Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello everyone, 

We’re having a cold few days here in Paris, with temperatures now below average after all the above average ones. In wintry weather what can be better than settling in with a good book. 

Lljones was enthusiastic about the one she’s found:

I haven't even finished The Hero of This Book, but I'm ready to rave about it...it's brilliant! If you haven't read Elizabeth McCracken, start with this one. Then go back and read everything else!

 Russell has had “a scrummy read “: Still Life – Sarah Winman (2021) 

A transporting story of love and loss that shifts between London and Florence, from war-time to the Seventies. Funny-serious-touching done beautifully, in the contemporary way, interlaced with refined moments of high art, and culminating in a long, clever, Forster-ish flashback. Two characters are too knowing to be real, but that is part of the entertainment.

 After discussion of the Gene Tierney film, Laura, in the Films & Series thread, Andy has read the book, Laura by Vera Caspary .

 This is in so many ways ahead of its time, first serialised in Collier’s magazine in 1942, under the title Ring Twice For Laura.  
Rather than being a detective story, it is more of romantic noir mystery more in the vein of Simenon than the ‘golden age’ of crime fiction that had influenced 30s literature.  
Also because it features strong roles for women in a society in which men, largely, could not be trusted, and were often out to get ahead regardless of the trail of human wreckage left in their wake. … I enjoyed the film, but the book more so.

 Bill was tempted back into bookbuying:

I was going to write about my nonexistent book buying, but then I got an email from Bookshop.org: free shipping for Black Friday, and I remembered a recently published book I wanted to get: Conversations with Goethe by Johann Peter Eckerman (despite the (ugh!) Andy Warhol cover). So here I go, buying a book just as I was about to boast of having lost the need to do so.

 
Storm:

Really enjoyed the third instalment of Vaseem Khan’s Malabar House series set in Bombay after Independence, The Lost Man of Bombay. Persis, the first female police inspector, is a brilliant creation, and allows Khan to combine insights into the struggle women faced trying to be taken seriously by men at work (and of course, still do) as well as timely non-British views on the Raj and Empire.

 I see on WWR that Sandya/lorantffy is trying these. It will be interesting to hear her point of view. 

WWII AND OTHER CONFLICTS 

Scarletnoir and I (following MK’s recommendation) have been back in WWII and its aftermath:

Lehrter Station is book 5 of David Downing's 'John Russell' series. This is well up to the usual standard - indeed, the series has gained strength as it has gone on. 
What makes the series worth reading is the character of Russell - an English/American dual national, who regards Berlin as his 'home' - he has a German ex-wife and son, and currently a German girlfriend of long standing. He is a former Communist who hates the Nazis but is disillusioned with both Stalinist Soviet Russia and with US capitalism... so, no strong ties to any ideology and suitably cynical about them all. This allows a critical view of all parties involved, and many shades of grey regarding the moral choices made by the various characters. 
It also allows for reporting of many issues which may not be common knowledge; for example, I was not aware that the Americans had interned many 'ordinary' Germans in camps where - because they were the 'defeated nation' - food rations were pitifully inadequate

  AB76

The Luftwaffe War Diaries: The German Air Force in World War II: what has impressed me is the clarity of its construction, its well laid out and translated. It's not actually a "diary", it’s more the story of the action and events of WW2 from the Luftwaffe official diaries, told as a normal history book would do it.’ 
It’s interesting in the last section how the Allies from 1943 onwards confront the same issues the Luftwaffe had in the Battle of Britain. Namely that a fighter dominated home defence would always prevail over bombers without sufficient protection.

 
Still in a military vein, he is also reading

The Land That Lost Its Heroes: How Argentina Lost the Falklands War, based on the Argentine side of the conflict and the political and military decisions that led to the invasion and the subsequent collapse of the junta after the defeat of the Argentinian forces

 

IRISH WRITERS 

AB76

Irish literature is a rich treasure of styles and expression, i have been interested in the nationalist authors who came of age at the time of the Easter Rising and the Civil War, especially Liam O'Flaherty and Sean O'Faolain. Another Irish writer of that same generation, coming of age in the 1916-22 conflicts, is Peader O'Donnell, who wrote about Donegal, which is the furthest northern county in Eire.

