stories of several women and one man and their struggle to survive ostracism and estrangement from their families and communities, often the violent abuse they suffered, and in some cases, murder.

I thought I knew a little about the subject, just from newspapers and some stuff I have come across over the years through various jobs. But after reading this book I realise how naive and innocent I was (and still am), a situation which many police and social workers also find themselves in.

It's an extraordinarily well written and well-edited book. No superfluous prose, and its fluidity makes it impossible to put down. I read it in about three hours on Wednesday.

As a British Asian woman Jasvinder is in a position to criticise community cultural values from personal experience. Time and again she finds herself having to battle persuade the white and seemingly liberal public sector professionals she encounters to take this matter seriously.

Teachers, police, social services are - not surprisingly - wary of cultural sensitivities. Reading this, and in knowing the enormous progress that has happened in this area in just a few short years, I am tempted to be optimistic and celebrate that progress. But one police officer believes the problem will never go away; an academic likens this area to how child abuse was in the 1970s.

She describes women - and girls - held prisoner in their homes, or kidnapped and taken to Pakistan etc to be forcibly married. Running through is a tacit acknowledgement of the many more women who acquiesced in an 'arranged' marriage against their will. I suppose my major criticism is that after reading this, one is tempted to believe this behaviour is absolutely endemic throughout British Asian society, and, of course, it is not.

It troubles me that the families and communities that Jasvinder writes about are so hostile to white people in Britain. I accept that many may have migrated here as a result of the history of colonialism and repression, and that many have faced racism and hate crimes from white British people. I also think it's understandable to want to retain culture and community values, but only up to a point.some of the reported statements are racist, or would be considered so if expressed by white people about Asians; however, with this brand of racism, it is again the Asians who are the victims.

Asian schoolgirls attending overwhelmingly white schools are instructed not to talk to white girls, even at school - I dread to think what is happening to the girls at Islamic separatist schools. I just don't think it's realistic for a child to be born in a place and grow up there and not absorb some aspects of the local culture and ways of behaving. Indeed, just about every British Asian person I know considers themself both British and Asian, wanting and being the best of both.

It's not very far along the line to ask - why, if you abhor the British way of life so much do you nevertheless stay living here? Can you not see that so many aspects that make Britain an attractive place to migrate to are the aspects you detest the most - a liberal and open society where, at least in theory, women are free to do what they want with their lives? The prosperity would not be there without the liberalism, and nor would the safety net. If your daughter has the much-prized British Citizenship, she also has all the rights that go with that - or indeed, the rights that are afforded to all residents of Britain irrespective of status. It isn't a menu where you choose just the options that appeal to you and reject the rest.

I have never subscribed to the view that one should avoid offending cultural sensitivities. I am a feminist and a socialist, and as such, I also lend my support to other liberation struggles (as they were once called...). But I cannot compromise my belief in women's equality and freedom just so as not to appear racist. I simply don't see that rape, child marriage and imprisonment are race issues.In any case, similar oppression was typical of white European Christian society until fairly recently.

I am humbled reading about women like Jasvinder. It would have been so much easier for her to heave a sigh a relief and live a 'normal' life in private. Instead, she tours the country speaking at conferences and seminars, and appearing in the media, working tirelessly to persuade law-makers and the professionals that administer the law to understand what is happening, not to ignore the hidden abuse of thousands of women and children (and men, too, for that matter), as well as supporting the individuals who approach her organisation for help.

It's a very powerful book, made more so by its readability, where the personalities become real not just some 'case study'. I would highly recommend it; but beware that it contains some painful truths that won't simply go away when you put the book down.

Books I read on holiday

I have to confess that when it comes to fiction, I don't exactly go for the literary classics. All that education, and she goes for the chick-lit from the airport book shop, I hear you exclaim! In my defence, I like to read heavy and challenging books about politics and history. But not on the beach, and not when I run the risk of being interrupted on every page by my supposedly sleeping companion.

The worst book I read was Joanna Trollope's Friday Nights.I did not see the point of it. I think she was trying to emulate Virginia Woolf, in trying to examine the lives of several women, and how those lives changed when one man passed briefly through their lives. And I can see the attraction of that. But nothing happened, at all.

That would not have been so bad if I had been able to empathise with the characters. But they were portrayed so superficially, so I just didn't care. I am sure that she thought there was some great literary concept in have allusions to this rather mysterious, elusive man who just seems to drift around the novel like a cypher, even though he is supposed to a sexy and dynamic entrepreneur. If I had been at home, I would not have bothered finishing it; indeed, I wouldn't even have bought it but for the 2-for-1 offer in WH Smiths.

