On Books: Including Not Really Liking Jane Austen

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well what can I say? Regular readers will know that I've read Jane Austen books with an open mind. Until the last book Lady Susan my view was neutral.

And of course I'm a fifty four year old man, so not her natural audience. Also everything I'm going to say is on the understanding that I haven't read all of her novels including the biggie Pride and Prejudice.

But I've finished Northanger Abbey, and well, I was bored.

It actually started so well. I got the fish out of water theme it seemed interesting enough. But then my mind was rather dulled by it all and then it started to wander until at the very end I really couldn't care less if all of the characters jumped off a cliff in mass suicide (spoiler alert:they don't).

So why don't I like her now? Well not being her audience is clearly a factor but not the only one. I think possibly because her male and female characters seem like clichés to me. Perhaps this "comedy of manners" thing is not for me. We shall see when I read her next time.

The next book was Letters Of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society. I enjoyed reading this, having taken a bit of an interest since he was mentioned in Robert Macfarlane's Tracks. But if you don't know George Borrow from George and the Dragon this will have no interest for you whatsoever and best avoided.

The Death of Balder a short play was the next thing. I don't like reading plays as a rule. I didn't like this one.

The next book is All Hell Let Loose by Max Hastings about the second World War. I've read his book about the D-day landings and liked it and so am looking forward to reading this.

Jane Austen it is not.

Until the next time.

On Books: Including For Men At Some Time What Is The American Version Of Jane Austen

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Let's start with the latest library book I've read:

Peter Haining - The Great English Earthquake

Did you know there was a violent earthquake in England in 1884 with Essex as it's epicentre? Well  didn't. How a book about an earthquake in England during the Victorian era reached a small library in South Wales I don't know. But there we go.

Historians and Seismologists will love this book. Mr Haining knows his Essex earthquakes and the research he's done clearly shows this. However for the general reader (of which I'm unquestionably one) account after account of the ground shaking and damage to buildings can be wearisome after a while.

Still if you're into earthquakes and especially Essex earthquakes this is the book for you.

So a couple of days ago I was looking through the hard drive of the DVR (dominated by programmes the wife records now for me it's just Pobol Y Cwm and Bones generally speaking) when I noticed a film she'd recorded in late December when I was away in Essex exile looking after my unwell mother.

" I see you recorded Little Women" I said

"What of it?"

"Well I'm reading it right now".

And for the first time ever when I mentioned to the wife what book I'm reading she actually gasped.

My attitude to Louisa M Alcott's classic novel was exactly that to whatever Jane Austen tome you'd care to mention. As a boy/teenager/in my twenties I avoided it as it was "for girls". When I got older it was a case of so many books so little time...until now.

Let's start by saying that a fifty four year old man is not the target audience for this. But given it's classic status any true reader does need to say that they've read it.

Apparently Little Women was originally two books before merged into the one we know today. This did not surprise me. For (talking about the completed package) if football is described as a game of two halves then so is this novel. I can't remember another book where there seems to be a radical and sudden difference between it's first and second half. If there was one reason why I couldn't say I liked Little Women it was that.

The first part was very homespun American. And the thing is, nothing much really happened. It was a dull read. Indeed it was a shame that it wasn't set in the American South because with the general storyline (the lives of a group of women living in genteel poverty) I couldn't help thinking of cliched Country and Western tunes. The type that work along the lines of "We were poor and living in a cardboard box in Nashville....but we were happy" (not that poor mind you,they have a servant).

But it seemed as if Ms Alcott realised this because in the second half everything that she could have put in such a book seemed to be thrown in all of a sudden. So I disliked it for a different reason. That things happening so quickly in relation to the first part beggared belief.

But yet again it wasn't aimed at me. Mind you I've read Caitlin Moran and Marian Keyes and have enjoyed them as well. So perhaps it was just the case that Ms Alcott knew her audience and was happy enough with that.

Perhaps. Who can tell?

And in the random way I pick books from the Kindle the next ebook turns out to be Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. As I've said before in this blog my view of her is that she's in that group of writers I call "Literary Switzerland". In that I don't dislike them but I can't understand why they're considered great. A position that always bothered me because I feel I've missed something.