Berkley says:

I've been reading a Frank O'Connor book lately: Collected Stories. It doesn't contain all his stories but it does cover his entire career with selections from most of the individual short story collections published during his lifetime. I'd rate him as one of the best ever to have worked with the form.

 
Scarletnoir said he enjoyed them some years ago and added:

Another Irish writer I read and enjoyed a long time ago was 'wild man' Brendan Behan. His Borstal Boy and The Quare Fellow & The Hostage impressed me back then.

 I looked in my collections of short stories to see if there were any by Frank O’Connor and indeed there is one, The Man of the House, along with one by Sean O’Faolain. Other short story writers in my books who hadn’t been mentioned included John McGahern, William Trevor, James Joyce (of course!), Samuel Beckett and, from Northern Ireland, Jim Clarke and Richard Crawford. Then I thought but what about women? And found Clare Boylan, Edna O’Brien, Anne Devlin, and the Anglo-Irish Elizabeth Bowen. I’ve marked all the stories and will read them over the next few days. 
I’ve moved Brian Moore’s books to a lower shelf with the idea of re-reading them, and more recent writers I really like are Anne Enright, Colm Toibin and Colum McCann.  

I'm sure you all join me in hoping Dave's operation went well and sending positive thoughts to him and Tam.

Stay warm and safe. Happy reading!

Great intro GPFR thanks. Its cold..dry and grey here

On the wildlife front i was helping my father with a ladder and a barn owl swooped past us at 3ish on Sunday, silent, beautiful and very large...wonderful!

My reading is going well, in The Land That Lost Its Heroes, the pathetic, delusional nature of the Argentinian Junta is so strong that i wonder what they were smoking? Burns has written a very detailed book about the Argentine side of the war and also the world of the Junta, its strangely mediocre muddle of torturers and assassins.

I was shocked to see a quote from the writer Ernesto Sabato, firmly anti-junta, where he seems to have been lost to the Malvinas madness and says that all Argentina are united behind the junta. I have lost all respect for Sabato, he should really have known better.

In Mr Standfast by Buchan, i am being swept along willingly by this wonderful story, apparently Hitchcock felt it was a better book to be filmed than the 39 Steps and i agree with him. One slight weakness is that when the suspense is deafening and the mind is deducing what could happen next, the suspect is named and hovering before you, its a strange technique. (i always remember reading a classic canadian novel about a legendary half-french Indian warrior who didnt appear as a character for maybe half the book, by the time he did, he was almost a legend)

Flaubert in Egypt has yet to be started, i'm not keen on a young mans sex tourism in the colonies being documented and hope the whoring is kept to a minumum, if it isnt, i will dump the book

Lastly, Mach, who has left Ersatz for the somewhat lacking GR, recommended the Netanyahus and that will be my next modern novel.

Gpfr wrote: "We’re having a cold few days here in Paris, with temperatures now below average after all the above average ones. In wintry weather what can be better than settling in with a good..."

Reminds me of November 1985 - when my daughter (no.1) was born in Paris. It was freezing cold - and the hospital for some reason had a system whereby the rooms were to be accessed by exterior balconies! Fortunately, they relented after a day or two...

Thanks for your clear and well-structured intro!

Speaking of 'weather', I have been a little under it for a few days and so have paused finishing the excellent Shanghai Nights despite having only a few pages left... I'd prefer to be clear-headed to appreciate the ending. In the meantime, for those who like individual words as well as books, you may like this one:

Somiatruites (in Catalan) literally translates as “Dreaming with Omelettes”... surely, an irresistible word. It is apparently not directly translatable, but means roughly both 'a daydreamer' and also 'someone who gets excited easily with impossible or weird things'. When I came across the word early in the book, I found a third definition which was something like 'someone who sees the world as being better than it really is', but unfortunately seem to have mislaid the link to that one.

https://varietats2010.com/2018/05/28/...