The second most inconsequential book was Penny Vincenzi's Wicked Pleasures. A veritable doorstep of a book, and, in fairness, one that was a page-turner. I can't say that there was any literary merit to it, and I don't suppose that she intended it to have. It's a saga of a family, stretching over several decades. In many ways it was dire: one part of the family were super-rich hereditary bankers from New York and the Hamptons, the other part were some minor English aristocracy. So these people floated through life inventing problems for themselves - there were some token archetypal working class people, too. None of the characters was particularly well-rounded, and, again, I didn't care about any of them. I would have liked to have said that it was a biting commentary on the spiritual and intellectual vacuity of these people, but, sadly, the writer gave the distinct impression she thought they were wonderful simply on account of being rich and/or titled. I wouldn't have minded if they did anything exciting and glamorous, but it seemed that their lives were just an expensive version of the average suburbanite's. And it was rather badly edited. I could tolerate one mention to 'public hair' but two was silly. And in case you are thinking there was lots of sex, there was, some, at least, but it was decidedly lacking in erotica - if you're going to buy downmarket fiction, the least you should expect is graphic sex.

But I did read two decent books and hopefully, I shall write about them soon.

Toyboy Diaries

I have to say, I like my literature distinctly middlebrow. I'm far too old for Chick Lit. I really do not want to read novels about the Yummy Mummies of Clapham; it's bad enough having almost to share a postcode with them. No thanks.

But whatever possessed me to buy a book with "Toyboy" in the title. I simply don't do Younger Men. I did, sort of, go out with a younger man once. Well, maybe a handful of times in several years. A couple of years my junior. Really nice guy, actually, and the last time I saw him, on a 45 bus, I still that felt that frisson. But what attracted em wasn't his youthfulness, anyway, but his comparative maturity. What ended it; it having hardly begun was his immaturity, his inability to commit (he's married with at least one kid now).

But me, I do older men. Why, I don't know. Basically, I always have. Even random strangers: older men are such fun to flirt with, younger men can't - it's all about them, busy checking out whether you fulfil their magazine-inspired checklist. Older men, the wise ones that is, they look into your eyes.

So this self-centred rich snob keeps shagging younger men, and then wrote a book about it. I have to say, it was well written in that it romped along. But I didn't like the character at all. I have to assume it was fiction, even though she made out it was real, with just the names changed. I just feel that the situations where she described being picked up rather stretched the bounds of credibility. Unless she wore a sign saying 'Desperate for a ffff' and, frankly, who wants to ffff a bloke who responds positively to desperation. As for the bit where she got mugged at gunpoint, come on, do me a favour: guns aren't used like that

She rejected one man because he lived in Clapham and travelled halfway across London on public transport. Clearly, she's an idiot. And a drunk-driver. She lives in Maida Vale, in a flat, for heaven's sake, hardly something to be snobbish about. And doesn't seem to have the slightest scruples about driving after an evening's drinking. All her so-called friends are loaded, and it's pretty clear she just hangs round them to ligg and freeload. Claims to be educated and experienced but clearly has no opinions or no knowledge with which to form the opinions.

It's rare that I have read a book where I took such a dislike to a main character who is supposed to be sympathetic. I rejoiced every time her toyboys dumped her. It seems that she scrubbed up well, but she must have been tedious company. She judged everybody by appearances. the most hilarious thing was when a one-night stand went disastrously wrong because she farted in bed - when the bloke was asleep. Frankly, if the guy is so shallow he dumps you because of that, he probably isn't worth pining over, anyway. But I doubt it was that reason he dumped her - she was an easy lay, he'd had her, it was time to move on.

I suppose she validated herself by her obsession with her appearance and her clothes, and it was hilarious how she equated 'richer' with 'better' even though the 'richer' came over as pompous self-satisfied bores. And as I say, it was very well written and also well edited, but it did nothing to attract me to toyboys. Give me an older man any time.

And it looks like she's written another one

Reading and writing Part 1

As long as I can remember I have been reading. The writing came soon afterwards. I can't think of any other solitary activities I enjoy so much and have been such a constant throughout my entire post-toddlerhood life.

Every child should have an ambition, a dream that burns inside. I have never really known what I have wanted to do with my life/career.

Perhaps to be Prime Minister. And, indeed, if Gordon Brown knocked on my door tomorrow and said "Gert, can you take over for a couple of years" I would be there like a shot, drop everything. I would love it and I know I would be bloody brilliant. The best ever. But that's not how one gets to be Prime Minister.

