Man vs Beast,When Biographies Should Be Recategorised,Cookery Books And When You're Out Of Step

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Hunting for pleasure can in my view never be justified. However yesterday I felt a visceral primeval gratification when I killed an animal.

That animal being a house fly.

Not just any house fly. A house fly that has been taunting me with its presence for days.A house fly that buzzed me in the face whilst I was asleep in front of the football. A house fly that mocked me a few days ago when I thought I'd killed it only to hover around a few hours afterwards.

It was it or me. It was war.

And so high noon. Or rather grey morning around ten came on Thursday. I walked into the kitchen and there it was.....on the window.

With a move my caveman ancestors would have been proud of I grabbed a tea towel and flicked it at the beast. Next time it was seen it was on the ledge. Legs up. Dead.

I gave it a watery send off down the sink.

I am man...hear me domestically roar.

Well I've finished Higher than Hope. The authorised biography of Nelson Mandela by Fatima Meer. As a biography it's flawed simply because of it's out of date almost from it's publication. The edition I read was first published in 1988 but this print was published in 1990. So since the book was published he was released from jail, divorces Winnie Mandela ,remarries and becomes President of his country.

So as a biography then it has it's problems. However don't forget that it was an authorised piece of work (authorised don't forget whilst Mandela was still in prison). Also as a chronicle of the political process in the fight against apartheid I haven't read a better book. It also details the pressures from the white security services that his family especially Winnie Mandela was put under. Something that needs to be borne in mind when people feel like judging her from the comfort of their living rooms.

It also prints extracts from Nelson Mandela's letters from prison. It hints at the generosity of spirit that we all learnt he had when he was released. Speaking personally if I was incarerated for decades whilst fighting for the freedom of an oppressed majority I doubt I would have this. Which is probably why he is such a great figure for us all.

Perhaps then this book should be recategorised. Perhaps then as it's not a cut and paste job it should be considered as a history book with a central character. Because it's a book that deserves to be read.

So then it's time to pick out a book from the great unread. This was the first that came up.

Elizabeth David - Italian Food

Now I must be honest and say that there are a number of cookery books in the house where the only thing that touches them once it's put on the bookshelf is dust. I will also admit that if this book did not have a white coloured spine it would not have been bought famous writer though  Elizabeth David is. Still it's here and I have it so I'll need to do something.

Well...you probably have guessed this by now...I'm going to go through every recipe. It's not going to be quick (won't be able to start this till at least two weeks for various reasons and it will be haphazard in its frequency). Also as this is Bridgend and not Bologna I'm quite happy to compromise where necessary. So if a recipe demands a mushroom that can only be obtained on a remote mountain in Tuscany well forget that. It's the supermarket mushrooms I'll go to instead. And you know what, as much as is possible that supermarket is going to be Aldi or Lidl. Just to see whether without going through specialist shops you could reproduce something close to the recipe (not saying exactly mind, but as long as it's tasty that's success enough for me).

Of course what this means is that I need another Penguin book to read. From the great unread comes this.

F Scott Fitzgerald - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories

You know there are some writers where as a reader you're out of step with most other people judged on the books you have read knowing that you haven't read everything. So if we take D H Lawrence for example based on the books I have read I'm firmly of the view that if it wasn't for the notoriety of Lady Chatterly's Lover he wouldn't be remembered today. The last book I read of his. Kangaroo, was just aimless tosh.

With F Scott Fitzgerald I've read two books and with both I feel I'm in a position which is more out of step than just dislike. It's neutrality. He just doesn't do it for me either way. Cannot explain why. Let's see if this makes any difference.

Until the next time.

How To Make Aneurin Bevan Boring And Other Books

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well the two library books I took out about three weeks ago have now been finished. The first of which was Nye:The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds.

As I understood this book from the introduction it's mentioned to be relatively neutral from the biographies that preceded it. Well in that it succeeded.so much so that it should be subtitled Fifty Shades Of Dull.

What this is essentially is a ponced up essay with a foreword by Lord Kinnock . A man whose socialist legacy is so great his Labour MP son takes his daughter to private school.

It is too short. Two hundred and sixty pages is just not even scratching the surface of a life such as Bevan's. There were many moments in this where the phrase "in one bound he was free" came into my head as it whizzes through his political career yet in a style where you could see more emotion in a tombstone.