Another really funny word which appeared in a BTL discussion in the 'Guardian' (started because a 'Karen' is apparently derogatory in some places for a reason lost on me) is this one:

'Kevinismus': In German, Kevinismus ("Kevinism") is the negative preconception German people have of Germans with trendy, exotic-sounding first names considered to be an indicator of a low social class.[1] The protypical example is Kevin, which like most such names came to Germany from Anglo-American culture. Sometimes Chantalismus ("Chantalism") is used as a female equivalent, from the French name Chantal.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinismus

Thanks for a great introduction Gpfr. Thoroughly grey day here in the Midlands. I have about three days newspapers to catch up on having spent more time reading books and wtching the football.

I am currently reading a new (to me) author

A young woman goes back to her family estate and starts to investigate a long almost forgotten tunnel and is murdered there. At the same time at the other end of the tunnel an unsuspecting ecologist is surveying the whole site prior to its development. She naturally comes under suspicion.

So far so good.

scarletnoir wrote: "Speaking of 'weather', I have been a little under it for a few days and so have paused finishing the excellent Shanghai Nights despite having only a few pages left... I'd prefer to b..."

Google amy cooper and you will find the States most famous karen. However, the term goes back further than that incident.

I came across a reference to Godfrey’s cordial in the book that I am reading ( The Buried Sharon Bolton).
I had not heard of it before. It was a cordial that was given to infants and young children to make them sleep so freeing their mothers to work long hours. The cordial was very popular and easy to make but one of its ingredients was laudanum, opium in other words.
There was no set recipe and often the mixture was too strong and, although there are no exact records, many infant deaths are known and many suffered damage from the effects in later life.
Godfrey’s cordial was first mixed in the first half of the eighteenth century and was not banned until the Pharmacy Act of 1908, nearly two hundred years later which scheduled it as a class 1 poison

As i've never been much of a fan of modern lit(lets say 1980 onwards), i have been heartily satisfied with the 17 or so novels i have read this year, published after 1980 and a good number have been written in the last decade or so...so it had to end badly didnt it ..lol

I have just started The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen, the blurb talks of humour and how brilliant Cohen is(par for the course with modern authors it seems, the subject matter is fascinating(i only came accross Bibi's papa reading a selection of sources from the Spanish Inquisition,where his name came up frequently in the footnotes, on the "Converso" jews who the Inquisition targeted).

But my oh my, already, i loathe Cohens wordy style and its not funny, not funny in any way in the first 15 pages, i am going to stay with it but its been a long, long time since the first page of a novel has made me groan and sit back and think "oh dear". I am sure Cohen is the darling of every modern authors eye but too much, too much, pare it back, please

I shall report whether this novel makes it past the weekend, thanks to Mach for recommending it anyway, as it did seem to have everything going for it but i havent smiled once reading it. My thoughts are too many words and too clever by half

Good news! New Patrick deWitt due in 2023:

https://www.harpercollins.com/product...

AB76 wrote: "I have just started The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen."

I recently read Mr Beethoven from the same publisher (in the US, anyway), which in prospect seemed a novel made for me, and came away very disappointed.

Early in the book Griffiths, whose non-fiction writing on music I admire a lot, uses post-modern conceits, commenting on his own research and plotting strategies, and at one point revises the plot in full view of the reader in order to handle Beethoven’s deafness in a different manner. But he pretty much drops the post-modern textual self-awareness about 1/3 of the way through and for the rest of the book serves up a fairly dull, relatively uneventful novel of alternate history, relying on a rather impersonal style to downplay several sentimental features of his plot.

I understand that Griffiths considers his novel an exercise in OuLiPo. As I understand it, the OuLiPo-ian constraint he works under is that he attributes to his fictional Beethoven only statements which have been attributed to the historical Beethoven in one source or another. The re-contextualization of these statements serve up occasional bits of cleverness, but otherwise seem to serve as a brake on the author’s imagination as far as the situations in which he can involve his titular protagonist. Another problem is that, for all the accuracy of quotation, Griffiths' Beethoven is a rather generic figure, an irascible but fundamentally kind-hearted presumed genius; he certainly did not seem the same figure I’d just read about in Beethoven; The Last Decade 1817 1827.

