Howard Jacobson's New Fans, Books Borrowed Read But Not Bought Plus Swansea,Mumbles and BHS

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Before the family day trip later on I had to make a quick visit to Porthcawl library as they were due and quickly to Poundland to get razors,shower gel and some toothpaste....oh and a book.

You may remember when I'd last visited there I was surprised that Poundland were selling some quality books amongst the expected dross. Although there was a tome by Howard Jacobson for more sentimental reasons I'd picked The American by Martin Booth (A decision incidentally that wasn't wrong in itself. Spoiler alert: So far it's very good). This time though I was going to get the Jacobson.

Or I would have.....if there were any there.

To my knowledge Poundland leave books on the shelves forever. My favourite of the "dross" books was one that celebrated Irish Olympic hopefuls. All very well in itself if it wasn't for the fact that we were in Wales. So that the Jacobson completely sold out is encouraging. I suspect most of the people who bought the book wouldn't have thought to have picked it up anywhere else and some of those might be further encouraged to read more of his work afterwards,

Poundland:Encouraging reading and literature, Who would have thought it but let's celebrate it anyway.

Afterwards I went to the library. Was tempted to get the autobiography of the ex West Ham and new England manager Sam Allardyce but ultimately went for this as my football book choice.

The Secret Footballer - Tales From The Secret Footballer

This is the sequel to the original "Secret Footballer" book which apparently lifts the lid on the football world. It has the reputation. Let's see whether deserved.

The intention was to just get that book. But as you know me by now and needless to say I was tempted to borrow another which was this.

Clare Balding - My Family and Other Rambles

I took this book because I'm toying with the idea of taking up rambling. Not the sort that wanders lonely as a cloud in green places but that explores towns and villages. Rather like the day I spent going round the Valleys in May.

I have the prequel to this. My Animals And Other Family amongst the great unread.

Must admit as well to have an admiration for the author. Capable of being a broadcasting "safe pair of hands" and yet can fight for her beliefs as well. A lioness in jolly hockey sticks clothing. She also has the ability, rather like the late Alan Coren and the comedienne Linda Smith of being the sort of person you consider a friend even though you've never met them.

When I'd got home the wife decided that we should go to Swansea for the day. Given the washout of her birthday the day before I wasn't going to argue. Still though we were out of the house the car hadn't left the drive for a further ten minutes whilst she and daughter chatted to the neighbour opposite. In that time I finished a book.

It was Not A Hazardous Sport by Nigel Barley. As I was reading this it reminded me of the sort of series started by James Herriot. Take an occupation and write about your experiences in a manner which suggested that life was basically comic with occasional sad episodes. Of course we all know that life is a constant battle between the amusing and the tragic. And if you don't have an occupation tragedy always wins.

The point is that Nigel Barley is not James Herriot, and as his occupation is anthropology his style is a mixture of bad writing and patronising condescension sprinkled with a fair degree of dullness. I don't mean dull as in academic dull, more dull as in the more I read it the more fed up and uninterested I got.

To fast forward a bit when we returned took the next book from the great unread. Which turned out to be this.

H E Bates - A Little Bit of What You Fancy

This was the last book in the Larkin series. I've read the first, The Darling Buds Of May years ago and I remember thinking that the TV series was better. Mind you I didn't like the television version after the first season. Got all too predictable. I don't hold much hope, though to be fair I understand that this novel was never filmed.We shall see.

So to Swansea then. Which in the beginning got a bit damp.

Early afternoon in Swansea

We went into BHS in Swansea before it becomes a part of retail history. To be honest it was more in curiosity than anything else. Needless to say it was very sad. Everything was for sale.

And I mean EVERYTHING

What was interesting was that even with the reductions prices seemed cheaper elsewhere. I mean I wouldn't pay just under five pounds for a cereal bowl whoever made it. Perhaps that explains part of the reason for the decline of the business.

After that I spilt up with wife and daughter to go to a charity shop that just sold books. Or rather that was the intention, but for the second time today I was thwarted in buying books as it was closed for refurbishment. Other charity shops I saw didn't have Penguin/Pelican paperbacks that I didn't already own. Thwarted again.