My Kindle has a mind of it's own.

Until the next time.

More Reading At Outpatients

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well last Monday I was at outpatients with my mother. And as per usual there was the wait, and then another wait, and then another wait. And in the meantime I read. Some of these books were started before we went into the hospital and others were finished afterwards but they all bar the first had the outpatients reading vibe upon them.

Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) by Elizabeth Champney then. When I started this read I said I didn't know what it was going to be. Now that I've finished it I can truly say nothing has changed. I wasn't really sure whether I was reading a historical novel, or a biography or art history. One moment the Borgias were being discussed. The next there were quotes from William Morris. My head hurt.

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell was the next read. The good thing about this was that it's definitely a novel. And..... well.....that's it.

Written to be published in a magazine between 1864 and 1866 whilst this was (though obviously decades later) in a Jane Austen manner it was nowhere near as good. As regular readers will know Jane Austen is for me in that group of writers that comes in that neutral "literary Switzerland" territory.

Elizabeth Gaskell is however (based on the books I've read) more moving into the D H Lawrence blog villain category. Possibly this is to do with the reputation of North and South (which I haven't read) as a social novel in the Dickension mould. Wives and Daughters is anything but. Inconsequential is the best word I can describe this....and the most kindest.

A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov is another book which I didn't like, Essentially a collection of tales with the overall arc surrounding them all I can say is that I suspect I would have enjoyed it more if I was Russian.

So now it's a biography of Robert Burns by John Sharp. Let's hope I like it better than this lot.

Until the next time

On Reading In A Hospital Outpatients And A Little Bit More Hooray For Harlow

Hello there. Hope you're feeling today.

Whilst there is always the unexpected. Basically the only things that would apparently stop me from returning to Wales by the end of the month are two particular outpatient appointments for my mother.

Today was appointment number one.

I won't go into full details. But everything was fine. However it did involve waiting for about three hours in the hospital. Three hours which I spent reading. And since three seems to be the number of the day then three was the amount of books completed today, most of the time in that three hour period.

So let's start with Scarlet Thomas' 2001 novel Bright Young Things. Which is about a group of jaded but brilliant twentysomethings that find themselves in an island. Won't go further as I don't wish to spoil it for anybody else.

The best thing about the book are the opening chapters before they reach the island. They are interesting. They paint a picture of the "Bright Young Things" of the title.

Unfortunately for me that was yesterday. The bits I read today were dull. It is the sort of book where you wonder whether all of a sudden the author just forgot the plot. There was a feeling of drift.

And speaking of drift....I nodded off in the outpatients as I was reading,almost dropping the kindle as I did so. Think I mentally nodded off long before that. As for the ending. Some people might be angry about it. To be honest I was too disinterested to care.

James Whistler was an artist. He was also the author of The Gentle of Making Enemies. A book which details some of the run-ins he had with the art establishment. Particularly a libel case he had with John Ruskin. The same Ruskin who wrote Harbours of England that I chatted about (albeit very briefly) in my last post.

I couldn't work out reading this whether Whistler just enjoyed being a stirrer or was just a pain in the backside. If I was a betting man I'd say the latter. An interesting book but really for curiosity value only.

Lady Susan (which I finished after going leaving outpatients) was Jane Austen's shortest novel though apparently written before (though published after) the others. It's basically a comedy of manners although in the form of various correspondence.

Of the three (there's that number again) Austen books I've read this was the one I liked the least. It just seemed not so much Lady Susan or Lazy Susan but a Lazy Jane. Just didn't seem that exceptional. Still, if this her earliest book perhaps it's forgivable.

The current book I'm reading is Romance Of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) by Elizabeth Champney

Yesterday went to Harlow to buy a pair of jeans. I noticed another statue.

Upright Motive.....Certainly Upright

This was done by Henry Moore. One of the few sculptors (for what it's worth) I've ever heard of. Can't say I like it personally, but it's worth mentioning.

Aside from the jeans I bought something else

I Shopped Polish

Until the next time.

Have I Been Persuaded By Jane Austen? Well....