Like Doctor Faustus, the novel’s climax involves the premiere performance of a fictional work of music for orchestra, chorus, and soloists, but in this showing, at least, the great Beethoven is no match for the fictional Adrian Leverkühn.

I should note I have nothing against post-modernism per se, B.S. Johnson has shown that it can be employed to intensify the emotional punch of a work of literature. My objection here was that Griffith seemed to have no purpose in using it, other than to make his novel “modernist” in some way; indeed I can’t figure out what his purpose was in writing the novel at all – I found it neither entertaining nor intellectually engaging.

AB76 wrote: "As i've never been much of a fan of modern lit(lets say 1980 onwards), i have been heartily satisfied with the 17 or so novels i have read this year, published after 1980 and a good number have bee..."

Good luck with that! Getting through it, I mean. I had downloaded the book in audio from the library. I don't remember how long it took me to quit, but I sure did.

if nothing else, I felt it was way overhyped. Such a nasty person, too.

MK wrote: "Google amy cooper and you will find the States most famous karen. However, the term goes back further than that incident."

Well, I'm only slightly the wiser, but thanks anyway - I did read about this crazy woman, but had totally forgotten her name (famous for 15 seconds), and although she's referred to as a 'karen' in one headline, there is no explanation.
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13900749/ce...

Why aren't such people referred to as 'Amys'? That would make more sense! And does it mean: "white women who are unreasonably scared of black men", or what?

scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Google amy cooper and you will find the States most famous karen. However, the term goes back further than that incident."

Well, I'm only slightly the wiser, but thanks anyway - I did r..."

I found this about the origin:

https://www.pumphreylawfirm.com/blog/...

Gpfr wrote: "I found this about the origin:

https://www.pumphreylawfirm.com/blog/...."

Thanks for that - it is really comprehensive. AFAIK, this use of 'Karen' has not crossed the Atlantic - or if it has, it's very much a minor phenomenon. I had never heard of it before. It also sounds rather odd to British ears, since the name 'Karen' would not normally be associated with the 'entitled' or 'privileged' classes. 'Bethany' or 'Allegra', maybe...

I don't know of any name specifically linked to racial prejudice in the UK, as a meme or otherwise. We did have a long-running comedy show in the 60s-70s - 'Till death do us part' - in which the main character was the blatantly racist Alf Garnett - a figure of fun, wonderfully portrayed by Jewish actor Warren Mitchell. Less amusing was 'rivers of blood' Tory politician (later Ulster Unionist) Enoch Powell...

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "As i've never been much of a fan of modern lit(lets say 1980 onwards), i have been heartily satisfied with the 17 or so novels i have read this year, published after 1980 and a good nu..."

i will stick it out a bit longer but this does feel like a novel i would generally avoid...

CCCubbon wrote: "I came across a reference to Godfrey’s cordial in the book that I am reading ( The Buried Sharon Bolton).
I had not heard of it before. It was a cordial that was given to infants and young children..."
Just in case anyone is interested I looked up the main ingredients for Godfrey’s cordial ;

Ginger , sassafras tree oil and opium.

Sassafras was a new tree to me and I looked it up to find many medicinal uses. I couldn’t find a reference to its taste but note that the wood is also known as fennel wood. I wonder if it tastes a bit like fennel.

CCCubbon wrote: "I wonder if it tastes a bit like fennel...."

More like root beer.

Sassafras is delicious. It's the source of flavor in American Root Beer (much missed here in Europe). It has it's own weird taste, a sort of spicy licorice taste which isn't quote like anything I've had in Europe. Maybe the closest thing I've had on this side of the water is Italian chinotto soda, but that is more bitter and less zesty.

After a brief hiatus with events in Rawalpindi my reading from the last couple of days has been..