I don't want to be a junior minister, responding only to the caprices of one's seniors and one's officials. I certainly don't want to be a backbench MP, dealing with the complaints and problems of those who can't be bothered to find out the truth or won't help themselves (casework is always more satisfying for those who can't,  either because of their own vulnerability or because of the complex intricacies of the situation). And I certainly don't want to be a Parliamentary candidate or on the panel of hopefuls, having to keep a permanent smile, not offend anyone, and doing the rounds of dull community events and meetings to show one's commitment.

But if there is one 'job' I could do, which wouldn't be like a job, at which I would willingly work away at all hours and even on holiday, it would be 'writer'. There has never been any doubt in my mind that I can write a book. I know all the stuff about everyone having a book in them. I also know that there is only one way to prove oneself as an author - to produce a book. Lots of people do it, why won't I? The actual difficult bit is getting published, and getting the product marketed sufficiently.

I write all the time. But most of what I write is excerpts and disjointed stuff, things that trail-off, stuff that is full of vivid descriptions and characterisations, but lacking a linear narrative - so a lot like life, really...!

I believe that all I have to do is actually to write a book. That isn't difficult. The difficult bit is the same weakness that affects every part of my life - the tendency for enthusiasms that trail off, the lack of stickability, the habit of getitng bored before a project is finished.

But I am not a young woman, and there is no point me going round with this idea in my head 'I'm a writer, inside, really'. Some time, I am going to have to knuckle under or confront the cowardice of reality.

100 albums you must listen to

It's a list

I've read through, and I would endorse some of the selections, and virulently reject others. Clearly, any such list will be personal. Some of the recommended recordings are so old I have to wonder about the quality of the sonics. Others strike me as being very old-fashioned choices eg for Messiah it seems ludicrous to recommend only a 'traditional' interpretation when there is such a difference between over-egged over-schmaltzy orchestration and the crisp excitement of period interpretations. Also, the subset called 'opera' entirely fails to consider DVD, a bit bizarre considering that very few operas at all (if any) were written as audio only, so to recommend an opera recording without pictures is a bit like recommending a bowdlerized novel.

Years ago, a then friend copied for me a list that the Telegraph had compiled of the 100 books one must read. For years it stayed on my kitchen wall, then I removed it, thinking 'I am not obliged to read any book merely because experts (or one expert, or one bored journalist) thinks it's a 'must read'. And, in any case, the list was very conservative and with rather narrow terms of reference. So I seized on this review of what appeared to be a Bluffer's Guide Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is an invaluable guide to subverting the reading classes. Setting aside that the review is written in appalling dense prose, it seems it isn't a Bluffer's Guide, anyway. Furthermore, I reflected, do I really want to be the sort of person who , at mythical dinner parties filled with erudite conversation about novels, rather than
a) staying quiet; or
b) saying I haven't read that book because:

• with so many books to read and such diverse tastes, it is a bit unthinking merely to follow the crowd
• I've probably read books that you haven't
• if you have read so many books you probably don't have a great deal else going on in you life

one attempts to sound knowledgeable about something one knows bugger all about - well, that's pathetic isn't. If I am so desperate to appear well-read, I am afraid the only way to appear so is to be well-read. And I question the value in 'appearing well-read', which is pretty shallow, when the goal ought to be 'to be well read'. Being well read would make one a more rounded and thoughtful person, with greater awareness of the pointlessness of pretending; it would bring some entertainment into one's life; and it would simply make one more knowledgeable.

However, I have found Penguin Classics's "100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die"

Bizzarity

Thursday morning, riding the Great Glass Elevator to the office cafe, I had a random disassociated thought..."something's stirring in the woodshed", unable to remember the precise exact quote.

Thursday evening, on the Tube going home, the woman opposite me was reading a yellowed, orange covered Penguin, with the price in shillings (her mother's copy?) of...Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

What is the likelihood of that happening...?

The book meme

I was tagged....puts hand to throat, idly wonders whether self-strangulation would work. And be less painful.

Thank you so much Jams

1: One book that changed your life:

I can't think of a single book that changed my life, and I'm not really sure that there's any that even stand out as having a major influence on me. I could cite Business Accounting by Frank Wood, but it's so long since I've done any financial accounting I'm not sure even I even know my debits from my credits any more. There are books that stand out as being profound or enjoyable but they all go into the melting pot I call my brain, in a Hegelian dialectical process. Not that I've ever read any Hegel.

2: One book you have read more than once:

There's a lot of books I have read more than once, starting with Puppies and Kittens in about 1972, including many books studied over the years, and ones I keep going back to because of their greatness. But I will cite Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (I had to google to remember which Brontë...) as ones I go back to because of the sheer beauty of the language.