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So picture the scene. I'm at the rented apartment from doing the afternoon/evening shift at work. Daughter is on her tablet. Wife, who moans when daughter or me are online, is on the laptop playing Mahjong.

I go to my normal returning from work routine. Ask loved ones how they are (incidentally never argue when you've just returned to work late at night. Your brain....well my brain anyway...is not up to it). Go to the toilet (TMI? Sorry). Change my clothes, contact my mother in Essex and ping a microwave meal (I've boiled it down to two. Beef Lasagne or Spaghetti Bolognese

And what then? It's about eleven pm. I have to stay up for about an hour before going to bed to rest my wide stomach. So what do I do? Normally I'd watch something on YouTube or Netflix and nod off on the sofa, or listen to a downloaded programme on the BBC radio iplayer and nod off. But not this day, Saturday. For my Kindle has told me that I've only half an hour left of Persuasion to read and I'm going to finish it come what may.

This task then, the reading equivalent of having a walk after dinner (it's after eleven at night I'm not walking out), is completed. From never reading Austen I've now read two of her novels in a short space of time. Things and indeed me have certainly changed recently.

Having said that, and mentally registering your round of applause, regular readers of this blog will remember my rather ambivalent view of Emma. That I did not dislike it but didn't feel as if I was reading great literature either. Thus Jane Austen was part of that group of writers such as  F Scott Fitzgerald and Anton Chekhov that I was literary Switzerland towards.

Now I have read two Austens I must be to the majority of the male population a freak. A male not in the artistic or educational worlds who has read two Austens?! Clearly to most men that and the fact I wear glasses must make me an expert on the subject.

So let me start by saying this. I much preferred Persuasion to Emma. It is a book with less of the Austen clichés. Less dances,less indeed a dance of manners.

Perhaps more importantly however it has a character (which I'm not going to spoil  by revealing here though obviously you can surmise it's a woman) that the reader can root for. Whilst there was no one I actually hated in Emma, it did thinking retrospectively lack that emotional hook.

And that central character is believable as well. There is no way that Gwnyeth Paltrow could justifiably played her without being laughed at all the way to the goop. Out of curiosity after I read the book I checked who played this person in the 1995 film adaptation. She seemed exactly the right fit to my imaginary picture.

But.....

The other thing that I've realised having read two of her books now is that Jane Austen characters rarely go beyond second gear emotionally. No throws of passion or spasms of anger. To me as a reader this seems irritating and unrealistic.

Still, what do I know....being a boy. (an old one admittedly) ?

So Jane Austen stays for me in a state of literary Switzerland. Which as I've said before is more difficult to explain than disliking her because if you're neutral towards a writer there's more chance that you've missed something (you dislike a writer them there are weapons you have to explain why).

Now to the next book which turns out to be David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's been a while since I've read any Dickens ( so many books so little time) so I'm looking forward to reading it.

Now tying up the loose ends I've also finished The Golden Rules of Blogging (& When To Break Them) by Robin Houghton. To be honest all it taught me is that if your blog is not a business then the best rule is simply trial and error. Adhere to the "rules" and you will just miss the fun of creating and running it.

Until the next time.

As Nations Go The Brink Of Nuclear War....Let's Talk About Hilary Mantel And P G Wodehouse

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So for the past few days the world has to face the serious possibility of war between the United States and North Korea. Who knows how this will pan out. Let's just hope that both nations will wake up to the cliff edge they're walking towards. After all it will be far more than just those two countries that will be directly affected. And indirectly every country in the world.

And what of course this proves also is that fat men with stupid hairstyles should not be allowed to lead nations. Remember that when Boris Johnson tries to be British Prime Minister.

Let's then drag ourselves to the more civilised pursuit of reading books then. First off being Hilary Mantel's collection of short stories The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher......oh.

When you read a well known author for the first time, as I will go on about when discussing P G Wodehouse, their reputation precedes them. Sometimes it's very difficult to shake that off as you're going through the book. With Mantel it wasn't that difficult. She's known for historical fiction, indeed have given out the Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4 on the subject, revealing a voice that could be best described as a gentle Dalek.