Casablanca Story by In Koli Jean Bofane translated from the French (DR Congo) by Bill Johnston.

Sese Seko Tshimanga has fled his native Congo (DR), by paying a large amount of money to be smuggled into France, but the small boat he was on washed up on Moroccan shores, and since then, for a few months, has been living in Casablanca.

The novel begins with with Sese reporting the violent death of a woman he had befriended, Ichrak, to police. He is immediately suspected of her murder.

It has an attractive premise, but rather than developing the crime thread, or Sese's involvement and his future, much of the narrative is concerned with Sese's time in Casablanca and his relationship with Ichrak. The contemporary Casablanca setting is of interest and the characters are well described, though it doesn't focus on any one in particular.

The bar is high with the Congolese writing I have read. In addition to Bofane there are his fellow countrymen, Alain Mabanckou and Fiston Mwanza Mujila. They write with more humour, though the many difficulties of life in Kinshasa are never far away.

Bofane's earlier book, Congo Inc.: Bismarck's Testament was excellent. It also concerns an asylum seeker fleeing from devastation, this time the Rwandan genocide. It is much darker, and far more focussed in its themes.

and The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks

This is a rather gentle affair, a plesant enough way to spend a couple of hours, but largely forgettable.

It is at its best when describing 1960s London. Specifically it is the story of, and narrated by, a young married woman Min, who it seems is in the early stages of estrangement from her husband George, as they so rarely see each other, and when they do, they communicate to the minimum.
Working as a sound engineer for the BBC, Min is at something of a stalemate in her life; her job no longer challenges her, and her social life is, as far as she is concerned at least, tiresome. The reader does not warm to her.

In a rare bright moment of her days, a rotund baritone singer she gets to know at work, who she names 'The Bloater' attempts to woo her.

Despite its reissue recently, I don't think it has stood the test of time very well.

This is one of those cases when the author’s own story may actually be more interesting than her novel.
Tonks was from Kent and this, her third novel of six, was published in 1968.
In 1970 though, she converted to Fundamentalist Christianity and did her best, even through the courts, to remove her novels, and much of her poetry, from sale, and the public eye generally. Following this, she lived as a hermit, refusing to use a telephone or indeed any other means of communication with even friends and family.
Almost as soon as she died in 2014 The Guardian published a selection of her poetry along with the obituary.

She had worked for the BBC, the Observer and the New Statesman, writing and reviewing. Just before she saw her light, she was at the peak of her fame, compared favourably with Evelyn Waugh.

Paul wrote: "Sassafras is delicious. It's the source of flavor in American Root Beer (much missed here in Europe). It has it's own weird taste, a sort of spicy licorice taste which isn't quote like anything I'v..."
I truly had not heard of it before so thanks.
Seems such an odd mixture to give to babies, I wonder if there was any addiction. Never tasted root beer.
Hope your little one is well.

Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. Anyway hopefully things will settle down from now. Recovery time will take 4-6 weeks, they say... Most of the staff were lovely.

I felt particularly grateful to one of the nurses who shepherded Dave in a lovely manner. She was quite small, and when I saw her escorting Dave, in his wooly dressing-gown, towards the operating theatre, with her hand laid lightly on his arm I thought, somehow, of Pooh bear and piglet.

"Today was a difficult day, said Pooh"!... https://i.postimg.cc/zfTbQBM5/7d64d7e...

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. A..."

Great news that Dave is on way to recovery Tam!

I love that about the nurse....nurses..so valuable and so vital to the health of the nation, especially in the hardest times, in hospital...

i got told by a charming Irish lady at the day centre where i volunteer that i was "giving her a crick in the neck". I'm not that tall, only 6'1, but a lot of the ladies i help onto buses or around the place, range from 5'0 to 5'2., i end up bent almost double ..lol

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. A..."

Ah, great news! Mend quickly Dave.

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. A..."

Thinking of you and Dave, Tam. Thanks for sharing this journey with us.

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. A..."