For example the creation of the National Health Service is given a chapter of just eighteen pages. Eighteen? Even eighty would've probably been not enough.

As for the book being "the political life" of it's subject. The author is happy to go into tittle tattle. He mentions that Bevan was not the love of his wife's Jennie Lee's life (apparently that as a man who died earlier) something I don't remember when reading her book My Life With Nye in the eighties (read in London then when moving to Wales would've never entered my head). Furthermore he says they had an "open marriage". I won't question that statement,I don't know. What I will condemn him for is immediately afterwards mentioning that Bevan got on well with Barbara Castle but saying that there was no record of an affair. Why mention it then? Is it because she was probably the most successful female British politician before Margaret Thatcher?This was just plain petty.

Speaking personally whether it is pro or anti my political beliefs I want political books to have a political belief powering them or else it's just ends up like this. The most pointless political book I've ever read.

The only good thing I will say about this books is that it inspires me to read Michael Foot's biography which I already suspect will be miles better

The other book, which of course could not be more different was My Life In Football by Trevor Brooking. I loved this book. But I think you could realise from my idolatry when borrowed that it would have taken a great deal for me to have disliked it. I am biased I admit it. The only slight minus point was that it was the second best football book I've read this year. Alan Stubbs is still so far the best.

As I wont be able to go to the library until Tuesday it means I need new non Penguin to read. Tomorrow I'm off to Epping for the weekend for reasons I'll explain on Sunday or Monday. I'm not taking the Fatima Meer autobiography of Nelson Mandela because I'll probably finish it before this trip ends and then I would probably have to watch Midsomer Murders with my mother (that is digital hell let me tell you). So the next book(s) I'll be taking there are.

The Helene Hanff Omnibus

This is an omnibus of her books other than the one I bought in Bridgend a few weeks back. I've read 84 Charing Cross Road before and loved it. Will reread that again.

Until the next time.

How Alan Stubbs Surprised Me And Olivia Manning Didn't

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

One of the advantages of working an afternoon/evening shift is that you don't have to sit and watch your team being knocked out of European football competition. I had recorded West Ham's defeat to Astra Giurgiu but on turning the television noticed the result in that ticker thing they have on the news channels. This has happened before but for the first time I was grateful.

No doubt tomorrow whilst travelling along the M4 to pick up my daughter I'll be treated mokked at by Astras (I've not spelt it wrongly by the way as that's in Vauxhallian).

Anyway let's chat about football by beginning with a book of jazz critism written by a poet. I know that sounds odd because it is, but bare with me.

Many years ago I bought a book of jazz articles by Philip Larkin that was originally in the Daily Telegraph. Don't remember what attracted me as I'm not really interested in poetry or jazz but suspect it was bought out of cheapness.

Well having read the book I can say that it made not a blind bit of difference to my view of either subject. But something he said about Louis Armstrong, one of the few exeptions in a good way to my jazz indifference I can recall even now.

Larkin wrote that Armstrong was not an experimenter or an innovator. He did what most jazz musicans did at that time, just a thousand times better. Alan Stubbs' 2013 autobiography How Football Saved My Life (written with Tom Bromley) is in many ways no different to most other football autobiographies except that it's the best one I've ever read.

What you realise when you read this book as it details his career and of course his battles with cancer is that Alan Stubbs has,when compared with other footballers, a quietly remarkable life. It's one of the few autobiographies I have ever read where I adnired the subject more once I'd finished it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Which is more than I can say for The Rain Forest by Olivia Manning. A bickering couple arrive at a outpost of the British Empire in its twilight years. I feel I've read,watched or listened to this sort of thing all my life. Readable but not remarkable.

Unlike my next football book, which I won't be able to get until at least Tuesday. The next Penguin book I'll read is.

Fatima Meer - Nelson Mandela

This authorised autobiography was written, it should be remembered before he was released from jail. So it should be interesting.

Until the next time.

Of Pelicans, Penguins,Panini and the leader of Plaid Cymru. With an added sprinkle of even more books and Maesteg

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

A couple of years ago I was having my hair cut and having a conversation with the hairdresser. For some reason the town of Maesteg, about half an hour away, was mentioned. She said that she'd never been there. I said I had.

