Pun based title, when I think of one

I finished this book hating someone. Someone who doesn't exist. Sarah Moss ' writing can do that to you, and paradoxically the hate is fiercer for the fact that the villain of Ghost Wall isn't out-and-out evil; though he's not far off it. It's 17 year old Sylvie 's Dad, who signs the family up for a summer 'camp' experiencing Iron Age life up in Northumberland, organised by a university Professor, who's brought three of his students along. Her Dad is obsessed with the life of the pre-Roman peoples of Britain, of Northern England particularly. He's often drawn the family into this, so Sylvie and her Mum have often found theselves spending their holidays trudging aong ancient pathways, or going to museums to view ancient artifacts. And once he took Sylvie with him to see one of the bog people at an exhibition; a sacrificial victim her appearance preserved by the peat, who turned out to be a young girl not unlike Sylvie herself. At this summer cam...

Jerome K. Jerome wrote one famous book, Three Men in a Boat , still very readable (and highly entertaining) today, and likely to remain so for some time yet. It created a much imitated formula for comic narratives based on the farcical adventures of three foolish men. The realisation that this formula could be applied anywhere transformed the BBC's Top Gear from a worthy but slightly dull and definitely niche motoring programme into one of the most watched general entertainment shows on the planet.  There are four rather than three foolish men in Jerome's Novel Notes . And while there are any number of interesting occasional characters, notably the unnamed narrator's wife Ethelberta , and their marvellously nonplussed and unimpressed maidservant Amenda  (is that a historical spelling of Amanda?), they don't partake in any picaresque adventures. No, they assemble, regularly at first, and then more and more infrequently, in order to write a great novel . They are convin...

"Harrow on the Hooghly" was a nickname given to the New School of Calcutta and Darjeeling , on its founding in 1940. The Hooghly is the principal river running through Calcutta; Harrow is one of England's most prominent private schools. It was one of a number of emergency schools set up early on in the Second World War, for children of British parents in India who would otherwise have been educating them in Britain. In 1940 India would have seemed much safer than Britain; there was a real threat of invasion by Germany and, worse, the sea lanes were becoming very dangerous. Getting passage as a civilian was very difficult, and the normal route to India via the Suez Canal was impossible until after VE Day in 1945. There was an excess of refugee children in 1940, with a pressing need to be educated, who could not be accommodated in the existing European schools in India. Then  Japan went to war with Britain and the situation in India suddenly looked very threatening. If...

I gave Kate Atkinson's Life After Life a star straight away when I noted it down in my book list last night. Meaning, that I was (and am) already sure that at the year's end, this will turn out to have been one of the books to have made a lasting impact on me. It's been hanging around on my 'to read' shelf for a while; I admit that I only picked it up now for the quirk, of reading it (and therefore listing it) immediately after Life ie. the Keith Richards book. With which it shares almost nothing, and on the other hand, everything. Especially a feeling for that elusive sense of what we are, adrift in the stream, as life flows on. But expressed very differently :) Before you even read the back cover blurb, you're assaulted by profuse encomiums (apologies - that's my sole lifetime use of that word) from reviewers and famous literary names, a few of which you can see on the cover. There are many more inside, before you get anywhere near the book itself. I wis...

"with James Fox" . Thoroughly engrossing, and eye opening. It's a quick read, despite topping 600 pages; and you sense it could have been much longer and still have stuff left out. For me, it strikes an ideal balance in its content. It covers almost everything you want it to cover, and despite its contradictions and changing moods - actually, because of those things - it feels honest and direct, and presents a pretty complete picture of the man . I'm in an odd position, as someone who despite being in a great demographic to be a Rolling Stones fan - I'm twelve years younger than Richards - I never really paid them much attention, and only once bought a Stones record, for a mate for his 21st. I instinctively preferred their sound to the Beatles' ie. for its explicit blues base. But, well, hard to say, apart from getting into prog early on. However, one was always aware of the Rolling Stones. They were often in the news , in reports which also mentioned the poli...

Quite. The apocalyptic wish for a giant asteroid, sure, does reflect emotions I find it hard to let go of about 2021; however, it sort of spins off one of the most hopeful things all year which has just occurred, namely the launch of NASA's fab new space telescope . Some will nitpick forever about projects like this, especially the money, but it offers a prospect of discoveries even more wildly amazing than Hubble, and that can retire happily with all that it achieved for human knowledge. So, despite an inclination to get down about what I 'only' managed this year, let's talk about some worthwhile cultural things which I did or enjoyed, despite some tough stuff which happened. I actually saw two films in the cinema . This isn't enough to pretend to comment on 'the year in film' or anything like that, but it meant a lot to me, having that experience which I enjoy a lot. I saw Dune in one of the new little boutique cinemas, the sort where they bring food to y...