3: One book you would want on a desert island:

Assuming I get The Bible and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, I would opt for a history of political philosophy especially if it covered in reasonable depth all the philosophers I half studied in my Theories of Politics and Political Thought courses at University. Greatest regret? Going to University too young to appreciate the opportunity to study and using the time instead to hack. I would say party but I did more hanging out than partying...

If I could only have one book it would be the Bible. Probably the King James Version. Dunno, what do I know about the bible? Had the Jerusalem Bible at home as a child - not great; used the New English Bible at school (still sits in the living room now) - shocking abuse of language; and I also have a New International Version called the bible in one year, or something. Seemed like a great idea when I bought it. Never really got through it. Occasionally make resolutions to try again. I'd like to read the Koran, too.

4: One book that made you laugh:

Adrian Mole, the Cappuccino Years. I remember it well. Lunchtime RBKC. I laughed so hard I spat a prawn onto my computer screen. All the Adrian Mole books, really.

5: One book you wish had been written:

Archduke Franz-Ferdinand: The Forgotten Aristocrat

6: One book you wish had never had been written:

Round the blogosphere, the best answers have been Mein Kampf and A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. I can't really better those.

7: One book that made you cry:

Lots of books have made me cry. Generally late at night in private. But Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Grapes of Wrath had me crying in public. CCM on the District Line en route to Ealing Broadway. I got empathetic nods and smiles from sisters who'd been there. Crying at CCM, I mean, not Ealing Broadway.

8: One book you are currently reading:

More than one, and yet, none...Albion by Peter Ackroyd; Muriel Spark Omnibus; Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes; The Private Lives of the Three Tenors (two far less interesting than one....look I got it second hand, okay, yes it's badly written...) - by Monica Lewinsky's mother.

9: One book you have been meaning to read:

Fanny Hill; The Diary of Anais Nin

10. Tag 5 people. I don't tag, but what the heck, if you're not a blogger, my comments box is your platform...

Muriel Spark RIP

Obituary: Dame Muriel Spark

I have to confess that I had no idea that she was still alive, but she died on Thursday aged 88.

It's been a while since I read any of her books, and all the ones I did read I borrowed from the library. Most famous for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but some of her other books made quite an impression on me. I certainly enjoyed Girls of Slender Means and The Ballad of Peckham Rye.

There was a book of hers that I read in the very early Eighties, when I was barely in my teens, about a woman who had to have an orgasm every day and went out trawling the streets for a casual screw. That might have been The Driver's Seat. At that age, and in those days, I was really quite shocked, but I kind of enjoy the thought that somewhere behind the cardiganned-bespectacled stereotypical librarian in my local branch library was the beating heart of a connoisseur of Erotica. Who did nothing to discourage me from reading these and other examples of the genre.

You know, I might just obtain myself a few Muriel Sparks and see how I find them now that I am older and the world has moved on.

On A Vulgar Error

I'm not a massive poetry fan, although I know what I like. In an attempt to elevate my thinking I have Ms Uborka's Poetry blog in my Kinja digest. Many of the poems do nothing for me; it's always pleasant to run across an old familiar.

And occasionally, it's nice to encounter an unfamiliar especially by an author that one has indifference to.

No. It’s an impudent falsehood. Men did not
Invariably think the newer way Prosaic
mad, inelegant, or what not.

Was the first pointed arch esteemed a blot
Upon the church? Did anybody say How
modern and how ugly? They did not.

continue reading CS Lewis

Recently read...

I pre-ordered it and it arrived promptly on publishing day. And then sat on my coffee table for two weeks. Why did I want to read a footballer's memoirs?

I read a lot when I was younger, especially in my early teens. At that age they give a fascinating insight into the glamorous world of football, but even then, you don't expect great works of literature. Nevertheless, looking back, and, indeed, looking at some I have read in more recent years, one has to conclude that Footballer's Memoirs, as a genre, on the whole are pretty appalling.

It's not that they're badly written, after all, they're mainly ghost written by journalists. Let's face it, who, other than writers actually write their own autobiographies. (Well, okay, politiicans. I haven't read Bill Clinton's, which ought to be fascinating, because, reportedly, it's full of long, turgid prose and it almost unreadable. ) The problem is, most footballers don't really have anything to say. Once they have shopping-listed their career successes, their injuries, their goals, what more is there to say?

And, I have to say, Lee Sharpe's memoirs are a perfect example by contrast of why footballers' memoirs are so boring. His are interesting, and analytical, and contain a surprising level of self-awareness. That didn't entirely surprise me. When he was at his prime, I used to buy a video magazine about Manchester United; he featured heavily, being so telegenic. He always struck me as articulate, and intelligent. (I have to say that I didn't watch more than fifteen minutes of Celebrity Love Island, despite his presence).