"Why?" She asked

"Because I'm a world traveller" came my response. (Which on reflection was rather brave given that if there is one rule a man should always obey when it comes to gender politics it's never to annoy a lady with a sharp object around your face)

And one final point about the lady who cuts my hair. Her partner is possibly a woman's ideal man. A cook who doesn't like sport.

On Saturday I needed to go to the town and as it happened I'd learnt that the leader of Plaid Cymru was going to be at the market there around midday. Even though it is a well known killer of cats I was curious to see the leader of the political party I'd joined first hand.

So I hung around a bit.

What I like about Maesteg town centre is the way it can integrate the old and the new almost seamlessly. Obviously there are problems here as well but as I suggested yesterday it is far better than its equivalent in Bridgend.

I'm assuming this building is the local Tabernacle. Very impressive anyway.

The Building on the left is a Post Office

Now come now. Wouldn't you want your Council Offices to look like this?

The Town Hall and Market Entrance

I'd a few minutes to spare before she was due to come so looked at the book stall in the market. Just as Porthcawl has the Porthcawl Animal Welfare Service (PAWS) Maesteg has the Maesteg Animal Welfare Service (MAWS) which sells books at 50p each whether paper or hardback, I eventually picked four books as follows:

Fatima Beer - Higher Than Hope

This orange spined Penguin paperback was the authorised biography of Nelson Mandela. The important point to remember here is that it was written in 1990. The year he was released from jail.

I think I forgot to mention that not only do I collect Penguin paperbacks but I also collect their stablemate Pelican paperbacks (again it has to be in their classic coloured spine - in this case blue). What pleased was that I was able to buy two "vintage" ie pre ISBN numbered books.

A465 - Boris Ford (Editor) - The Pelican Guide to English Literature 7 - The Modern Age

A702 - Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Editor) - The Greek World

These vintage Pelican and Penguin Paperbacks are checked against the list written in a Paris Saint Germain notebook. Possibly the only time they can be put together in one sentence.

Believe me this is needed

And finally:

Michael Palin - Hemingway's Chair

Before you say "that's not a Penguin/Pelican paperback or anything to do with sports" well yes. But only the day before I'd downloaded a radio adaptation of this book and now it was there confronting me to buy it. So I did.

It was about twenty past twelve before she actually came. The life of a political leader in election time is obviously a busy one. I was in the market cafe with a cup of tea to warm me in what was a surprisingly cold day and had been ready to leave because there were other things I needed to do that day.

Leanne Williams is an impressive leader and worked the scene well.  She shook my hand and I told her that Plaid had my vote even though I'm English.. Wasn't going to go into full blown detail as to what lead me to this process or that I was now a member of the party as this was neither the time nor the place to gush like a girl to (insert boy band here).

Did though ask for a selfie...well it would've been a selfie if I'd known how to have used the phone. #OldMansProblems

Should've been a selfie

When I showed my wife later she was impressed. She too is going to vote Plaid Cymru,

Her visit to Maesteg probably means that Plaid they have a good chance of doing well here in the National Assembly elections. I think they're right. Based purely on the unscientific approach by the number of placards on the road from Bridgend when I was closer to the town.

I've finished A Point Of View by Clive James. Nothing has really changed from what I posted before. The only good thing about it really is that it has led me back to the podcasts.

What it means is that I need a new "Car book" and it's this.

Hunter Davies - The Fan

This is a collection of left field articles on football in the New Statesman by Hunter Davies. I've always liked him. He writes on a wide field of subjects interestingly and with enthusiasm

I'm a man in his fifties. But football and only football has the power of turning me instantly into a ten year old boy.And it occurred to me late last week that with the Euro 2016 coming soon it might be a good idea to collect a Panini Football stickers for my daughter as a souvenir when she gets older. I'm not going to deny that the schoolboy in me is part of the reason for this. But there is also the fact that this is first time Wales are in a major football tournament in my lifetime let alone hers.

My wife thinks this is silly. But I'm going to ignore her (for once). Until the end of Euro 2016 I'm going to buy 1 pack of stickers a day. How I will proceed after it finishes depends on how well I've done.

Of course I won't deny that this hasn't been completely worked out. The biggest problem being the question of what I do with doubles (as for obvious reasons I'm not going to deal with kids. I've no wish for anybody to put two and two together and make five). Hopefully though I'll muddle through.

Brings back memories

Until the next time...