In Which I've A Delayed Father's Day,Claim History With A Poetry Book,Dismiss Civilization,The Best Marian Keyes Book Cover Ever Plus Harry Potter And Football

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So it's 7am in the morning and I'm already downstairs watching a recording of Friday's baseball match between the Seattle Mariners and the team I support the Red Sox. Wasn't happy because they were losing 7-2. I was also bothered by the high level of twittering this early in the day. Couldn't those birds just fly off and be nosey somewhere else?

Then I hear familiar but unusual footsteps for this time of the day on a weekend walk down the stairs. It was my daughter.

"Daaad" she asked. In that tone I know too well meaning that she wants something. "Can I have the Ipad?"

The night before (actually the morning 1am) I'd caught her using her Ipad in be and confiscated it. Whilst not regretting giving it to her for Christmas a few years back (let's face facts other kids have it so it would damage her to be without one) there are moments when I wonder whether we should send her to hospital to have it surgically removed from her hands.

"No" I reply. To which she turned on her heels and walked back upstairs.

There was I then waiting for my daughter to come down with Father's Day gifts. No returning sounds were forthcoming. Five,ten then fifteen minutes passed. So up the stairs I went.

My daughter had gone back to sleep.

Eventually when properly awake two hours later she did come down bearing gifts. Everything then was alright with the world....for a while anyway.

Being Father's Day I had control of lunch. Decided on a takeaway from a relatively new American style Bar and Grill place near where we live purely on the grounds that we'd never tried it before.

So once I'd gone there. Given and paid for the order. sat and waited for it to be ready. Whilst waiting read the Thirties poetry anthology to pass the time. Therefore I claim to be the first person to read a book of poetry in an American Style Bar and Grill. My place in history is now assured.

Evidence

Finished Civilisation by Clive Bell. Well that was a waste of time. Just a load of waffle to prove to me that he didn't know the difference between Civilisation and Civilised. And when you find some races called "barbaric" and "savages" you get the idea of the author's frame of mind.

Still that means that a new book is needed and it's this.

Number 24 - Marian Keyes - The Other Side Of The Story

An explanation first. To celebrate Penguin's 70th anniversary they brought out a series of modern books but in the style of the original 1935 covers. Hence that is why this book is covered the way it is.

I have a theory, born out of no research whatsoever,that one of the reasons why some female writers of "general" novels don't seem to have a large male readership is because of their book covers. Marian Keyes is a good example of this.

Many years ago I was on holiday in Italy. I'd finished reading the books I brought with me and was looking for another English book to read (shamefully my Italian exists but with the vocabulary of a stumbling two year old). So going into this shop and noticing the group of used paperbacks on offer the only one that was in English was Marian Keyes' novel Sushi For Beginners.

Now if I was in Wales would avoided this book like a car crash. If I had the temerity to have picked it up subconsciously then the swirly lettering, the cartoon figures, the bright colours, the blurb would have been screaming at me.

"What are you doing looking at this? This is not for you. You're a man. Go back to your beer and football". 

I know that you can't judge a book by its cover. But when you pick a book up you have a short timespan to decide whether to buy it or not. The cover suggested another modern Pride and Prejudice chick lit tome, that it was not for me. But, in Italy at that time it was the only one available. So, reluctantly I bought it.

Well I was blown away by how good it was. Funny, witty and indeed deep it was the most surprising thing I'd read that year. The main characters were female. but the men were not either quasi Mr Darcys or evil knuckle scraping types whose sole job in life was to do down women. These were real people. The icing on the cake was that the author had the same contemptuous view of Barney the Dinosaur.

Marion Keyes is a good writer and it was only through circumstance that I'd realised it.

The weather was pouring most of  day so my wife and daughter suggested we watch the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. Without any afternoon football to protect me I reluctantly said yes.

I have studiously avoided the Harry Potter novels in my life. agreeing with the late comedienne Linda Smith that adults who read children's books for their own pleasure are odd and in some cases creepy. I feel as well that when adults do this they're invading into territory they should avoid. Children should have things they call their own.

But here we are, a wet weekend in Wales and I'm watching the movie. I feel as if arriving late for a party not wanting to attend in the first place. What did I think of it? Absolutely nothing, perfectly neutral. But, I am a fifty two year old man, these books were not designed for me and please believe when I say I won't be dressing up in a wizard's costume anytime soon.