Although, obviously, it's difficult to tell how much is him and how much the ghost writer, there are some extraordinary descriptions of the unglamorous side of football including  his days as an apprentice at Torquay. Fascinating portrayal of life as a young professional at Manchester United. And interesting insight and analysis into the psyches of Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane. I don't think Fergie comes out of it very well. Not that Sharpey is nasty, he just highlights Fergie's shortcomings, and concludes with extraordinary high praise for him. And he explains Fergie's shortcomings by his limited background.

He describes when he was at Bradford, at age about thirty, he decided to enrol on a course, aimed primarily at business people, about motivation, positive thinking etc.  It was a revelation to him that something so simple could actually be so effective. All the time previously in his career, it had been about fear - fear of the opponenets, fear of making a mistake, fear of failure. Yet he believes that by telling people they can do it, or writing a positive score on the wall before a game can dispel many of the self-doubts. He says all he ever wanted to do was go out and play football, he wasn't even bothered about medals. He wanted to feel the ball at his feet. And to earn big money and attract beautiful women.

He was shocked when on loan at Portsmouth, Graham Rix took the more experienced players aside, and, whilst emphasising that his word was final, he wished to hear their views. This was a shock to Sharpey , because hitherto, he had been used to having to do what he was told, unquestioningly. Even to the extent that Fergie ordered him to move out of the house he shared with his grlfriend and move back into digs.

He illustrates how much has football has changed since he joined Torquay in 1987 and United in 1988; sometimes it's so easy to forget. I suppose what is most noticeable is the extent to which managers like Fergie, for all his proven track record, really are a dying breed. He talks about Sam Allardyce at Bolton, and how they have teams of psychologists.

It's also interesting to read what he has to say about his cohort of players and how little they were taught about to live their lives, in contrast to that cohort (four years younger) of Beckham, Scholes, Butt, the Nevilles. He's funny about the Nevilles, without ever - quite - being cruel.

I would say it is a must-read for any Manchester United fan, and highly recommended to any football fans. Totally essential if you're a Sharpey fan, of course.

I know it sounds silly, considering that this is a former Manchester United and England player, with an impressive list of honours, but I sort of thing that this is the waste of a good brain. I know he's getting more into punditry, and he hints that the Celebrity Love Island thing has opened the door for more TV work, but, even though I know the book was ghost-written, I can tell that the originator is Sharpe just not by name.

Extraordinary

Beauty unseen, unsung

Sometimes I feel that Alison Lapper is just a self-publicist, but I do find her a fascinating woman, and this excerpt from her autobiography is thought-provoking

Self indulgence

I have read so many reviews of The Hungry Years by William Leith that i feel no need whatsoever to read it. Although, if I hadn't read the reviews, I would still feel no need to read it. I think it's probably being ubiquitously reviewed because the author knows the right people.

So, what is it about? It seems that a young man from a comfortably-off background and a good education spends his Twenties, Thirties over-indulging in food, illegal drugs and alcohol, and then he grows up. Perhpas it is brilliantly well-written and funny. I used to read some of his columns in the Observer - or was it the IoS - years ago, maybe when I lived in Streatham. They were mildly entertaining, but, because they did not actually say anything or provoke any thoughts they were instantly forgettable.

About three weeks ago I was flicking through the Observer and I decided that the silly season had started. There seemed to be an underlying theme to too many of the articles - people from comfortable backgrounds, good education, and well-paid jobs angsting about problems that were so trivial as to be contemptible, of their own making, or a direct result of arrogant self-indulgence.

I find it all dreadfully boring and wearisome. We all have problems, some of our own making and some forced by circumstances. We deal with them, well or badly. In a world where there is free speech, we are perfectly entitled to write about them in any forum we so wish, in any way we so want. Hey, I blog.

But when a shallow newspaper columnist writes a book that then gets pimped round by other newspaper commenters it begins to take on a whole new dimension. Newspapers have Editors, supposedly to lend a note of authority - an Observer book review is not merely a random jotting on the www, but it is expected by the readership to carry the weight of hundreds of years of the Observer's reputation. I'm just left wondering who really cares. But I also know that the pimping of the book will extend to prominent placing in bookshops and well-known high-street/railway station/airport stationers and the browser, looking for an impulse buy, will think "Oh that looks interesting, triumph over adversity blah-de-blah." Maybe it is interesting, but I can't help feeling that it's probably more noise than sound

Meanwhile a survey found that only one in six respondents could correctly identify Kofi Annan as the secretary general of the United Nations, whereas 77 per cent knew that Justin Timberlake was not going out with Drew Barrymore.