These short stories though are set in the late twentieth century to the present day. So they're relatively modern which meant I could approach them relatively fresh. There are ten stories in the book, but one, Comma, I'd already found out was about child cruelty. Wasn't going to read that. So I'm chatting about the remaining nine.

Three of these Hilary Mantel stories had, much to my surprise some of the worst writing I've read since reading Sam Allardyce's autobiography........

(I'll pause here. I'm going to claim to be the first person able to put Hilary Mantel and Sam Allardyce in the same sentence. Now I've done it twice)

.....the writing was that bad I noticed it.

Two of the stories were inconsequential. What I mean by that is that was that my reaction at the end was to mentally shrug my shoulders.

One was well written but had a surprise ending so disturbing I wish I hadn't read it.

Three (the final three as it happens that includes the Assassination of Margaret Thatcher) were truly engrossing.

So a mixed bag then. I can't say I really have an opinion of Hilary Mantel after having read the book. Seems I'll need to read another one to have an opinion of her. Not today though. The next tome that I took out of the baby collection of books that is Sully library is this.

Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

Now this is an unexpected experiment. Regular readers to this blog would know how I've gone on about male readers avoiding female writers because the covers were too "girly" and argued that Marian Keyes is a far better writer than her chick lit covers would suggest. Well here's a book that the old me would have avoided by a famous "chick lit" writer. So we'll see how I get on.

With regard to the Kindle The Man With Two Left Feet And Other Stories by P G Wodehouse is finished. Every one of my prejudices were confirmed. Young men just want a good time, upper class men are mainly stupid, young women are pretty, old women are battleaxes, life is just froth. Problems just go away like that.

Even attempted suicide, suicide, is treated as if it was mere whimsy. Goodness only knows how he would have dealt with nuclear war.

So as you can guess I hated it.

The next on the ebook pile is Persuasion by Jane Austen. Thus far (early days) I prefer it to Emma.

Until the next (hopefully not radioactive) time

How Thomas Hardy Beat Bryan Adams

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I've oftened felt that where I differ from a lot of people is not in my likes or dislikes but in those things I'm neutral about. I've chatted before in this blog about the problems of being literary Switzerland regarding F Scott Fitzgerald, Anton Chekov and Jane Austen. But I can expand that further, the almost religious love for Star Wars is something that's passed me by, entertaining that it is. And as for The Simpsons? Clever, funny to an extent but not something I'm bothered about recording.

Musically speaking I realised that Canadian soft/hard/easy to chew over rock person Bryan Adams comes into my Swiss roll of neutrality. People seemed to like him or hate him. For me it was but a shrug.

Yesterday however he was challenging my reading.

I was working the afternoon/evening shift at work so the morning was free. And there was to be honest nothing to do. So I decided to spend the time reading.

Our friend whose house we're living in decided however decided that the morning was going to be spent cleaning the house and that she would listen to music to entertain her as she did so specifically the work of Bryan (and for the record I did offer to help but she turned that politely down - when you have a system someone else is a distraction).

Now let me stress something before I go on. Our friend has very kindly opened the doors of her home for us whilst we're purchasing our next one. Her house her rules. It was up to me to deal with it and adapt.

So I sat down and continued reading The Mayor Of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Would I be put off from the novel by the Adams Family of tunes he's produced? Well you can guess from the title that I couldn't stop the thing I started.

The Mayor of Casterbridge is truly masterful. Slowly but surely Hardy maps out how a man, capable of emotional cruelty but rather flawed than evil, faces the consequences of his actions. All the characters are well rounded and multifacted. There are no simple heroes and villains in this novel.

Needless to say I was swiping the page oblivious to the life's work of Bryan. He didn't stand a chance. It might have been the 1812 overture and I wouldn't have noticed.

At their best books can do that.

After I finished that the next book was Summer In The City State by Eamonn Sheehy. An account of his time in Morocco. It was finished quickly. To be honest it was just an essay than a book and it was just too short. Really needed to have been longer.