And so to the football. Two matches on in exactly the same time. France/Switzerland and the match no UKIP supporter will see Romania/Albania. I watch each match 15 mins at a time. It seemed to work fine. Didn't miss the only goal of the two games from Albania. Nor did I miss the rippable quality of the Swiss football shirt. Glad I don't have that in my collection.

One final thing. The Swiss goalkeeper was dressed in a colour best described as a luminous yellowy green. I assumed he was cycling back to their base after the game.

Anyway.

Until the next time.

Couldn't Watch Euro 2016, So I'll Moan About Archaeology Instead

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well I was working the afternoon/evening shift at work last night so missed the start of Euro 2016. The match was between France and Romania. The French won thanks to Dimitri Payet. And at club level who's got Payet? "We've got Payet,We've got Payet" (sorry,sudden bursts of singing does not work when read).

Perhaps I'm going to miss the first three days of the competition because of work is a good thing (no point recording them I'd know the results before I could watch them) because I also missed some of the English fans going retro and turning into the apes of the past. God it just makes me despair sometimes.

Suddenly you realise that there is a connection between Euro 2016 and the EU referendum in that thanks to some English fans more Europeans actually would want us to leave.

So instead of the football I'll moan about archaeology instead. I shouldn't worry about making archaeologists angry. They won't put you into a grave. They'll just dig you up thousands of years later to take anything of value (either monetary or sentimental) buried with you.

As you probably know (or guess from the background picture) I collect vintage Penguin/Pelican paperbacks and I've just finished Digging Up The Past by Sir Leonard Woolley first published in 1930. Essentially this book is an introduction to archaeology based with his own experiences in the field.

Now let me be fair to Sir Len. He would have had to a produced a book pretty spectacular for me to have been interested in the subject. Fireworks and dancing girls would've needed to have been included. After all if I wanted to be outside, bored  and covered in dirt I would have taken a far greater interest in gardening.

So I approached this with not a closed mind but let's say it was unlocked but shut. A lot of this tome is boring but I felt that it was more to do with me than him so I'll give him a pass on that. However there were moments that interested me for the wrong reasons.

Sir Len mentioned that workers on his sites (say for example Egypt) were paid "a fair wage" and yet there was no explanation on exactly how this wage was actually "fair" Len was after all an archaeologist so exactly what knowledge did he have on a living wage for the average Egyptian in the nineteen thirties? Let's not forget the conditions they would have worked under as well. Calling it "a fair wage" doesn't mean it was. It's a trick that's used to this present day. Say something often enough then some people will always believe it to be true.

Yet despite this "fair wage" he had also a scheme, "described as baksheesh" where workers who discovered any valuable objects got a bonus. It struck me as a sort of cultural equivalent of the double glazing salesman getting extra money for being the best flogger of glass that month.

Also, when talking about this bonus scheme Lenny described his Arab workers as liking it because they're...wait for it...."gamblers by nature". Now even if you take account of the time it was written, and that he was not implying that after working in the dig they were trying to place a bet at 2:30 in Haydock, it's still a pretty insensitive remark. I'd argue that it shows his low opinion of the workers on his site,

But do you know what shocked me more. It was the chapter on digging up ancient graves. He seemed to treat it as just part of the job but I was thinking to myself that here is a grave digger justifying his actions on the grounds of historical accuracy. We're not talking about rich pharaohs here. Lenny Boy talks disapprovingly about the people who raided graves to take things like jewellery but though I don't approve of that it seemed more understandable than doing the same thing to find a Celtic Warrior's sword or even worse a child's toy.

You might say it doesn't happen now. I've no idea and I don't care. If you see the results of an archaeological dig in a museum there is a possibility that the remains were treated with more care than the workers who found them and that a final dignity was taken away from ordinary people in the name of culture.

Archaeology. Didn't dig it before reading this book. Dig it less now.

So have a new Penguin book to read from the larger white spined "King Penguin" series of the nineteen eighties.

Jim Harrison - Sundog

Jim Harrison died fairly recently in March of this year. Though picking from the great unread was purely coincidental. 

Until the next time.