Perhaps it really does not matter; on the other hand I had a conversation with a thirty-something chap the other week, who did not know that he was entitled to a 25% discount on his Council Tax until his Dad told him; conversation moved on to some matter of someone's confusion over tax credits, housing benefits and rent arrears; his comment was "she didn't know"; on further probing he admitted she knew every plot twist and character in Eastenders.

Of books reviewed, I suspect that Maggie Gee's My Cleaner will have much more perceptive comments on the human condition.

Harry Potter and the, oh , the latest one

I have never read a Harry Potter book, and I really don't expect I ever shall. No particular reason, except that I have piles - literally and metaphorically - of unread books, and therefore HP is low priority. I think I've seen three films, and will probably see the rest. If you're a bit like me, there's a plot summary over at Four Cranks With Opinions: Not So Happy Days at Hogwarts: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and some comments on their attraction to adults and children.

I first came across HP when my friend Helen read the first one on a Transatlantic FLight in 1999; a few weeks later I learned that my cousin's boy, then 9, was well into them. Interestingly, another cousin's boy, then 11, had received a copy from a publisher friend, long before they had hit the consciousness, with word that this was the next Big Thing. They had both (mother and son) tried reading it and had found it as dull as ditchwater. I think we concluded that some people are into fantasy/adventure, and some are not. Helen's a big Pratchett fan, which has never really appealed to me, either.

I'm not sure what fiction really appeals the most to me. My favourite book of all time, and well overdue a re-read is Wuthering Heights. I have read a few Dickens, and although it can take me months to get through the first half, I usually manage to devour the second half, and end up in blubs of tears, thinking it was well worth the effort. But I'd never call myself a Dickens fan. Elizabeth Gaskell is probbaly my favourite author, although a bit uneven.

I rarely read modern 'literature'. I suppose I ought to. I do like a certain amount of middlebrow chicklit - I'm a fan of Freya North (who emailed me once!), Marian Keyes and Mary Wesley. But I suppose I'm more a reader of factual. In the past ten years the best four books I have read have been Norman Davies' 'The Isles' and 'Europe', Peter Ackroyd's 'London The Biography' and Roy Jenkins' 'Winston Churchill'. I found them all impossible to put down. Pretty difficult to lift up, true, but bloody good reads.

I have found I have been reading less since Jimmy moved in. I used to go to bed and read for an hour or more most nights, but that's a luxury of singledom that has to be sacrificed for lurve. Perhpas I should get one of those lights that clips to a book.

Belle of the year-before-last...

Erotic? You're having a laugh

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

So bad, it's good

One thing you are guaranteed not to get on madmusings is a literary review. Oh yes, we read books. Heck, we even review books. History, biography, all manner of non-fiction. We do read fiction, but, let's be blunt here, we are not of a literary turn-of-mind.

Oh yes, we have a few Penguin Classics, read, on our shelves, some classics of the twentieth century, too. We believe Wuthering Heights and Cry, The Beloved Country to be the greatest books ever written. But, let's be blunt, we read those in the early 1980s. Our tastes haven't moved on and matured since. We have been known to read Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope, and not just on beaches.

However, until yesterday we had never read any Jilly Cooper. Yesterday, we had some time to spare on the South Bank before a concert at the Purcell Room, so we drifted into Books Etc, and, having looked through the intellectual books, we bought 'Score' by Jilly Cooper.

I guess it was going to happen: three times this has come up in conversation recentl, including a blog comment from Somewhat, who refers to an evil-but-sexy conductor. So, I had to splurge.

Despite the embarrassment of reading a downmarket trashy novel in a public place with pretentions to intellectuality I simply could not put the book down, except for during the actual concert (Mozart and Handel, review soon-ish). I can certainly see the appeal of the writer - galloping plot, descriptive phrasing, two-and-a-half dimensional characters (always the best - they get far more troublesome if they move into three dimensions). Kind of gripping.

But some of the phraseology is extraordinary. I wonder if readers take these cliches and contrived metaphors at face value, or do they all snigger at the florid prose. When I have finished, I may go through it again and pull out some of the worst examples. At the moment, the one that is sticking in mind is "He was the James Galway of oral sex"

This so doesn't work on so many levels. I mean, if any man (or woman) tried to blow me like a flute, I would find it bizarre, and almost certainly not a turn on. Flautists do odd things with their lips. And James Galway...I mean, I'm sure he's a nice bloke, and what a legend, but, ooh no, stop it make this thought disappear.