Great new Tam, so should be getting there by Christmas. xx

AB76 - perhaps you should use a wheelchair when talking to them! You would have been worse with my grandma, she was only 4'10"!

A holdover from late in the last November post - Thanks AB for the details about the Balkans. You seem to be more on the 'deep dive' side of the spectrum while I tend to be more like a honey bee as I skim over the top of a complex subject and then quickly head off to the next flower.

Because I really like Dan Fesperman's , I've gone back to his first which won a CWA (Crime Writers Association) award. It's Lie In The Dark and is set in Sarajevo.

AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital e..."

Back in the day - however long ago it was - I could say I was 5'3" because it was really 5' 2 & 5/8" which is more than 1/2, so 5'3"! Time has since passed and my spine has been falling in on itself, and I'm lucky to reach 5'.

To get all the stuff on the shelves at the grocery store, the top shelf item often is beyond my reach. I have to accost a tall person to reach that item for me.

Nothing like a long-winded way to say I heartily agree with your crick-in-the-neck person.

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to t..."

I empathise MK. I used to be 5'6" but not any more.

Me too, give, now …. I dare not measure - last time I tried it was 5’2” and MrC calls me Shorty

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. ..."

So glad to hear that, Tam!

CCCubbon wrote: "Never tasted root beer."

My advice, FWIW - keep it that way!

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery..."

Good news... fwiw, recovery is a fairly slow process according to a friend who had the operation in October; he's pretty good by now, with getting over minor incontinence taking quite a while but 'nearly there', apparently. Hope Dave's experience is comparable or better.

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 - perhaps you should use a wheelchair when talking to them! You would have been worse with my grandma, she was only 4'10"!"

hahaha....they all refuse wheelchairs, i think the silent agreement between them all is that a wheelchair is a step towards the end, in a jocular manner...

MK wrote: "A holdover from late in the last November post - Thanks AB for the details about the Balkans. You seem to be more on the 'deep dive' side of the spectrum while I tend to be more like a honey bee as..."

The Balkans have always been of interest to me, though the complexity of it all does need refresher courses sometimes!

CCCubbon wrote: "Me too, give, now …. I dare not measure - last time I tried it was 5’2” and MrC calls me Shorty"

to all the ladies here mentioning shrinkage, you all seem to be about average height for your generation. my mother is 5'7 and used to tower over other mothers at the school gates and at parties, i used to think "wow mum is so tall" but by the mid 90s with 4 sons ranging from 5'11 to 6'2, we all saw her as rather small......she still rules the roost at family gatherings though, from her smaller position and hasnt shrunk yet at 77,

An interesting theme running through Mr Standfast by John Buchan (1919) is the use of the great Puritan religious classic Pilgrims Progress as a reference point, characters refer to the novel at many stages and early on, it is the code used by Hannay for contacts in the Highlands and Home Counties.

In some ways it feels like a moral guide to a cause like the British war effort...

Well I finished The Buried this afternoon. The Craftsman was reasonable but this sequel was most confusing. It has left me with more questions than answers but I cannot face going back and trying to find the solution, it’s just too complicated. Disappointing . Maybe if I had read this one straight after the first I would not be in a muddle. More than 100 shortish chapters from alternating characters add to the confusion.

Just spent a couple of pleasant hours in the company of William Irish’s (Cornell Woolrich) I Married a Dead Man.

With that typical and healthy dose of contrivance that is expected in 40s noir, unmarried and pregnant woman, Helen, fleeing an abusive relationship is injured in a train crash whilst in the bathroom with another pregnant woman she has befriended, Patrice, and mistaken for her by the dead woman’s grieving in-laws, who had actually not met their daughter-in-law. In the same accident they have also lost their son, so she is warmly embraced and taken on as their child.

So all’s well.. far from it, of course, as the apparent happily-ever-after scenario is strewn with anxiety, and turned on its head. As things begin to settle down Helen-now-Patrice fluffs her lines on several occasions, for example, by signing the wrong name. All is not so well.