And now the book is an omnibus edition of three crime Inspector Montalbano novels from Andrea Camilleri. Already I've finished one, The Shape Of Water and now am The Terracotta Dog. I finished the day at eleven pm pretending that I was the good inspector by eating spaghetti whilst reading in Bari. Even though the spag bol was frozen and I was in Barry. Ah well.

It was a good day for reading.

Until the next time.

Why Do I Continue To Read D H Lawrence When I Hate Him?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well Sea and Sardinia is finished and well to a D H Lawrence hater like me nothing, and I mean nothing has changed.

The only real pleasure it gave me was it's shortness. Otherwise it really should have given the reader a truer sense of the fate that was going to befall him/her by retitling the book Twilight In Italy2 aka you thought no one could make Italy/Italians even more boring than I did the first time.

Lawrence is a man incapable on cutting down on paragraphs. As if using so many words hides the fact that for the most part he's writing pure unadulterated twaddle. That, and his racism ( he the inglese observing these unsophisticated people living their lives as if he's in some type of experiment sets me on edge) made it for me an awful book to read.

It was one of those books that gave you a palpable sense of relief when you finished.

(A quick aside. The next book I'm reading is Can Anyone Hear Me? by Peter Baxter. It's essentially anecdotes about doing the Test Match Special BBC radio cricket broadcasts abroad. In all the housemoving stuff I'd completely forgotten that the cricket season had started and that the quiet pleasure of listening to the sport on the radio has returned. I will listen to that tomorrow, whilst continuing to box or crate our lives away. It'll be either that or cutting the grass for what I intend to be the last time before we leave......all depends on the weather)

So then a writer that in this blog has a status of regular villain. And yet I still read him and will probably continue to do so in the future. The question came into my head. "Why"?

(A question that could also be asked of my attitude towards writers that I don't hate but am neutral towards such as F Scott Fitzgerald or Jane Austen)

So then is it peer pressure? Yes and no. If you are the person who is in the minority with regard to an author then you do as a reader want to plough on and think is this next book going to be different? Well remember in all the times I've criticised Lawrence I've always stressed that it's based on the books that I've read. It's not impossible that you can dislike a work by a writer but love the next book you read from him/her. In the course of this blog I've had that experience with Michael Palin and, probably more pertinently, outside of this blog Kingsley Amis.

But that I'm willing to read further books by someone with a reputation does not mean that I will necessary change my mind. It's just that as a reader I'm willing to change my opinion to some extent if the right book comes along. Call it literary blind date. In the case of D H Lawrence though the right book hasn't come thus far so to me he just should be grateful for Lady Chatterley's Lover or else he'd be forgotten aside from people using his books as a cheaper form of Valium.

Until the next time.

On The Best Books To Give For People Who Are Unwell

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Twitter can sometimes cause surprises even with regard to this blog. I hadn't thought of anything to post when I was chatting to people in it about books.

The other people involved in this converstion were @AnnaCaig ,@Efrogwraig and @MacdocLeonard (all rights reserved etc,etc).

The chat moved from being able to praise an author directly online after having read their work, to my doubts Miguel De Cervantes that, even by ouja twitter, he could use just 140 characters, to the relative merits of  Don Quixote, Miss Read and Jane Austen.

But what intrigued me the most was when @Efrogwraig advised that not only was @AnnaCaig a journalist writing a book column in the Sheffield Telegraph (and incidentally has a book blog https://murderundergroundbrokethecamel.wordpress.com) but also gave her books when unwell. Which got me thinking? What is the perfect book to give for someone who's ill?

In some respects I'm not the perfect person to have asked this. In my life I've been fortunate that only twice have I been in hospital as a patient. The first time aged four to take my tonsils out, the second to have my wisdom teeth extracted in my late twenties/early forties. I can't remember my four year old reading habit but books second time around took a back seat from recovering from the anaesthetic and listening on hospital radio to West Ham losing in the quarter final of the F A cup against Luton Town.

I do however remember having the flu in junior school and picking up Black Beauty by Anna Sewell to read sitting in an armchair and going through it pausing when everything seemed to be swirling around me. Praised this book in the past and won't repeat myself here except to say that on reflection perhaps the episodic nature of the story as different issues befall the eponymous horse made it easy for an ill boy to digest it all.