I know I am just a humble accountant, and my adding and counting maybe suspect, but I'm trying to work out how the evil-but-sexy one can manage to be so priapic. And I'm guessing wildly, but conducting Don Carlos is probably quite physically exacting.

Without providing a spoiler, we have reached the bit where the Old Bill have made an entrance (phnarr phnarr). No doubt, by the end, we shall know who dunnit.

Children's literature

I'm on a roll

OMG - Antonia Forest died just four months ago.

Friends of the Chalet School

New Chalet Club

See you in a few hours time!

Improve my life

When I was little I absolutely loved Ballet Shoes and indeed, just about anything by the incomparable Noel Streatfield. Ballet Shoes will be presented to my niece at a suitable juncture, although last night on the phone she seemed more interested in chocolate ice creams in the interval than actually seeing Swan Lake. I said - tell Mummy it will be gin and tonics all round; she told Mummy, Mummy said Oh well, you like gin and tonic, don't you E.

Ballet Shoes introduced me to the world of ballet, and also a slight fascination for the Midsummer Night's Dream. School English lessons are guaranteed to kill Shakespeare - we did MND, Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliette, that Scottish play, and, for O Level, Henry IV Part 1. My mother, of course, has the Complete World of Shakespeare in the dining room bookcase, printed on ultra thin paper and with a magical feel about the book. I have been to a few plays - I'm not even sure which ones - there was definitely a Hamlet in Nottingham, a couple at the Royal Exchange, one outside in Southend. It struck me watching, repeatedly, Verdi's Otello, being enchanted by Ades's The Tempest, noticing various colleagues getting over-excited by the opening of booking for The Globe, that maybe Shakespeare had something about him.

Should I acquire a complete works of Shakespeare and read them? If so, what plays should I start on? Should I be brave enough to hunt out a live performance of something and dare myself not to fall asleep?

Give me your opinion.

Or should I just re-read the Noel Streatfield books that sit yet on my booksheleves, and search out ones I haven't read?

I feel a little saddened to note that Noel Streatfield died in 1986. I don't recall this happening, which suggests that there was very little media coverage. Presumably because she wrote 'girls' books' and back then, they weren't considered important.

An under-rated ground breaking genius:

By (1936), Noel was busy on many projects. These included...another play, 'Wisdom Teeth'...at the Everyman Theatre. (It) was of a more serious nature, designed to shock with its two themes of divorce and drugs.

I notice on Amazon it says that Customers who bought books by Noel Streatfeild also bought books by

• Antonia Forest - remember Nicki and Lawrie Marlow and Tim Keith?
• Elinor M. Brent-Dyer - th eincomparable chalet School series
• Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden, of course, a true literary masterpiece, but also others
• Johanna Spyri - Heidi, superbly wonderful!
• Enid Blyton - I read a few - it was de rigeur, much to my parents' chagrin, but I don't have magical memories of Enid Blyton, except perhaps of the Island of Adventure, Castle of Adventure etc series. And the Magic Faraway Tree

Missing from this list is Mabel Esther Allan - an author clearly loved by a librarian at Coppice Avenue library - remember that boarding school in Skye, but lots of other quite challenging subject matters for 'young adults'.

I'm a roll now - how about Joan Lingard and her Belfast books, including Across the Barricades

Gielgud's letters published

The Telegraph will be serialising a collection of the letters of Sir john Geilgud, including his fear of being blackmailed.

Geilgud was the toweringly great actor of my lifetime (along with Laurence Olivier). What is extraordinary is that five years before I was even born, he referred to "Really, at my time of life".

So, he was in his sixties when homosexuality was legalised in this country. I can barely imagine the feeling of being prevented from living ife as one should wish, especially being such a public figure.

Bookish book-keepers

Apparently accountants are the most well read. This is, presumably, because they lack the personality to make friends or go out places, s they read as a substitute for having a life.

(I am an accountant...)

Glorious Ladybirds

The Guardian has a rather turgid article on the paintings that illustrated the Ladybird 'reading books'.

I recall that we had some of these book at home, and they were immensely readable at the age of four or five. I think they featured children called Peter and Jane, and they used to do vaguely interesting things. At school we had Robert and Judy, which were supposed to last for the entirety of one's Infant career, but I had finished them by Christmas of Infant 2. They were okay, if a little uninspiring. My younger brother had the Dick and Dora books which were dreadful, truly dreadful. they applied the laws of attrition to reading.