This remains a highly entertaining read and has stood any test of time with few problems. Yet it is very much of it’s day. Such a plot would not have been attempted twenty years later as it relies of a lack of documentation.
Speaking with a purely selfish slant of wanting to be entertained, it’s a pity.
Those orchestrated plots featuring high levels of engineering are much missed, and a big reason why the film and literary noir of the 40s and 50s is still so much loved.

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to t..."

As a fellow lover of the peregrine falcon, my blog this month in on the nature of the Peregrine, with the odd snipe thrown in as well!... 'The Peregrine at Play' I hope you, or any other lovers here of this noble bird, might enjoy it...https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2022...

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Never tasted root beer."

My advice, FWIW - keep it that way!"

Talking beer - help please. I have to buy someone some pale ale as part of a Christmas present - recommendations for a good one would be welcome as I am not a beer drinker.

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery...."

Lovely post, Tam.

Names. Ah! That makes teachers laugh. The times you have had to fight to keep a straight face when some poor kid tells you their name and you think, the parents , oh what were they thinking! What was Mrs Hauley thinking when she called her son Kiel? Or Mr and Mrs Curtin their daughter Annette? My boss’s daughter also became a teacher and vied with her mum in finding the most outrageous, so I can verify that a set of twins were called Dolce and Gabbana. And then there was Tia Maria. One of our favourites was pronounced gooey, as in sticky. So the child was asked that’s unusual, how do you spell that?
Guy, was the answer.

Ihave started to read The Sanctuary By Emma Haughton which is her second novel. I read her debut, The Dark thinking it pretty good for a first book. This one is following a similar pattern as a ‘locked room’ puzzle although the first was set in the winter in the Antarctic and this is in the heat of the desert.
Imagine waking up in a strange place and not knowing how you got there…
All at once, I burst into tears. My anger, my bravado evaporates, and I’m plain scared. This is surreal. Ridiculous. One moment I’m with my friends, hanging out in our favourite bar on Avenue A, looking forward to a fun-packed night; the next I wake up in some weird treatment centre in the heart of the Mexican desert.

I work in a hospital lab and one day a Dr Bones rang in with a query. I honestly thought he was pulling my leg and realised quite quickly after a bit of a chuckle on my part that that he was being serious.

The labels that get used for request forms and samples have all the patient demographics on them. A previous lab that I worked in used labels from babies as yet unnamed with Master or Miss + Surname. There was a bit of gallows humour when a male childs' bloods came down with the surname that was the same as a certain lead character form the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Psycho'.

The lab that I work in now uses the rather more sensible 'Infant'.

I have a Polish colleague whose English is excellent, but makes me giggle when she says 'focus'.

Tam wrote: "Just quick note to say that Dave is out of hospital, and on the way to recovery. He had a very trying time, especially as being so deaf it was quite hard for him adapt to the hospital experience. A..."

Great news Tam. Here's hoping to a speedy recovery :)

Andy wrote: ".Such a plot would not have been attempted twenty years later as it relies of a lack of documentation."

Wartime has a habit of messing up the 'record' - in at least two recent books I've read, one or other character has either had a new identity created for themselves or for others close to them, both by forgery or by simply claiming that their documents were destroyed during an air raid.
Shanghai Nights and
Potsdam Station

I daresay in this age of CCTV cameras and computer records this is more difficult than it used to be... unless you are in control of the computers and cameras.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8201186/...

Storm wrote: "Names. Ah! That makes teachers laugh. The times you have had to fight to keep a straight face when some poor kid tells you their name and you think, the parents , oh what were they thinking! What w..."

Don't recall any from my teaching days (though there must have been a few), but a fairly recent England rugby international and then TV personality is called 'Austin Healey'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_...

I expect the hard time he must have suffered at school helped to make him the somewhat insufferable being he became later!

scarletnoir wrote: "Storm wrote: "Names. Ah! That makes teachers laugh. The times you have had to fight to keep a straight face when some poor kid tells you their name and you think, the parents , oh what were they th..."

Working in a library I came across a little boy called Harley Davidson.