Bank Holiday Banishment Shambles With Josie and Robin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It is as I am writing this 10:52 on the Early May Day bank holiday. For the only day this week I'm not at work. Daughter is at work though. For tomorrow she is continuing with her GCSEs exams, and she is now with brother-in-law who is helping her at Math

Now before you ask Maths was never my subject and as brother-in-law is an accountant well he seemed to be the right person for the job.

So I'm away from them. Also from the wife who's on the laptop reading the Mail Online for the showbiz pages (yes I know).  I'm

I'm in the bedroom. Tapping away on the Techgear small keyboard (it works! Horray!). on the Kindle Fire. The weather outside is dry but grey. Nothing really to go out for anyway.

And now am I listening to a podcast. One which has joined Backlisted as my favourite called Book Shambles presented by Comedians Josie Long and Robin Ince. Rather like reading from a Kindle or a traditional book I'm not being unfaithful to Backlisted being as it is mainly concentrated on a particular book for that podcast. Book Shambles however has Josie and Robin with a guest basically chatting about books.

And chatting about books is the important point here. They are "well read " But in the proper sense of the phrase. They can discuss jazz, science books (which regular readers will know is not my thing so far but is a passion of Robin Ince who presents a show on Radio 4) and Dennis Wheatley a writer who was big when I was a child in the seventies but seems to have been forgotten now.

Funnily enough the presenters remind me of the late Frank Delaney who presented Radio 4's Bookshelf back in the day. Here was a man who could discuss James Joyce with an expert and also interview James Herbert or Harold Robbins but certainly gave the impression he enjoyed reading all of them.

As I've mentioned before one of the greatest pleasures when you discover a long running podcast is that you have a back catalogue to go through and enjoy whatever the audio equivalent is of the box set. I'm listening to a programme dated July 2016. Brexit has just happened and already there is a sense that things are beginning to change.

The guest here is Geoff Dyer. A man who has written about jazz, the film Solaris and the Somme.The sort of renaissance writer I'd always wished to be if I had the talent.

There is a plan for the programme, but as it's a chat there are improvisations depending on what is being said. It makes me wonder whether as comedians it comes easy to the presenters.

Now there is the next programme with an interview with two comic book artists at the Latitude festival. There is a question about has there been a good Alan Moore movie. I've read and seen V for Vendetta and like them both. Indeed the vision of the film seems closer to the far right wet dream of post Brexit Britain. As for the Watchmen I've never read the comic (I refuse to call them graphic novels) it was a good movie until the end which seemed stupid to me.

Wife comes in with cup of tea number two. It reminds me that one of the books I'm reading at the moment is by William Cobbett. He doesn't like tea. He is an enemy of civilisation as we know it.

It's now past 12. I'm hungry but don't want to disturb daughter with the sounds and smells of lunch. So starving is another on the parental sacrifice list.

Ah Brother-in-law is leaving. Time for  lunch.

Until the next time