The worst place to answer this question is probably at a hospital shop. The last time I went inside one (daughter's physiotherapy for her knee) around January did have a look at the books on offer. Certainly it was a different selection than when the shop was owned by W H Smith. Then it seemed to be current bestsellers,what were bestsellers and what they seemed to hope would be bestsellers. Lots of thrillers by James Patterson (and one other) and Clive Cussler (and one other) adorned the shelves. To think I'm so old I can remember when Clive Cussler wrote rubbish thrillers by himself.

Now the books seem to be bestsellers of decades earlier. SS GB by Len Deighton (before the TV series - Am not a fan which I'll explain if I ever get to read another book by him again. Let's just say this cemented my dislike) and The Dead Of Jericho by the late Colin Dexter (I've read this and a few other Morse novels and, and I'm sorry to say this, the TV series was much, much better) were the titles that sprang to mind. But though the selection was interesting it didn't really seem to hit the right note.

So perhaps the answer lay in the one and only time I gave books to a person whilst they were in hospital. Over a decade ago a friend of ours was struck by an infection which though she is much better now has changed her life forever. At that time she was staying in a hospital in Llandough (near Cardiff  and funnily enough one of the places we're looking to move to now) for a number of weeks as I recall, and possibly even a few months.

Before going to visit her for the first time I was in the Waterstones bookshop in Cardiff having decided that grapes/flowers didn't really cut it as gifts given  the circumstance so decided to get her a couple of books instead. But for reasons that seem inexplicable to me then, let alone now, I bought a couple of gritty dark crime novels by Patricia Cornwell.

What made this decision odd was not only that these books were dark crime thrillers, not just that they were from her medical examiner Kay Scarpetta series to be read by a woman stuck in hospital for (then) an unknown period of time but also that I'd never read a Patricia Cornwell novel before....and indeed since.

(A quick aside here. The reason I've not read Patricia Cornwell is simply because there are so many books but so little time and they've simply not come up on the pile of the great unread. As to how do I know therefore that her novels are dark and gritty? Simple. I've judged a book by it's cover)

And the reaction of our friend? She has moaned about it to me ever since. Complaining that she so loved the thrillers she's had to buy every other Patricia Cornwell book including getting a hardback copy before the paperback came out. Unwittingly I had created a superfan. Ms Cornwell you don't have to thank me.

And the point to be made? Unless the person's condition is terminal perhaps the best book to buy an unwell person is one where people have worst problems than the recipient of the gift is facing. Like say danger on the streets....or death.

Until the next time.

In Which I Chat About Jane Austen,Rugby, RLS' Wife, Houses And The Disappearance Of Barry Town FC

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I woke up on Saturday, unwillingly you understand, at quarter to four in the morning. And after making a cup of tea did what I tend to do often now. Read. so Emma by Jane Austen was finished.

Speaking as I can now do,with the vast experience of having reading one of her novels, is that Jane Austen moves in with F Scott Fitzgerald and Anton Chekhov as a writer with whom I'm in literary Switzerland about. She is certainly readable. But I don't understand how she can be considered "great".

As I explained previously being neutral on a writer is a difficult position to be in. If only because not disliking one means that you can't shake off the feeling that you might be missing something. What I especially don't understand is why she's stood the test of time especially when compared to writers like the Brontes or George Eliot. But then again what do I know being a man?

The next book on the great ebook unread was Rugby Union Basics For Dummies in a day by Nick Cain and Greg Growden. It was free and to be honest after reading it was probably the best thing about it. I learnt very little about a sport whose rules I've only gleaned through osmosis. Anyway it was finished. Two books done in a day.

Did you know that Robert Louis Stevenson's wife was American? I didn't. But it's the first thing I've learnt in the latest book I'm reading The Life of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson by his wife's sister Nellie Van De Grift Sanchez. So far so good.

On the house searching front went to see two today. Both seem genuine contenders. Wife and I are going to spend the weekend thinking this one through. We might offer on Monday. More then.

After that was done we went to see a friend who lives in Barry. She and the wife I knew would spend the afternoon chatting about the houses we've seen and the general moving situation. Knew I'd be bored.What to do?