A quick digression the worst place for me was a stall in Swansea market. Only because I don't like the price of books being stamped on the top. 

Don't like this one bit

After the ladies finished buying clothes and I finished buying nothing we went further west to the Mumbles. It wasn't really summer coastal weather being cool and cloudy. Still it can still do the views. Here are a few pictures.

Still can do vivid colours on a cloudy day

The original fifty shades of grey

Despite how it looks it didn't rain

Warm enough to have some chips whilst viewing this

And so the trip ended. It had been pleasant.

Until the next time.

Do You Remember Harry Carpenter? (Even Great Books Can Die). Also Books Bought And Borrowed

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Let's start with the question in the title. That's for anyone living in what will probably soon be named the Disunited Kingdom. A land whose government is apparently telling people living here originally from the EU that they might not be allowed to stay post BREXIT.

No matter that you worked here, started up businesses and/or a family

With every day that has followed since the referendum this Kingdom seems to be slowly moving to a very dark place indeed. A look here,a remark there, a graffitied wall strewn with racial insults, in some cases violence.

Britain has become a very worrying place to live right now. And I say this as a white male with a British passport.

So I went today to Porthcawl mainly to go to the library. Here is the Porthcawl view of the day.

Metaphor time

That view seemed to match my mood. Calm but with a sense of foreboding.

Before I went to Poundland for a few odd groceries. Poundland sell small stocks of stuff mainly for, surprise, surprise a pound. Now they do sell books most of which deserve to stay there. Some though will surprise you. There was a Howard Jacobson. But that wasn't the book that caught my eye. It was this.

Martin Booth - The American

This attracted me because it was set in Tuscany, where my Italian relatives live. Remember starting to watch the film on TV and nodding off but liking what I saw before seductive power of the nap took over.

It's not a Penguin paperback I know. But as it was only a pound it was bought.

And so to the library. Picking the football book to read was easier than I thought.

Andrew Jennings - The Dirty Game

Well the cover says it all really.

I was about to leave when in the corner of my eye I noticed this.

Sue Townsend - The Public Confessions Of A Middle-Aged Woman

Sue Townsend wrote the Adrian Mole books (I've read when he was a teenager but not those as an adult) but she also wrote some other stuff as well (I remember a novel...though not the title... where the Royal family were moved in a Republican Britain to a council house). These are a selection of columns she wrote on various subjects. I borrowed it, pathetic as it sounds, because I thought it would make me laugh. How sad is that?

So to the question Do You Remember Harry Carpenter? If you do then I've finished my "car book", Glued To The Box by Clive James. Let me say now that the next car book is volume one of  Michael Palin's Diaries bought a couple of weeks back. I now have five books on the go. I'll never kick the habit of reading but I've got to learn to control it. Thing is I don't know how.

This was his final published collection of his TV columns for The Observer between 1979-1982. It's quite simply just as good as I remember it all those years ago. Funny yet erudite. Here is a man capable of talking about an opera and then move on to The Rockford Files (that was in an earlier book - Just lumped that in to say that The Rockford Files seem to be one of the few seventies detective shows that has stood the test of time - I liked The Rockford Files - It seemed to be written and performed by adults - Clive James liked it as well).

He is the best critic I have ever read. One of the few that I would look forward to reading (or perhaps even prefer listening to, as I mentioned when discussing the book of his radio show he used to do called A Point Of View).

But........

Do you remember Harry Carpenter? He was a BBC sports presenter in the seventies and eighties. He was mainly known for his Boxing commentary but he'd also present The British Open and Wimbledon. Clive James writes about him here. If you do then you will read the book with a wistful smile about a time long gone.

If you don't then the bulk of this book is not for you. It'll mention programmes and people long since forgotten unless you look them up on Google or Youtube. I don't know why book or literary or theatre criticism (Christopher Hitchen,Dorothy Parker, Kenneth Tynan) survives but TV doesn't, certainly not for this period anyway.

So when the last person to remember Harry Carpenter dies. This book, great as it is will die with it.

Until the next time.