Dick is in the garden. Dora is in the garden. Dick and Dora are in the garden. Nip is in the garden. Fluff is in the garden. Nip and Fluff are in the garden. Mummy is in the garden. Daddy is in the garden. Mummy and Daddy are in the garden. Dick, Dora, Nip, Fluff, Mummy and Daddy are in the garden.

. When you are twelve and have to hear a five year old read this, you would actually far rather tidy your bedroom!

Many of the Ladybird books were splendid. Between us, my sister and I had ones on subjects as diverse as Birds, Flowers, Ordnance Survey Maps, British Customs and Festivals, King Alfred the Great, Roman Britain, and knitting, many of which are now being utilised by my sister's children.

We then moved onto the Observer's Books - I still have my Observer's Book of the seashore, and always forget to take it to the seaside with me. Another great source of education was the PG Tips cards and the albums into which they were stuck. We had many that my uncle had collected in the Fifties eg Vintage Cars, Battle Ships. Pauline added collections such as the history of fashion and the 150th anniversary of the Metropolitan Police. The last time I saw PG Tips cards, they featured pictures of the advertising chimps...

Pressies

I've got none.

But my sister warned me they would be delivered between the 6th and the 9th. But I've now had a peak, and this is what I shall be getting: The Oxford Companion to Music, The Complete Flanders and Swann and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

From my fiance I'm getting a dirty weekend. I expect nothing from my brother. Seeing as though he has not yet received his Christmas pressie from me...!

Dandy highwaymen

The Guardian reviews a book about the real Dick Turpin. Of course, it's historically important to examine the true facts, but myths and legends do enrich life's tapestry.

The first time I read Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman I went 'Wow!' The second time I cried. And I was 27 at the time. It merits being read aloud, difficult though that is. Reading it aloud just now caused goosebumps.

Property Diva

Hopefully, if my Nottingham-dwelling cousin responds to my telephone message, I shall be the proud owner of pictures of Troubled Diva Towers on Saturday.

A wizard and other miscellany

I was delighted to see Manchester United win 5-3 yesterday against Newcastle, thanks to Paul Scholes, Ruud van Nistelrooy (3) and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. So far, they've had a fairly variable season, sailing through the first group stage of the European Cup and spluttering in the League. With Liverpool and Arsenal losing, United are fifth, six points behind the Arse. - to make a bid for the top. Everton are in a very strange third place.

Yesterday evening we went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I would definitely recommend it. We went to "...and the Philosopher's Stone" by accident: me thinking Jimmy wanted to go, and he thinking that I did. Neither of us thought we would like it, but there was no question whatsoever about going to this one. Don't misunderstand me - it's not great, or massively thought provoking, and SPOILER the Goodies won over the Baddies<. /SPOILER>.

Incidentally, I got side-tracked by this bulletin board where some person kicked up a whole storm by saying that Harry Potter should be filmed in American accents. One person posted:

No offense, and not to go against the Rowling's work, but why can't you believe American publishers changed some sayings and words (like the title of book 1)? They had too. Sure the original British English could have fostered dialogues between parents and children across the U.S., but really, "jumper"? An American child reads that word and won't ask what it is because we have our own notions of what a "jumper" is and it's not a sweater. We would have read that wrong and then had the wrong image in our heads.

Things like soccer or the word billion. In British aren't they football and trillion. American's football is a very different sport and a trillion is so much larger than a billion. Or how about that a public school in America would be a state school in Britain or that a public school in Britain would be a private school in America. Certain words need the translation to avoid confusion.

Just as books need to be translated from British into French or Japanese, they also need translated into American English. And vice-versa I'm sure. The two languages are not at all interchangable. I like British English. I love movies set in Britain, but that's because in the movies I can get the context of the language from the visuals on screen. In a book, it's a bit harder. Certain sayings in Britain mean other things in America. But if there are American sayings that better convey the British meaning, why not translate? It's not an insult to American youth and their intelligence, but a logical way to make sure that American children truly understand and see J.K. Rowling's story and vision as she intended.

I have to admit to being shocked at that. When I was a child I read quite a few books from North America - notably, those by Louisa M Alcott (Little Women etc), LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) and Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie). These were not translated into English English, and some of the expressions and words threw me, but I seem to remember that I somehow I just absorbed that words were slightly different, and part of the richness of reading is learning about far away places.

This afternoon I had a bit of a bad back, so I went for a long soak in the bath. when I got out, Jimmy asked me to get some chocolates out of the fridge 'because they need eating'. So I held them above my head and looked up to see if there was a 'Best Before' date on the bottom. I did a nasty injury to my neck, which made it nigh on impossible to move for half an hour, and still hurts now about five hours later. I later spoke on the phone to my brother, a doctor. He diagnosed Walnut Whiplash.