But then a solution occurred to me. Our friend lived near Jenner Park, home of the Welsh league side Barry Town FC. As there were no more houses to watch I'd get daughter to go online, check and if they were playing at home and go off to the game.

This was done. The internet was clear. Barry Town FC would be playing Goytre United FC at two thirty. I'd be a little late, but I'd not been able to watch football for a while so it would give me a little break from everything that's swirling my beleaguered brain with regard to moving house and finding one to live in.

It wouldn't have been the first time I've been to Jenner Park. When I was courting my wife and I did crosscountry courting with my wife between South Wales and Essex (A real Gavin Stacey moment) her uncle (even more Gavin/Stacey like), a good man now sadly passed away took me to a match there between Barry Town and Flint Town FC.

I'd learnt two things from that game. One that Welsh football went far beyond Cardiff,Swansea Wrexham and Newport and the other was that Flint Town taught me that dependent on exactly where you are the North Walian accent could have a trace of Scouse on it.

As I was closer to the ground heard no sounds of a match or saw supporters moving in. Noticed ticket offices being boarded up, Eventually from a small gap I'd noticed....no football...indeed not even passing birds on the pitch. As I said on my return to our friends' house wherever Barry Town were playing it was not Jenner Park.

Further investigations by daughter revealed the phrase "venue to be decided" on the internet. I found out later that they'd played Goytre United at Goytre's ground. The opposite fixture will be next Saturday, useless to me as I'll be working.

Ah well...

Until the next time,

How Moving House Has Increased My Reading And Measuring Male Maturity Through Jane Austin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There is a twilight zone stage that me and my family are living in at the moment. Preparing for the move though it will be a number of weeks ahead so that a lot of things have been boxed, crated, charity shopped or just thrown away at the local tip. A consequence of which is that circumstances throw themselves up with unexpected results.

It's five o'clock this (Tuesday) morning. Exactly one hour before I wanted to get up. Nothing to watch on TV either recorded or live (which seem to be plastered with people trying to sell you cooking gadgets you'll rarely use, cleaning gadgets you'll rarely use or get into some rigorous training DVDs that I'm sure will lead me to a six pack and heart failure The DVD/discs are crated, as are the paper books. Nothing else to do for that hour than read on my Kindle (other e readers are available).

Before I wouldn't have considered reading at this hour, certainly not a paper book, as it's not comfortable for my eyes. But given the back light there's no problem here.

So Amazon (and the companies that sell the other e readers that are available) there's a whole new market of people to flog your wares to. Those who want to read but can't get at their paper books....you're welcome....a free gift voucher would suffice.

The book I finished this morning was H G Wells' 1899 novel When The Sleeper Awakes. The first thing to say about this is that the only way you can read it is by suspending your disbelief to such a level you'll consider when finishing taking up high wire lessons. The plot can only be described as bonkers. Starting from the fact that we have to believe that not only can a man survive two hundred years in a trance but doesn't age either!

The other thing you need to abandon when reading the book is the thought that in essence H G Wells is rehashing the plot from the earlier novel  The Time Machine (Victorian gent in the future having to deal with the society there).

It is readable....just. It's also in parts racist. The "N" word was mentioned twice. This was both unexpected and unwelcome.

Next I read Emile Zola's short story The Flood (I know, never read him before and he comes into my life twice in a week). I won't go into the plot other than what's obvious from the title. What I will say is that if you're not moved after having read this you've a heart of stone and probably a member of UKIP.

And so to the current book I'm reading. Emma by Jane Austen. It's the first Austen book I've ever read (though some paper books are in the great crated unread.

It's funny how my attitude to Austen has changed even though I've never read her work before. As a child soon to be a teenager I rejected her because she was "just for girls". As a teenager/twenties I wouldn't read her because she seemed to be the thinking woman's Mills and Boon.

(As an aside I wouldn't condemn my past self for that view. I've written before how I believe that some female writers would have a far greater male readership if the covers didn't give men the wrong impression about their work. Marian Keyes is a recent example, though at the time Georgette Heyer and Norah Lofts were rejected by me exactly because their covers reminded me of Mills and Boon)

In my thirties and forties I had acknowledged that she was worth reading but life and other books always seemed to come before her. Now, in the age of fifty three, being I suspect the only man outside of publishing who has read a Georgette Heyer novel first Jane Austen has arrived in my life.

Hope I like it.

Until the next time.

Morning In Maesteg With Michael Palin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well, although decorations are still up for a few more days, this is the moment when the world returns from the Christmas/New Year stuff and faces reality in the face. For my daughter that meant the return to school.

As I mentioned in an earlier post a problem with strained ligaments in her knee and amongst other things what that meant was that for the first few weeks of this year I, as part of the Dad service, becomes her school bus driver. That's in the sense that I'll drive her as much as possible to and from school in the Kia so that she could put the seat backwards and extend her leg.

Her school is a half an hour drive away from where we live, and it's not that far away from Maesteg. This was important because, as it turned out, there was a viewing on the house at the (to me) odd time of 10:30am. So what I decided was to drop her off and then spend my time around the town before returning home.

Surely winner of the Best View From A Town Centre Car Park In Britain Competition?

And Again

It was an icy morning. So much so that the I couldn't get into my Kia on the drivers side the lock had been frozen up! But once the mighty Picanto  got going the journey was fine. Once at Maesteg the first stop was to the 135 year old Indoor market that has been cruelly threatened with closure by the Labour, and yes I'm going to repeat that,Labour, council (if you're interested I have written a post about that late last year - click on Maesteg in the labels).

The original By laws - Hung proudly in the market

You may remember that when in the market I buy books from the stall there. But what you may not know is that you can buy the books from the market café if the stallholder is not present (as she wasn't when I was there eight thirty in the morning). This was convenient in more ways than one because I'd decided to while away some of the time by having breakfast there.

So with a budget for Penguin books of £4.57 two books were bought from the stall. The first one was:

Jane Austen - Emma

Now I must admit to have never read a Jane Austen book before. When I was (much) younger I just saw her as a writer "for girls", an upmarket Mills and Boon. Nowadays it's simply that her books have not been next to read amongst the great unread (they are all on my Kindle).

This was the other one:

D H Lawrence - Women In Love

Now those regular readers of my blog know that, based on the books of his that I've read. I'm not a Lawrence fan. Let's see whether this can change my mind. It's not impossible for me to change my general view of a writer, as I will explain later.

Those two books cost me £1. Good value. And something that would be lost if the Labour council had their way and closed the market.

So I paid for them at the café whilst also ordering a big breakfast. I chatted to the lady about the threat by the council. She told me that the council had underestimated the reaction against the proposal to close the market and turn it into a library (that doesn't surprise me). She also said that the decision as to whether they would get the EU money (yes I know) for this renovation of the town hall would not be made until November. One other thing that didn't occur to me in my stupidity but she pointed out. The council want to use EU money to create a big town centre library in Maesteg when they used EU money to take the library out of the town centre in Bridgend.

This is typical Welsh labour, ignore the basics, try and force the big idea not thought through instead.

Anyway time for breakfast

Not Continental Today - Mind you the drink was a Cappuchino

It was delicious. Note that Bridgend Council. Something yet again that would be missed.

You may notice the book on top of the pile. The Michael Palin novel Hemingway's Chair. I took it with me to read whilst I was waiting for the breakfast. I won't chat about it properly until I've finished but let's just say that I'm loving this as much as his diaries were a disappointment. So you see, I can revise my views on a writer.

I went to a few other charity shops in Bridgend and bought one more Penguin book. It was this for a pound (so budget now £2.57).

Philadelphia - Christopher Davis

What's interesting about this book is that it's a novel based on the screenplay for the film. Presumably after VHS and DVDs this was one of the last to be made.

On my way home (having done a little grocery shopping) I stopped from time to time to take in some of the views.

Just outside Maesteg Town Centre

And I think my favourite view of the day. From the nearby village of Cwmfelin.

Stunning

As for the viewing? Don't think it went well. Came home at Eleven and whoever came were gone.

Until the next time.