A Busy Day:Assisted By Leonid and Matthew

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There are days. And yesterday was one of them where you have things one after the other so that you're well just busy.

But before I left the apartment in the morning finished reading Operation Eichmann by Zvi Anaroni and Wilhelm Dietl. It was an interesting read and it reminds you that whatever you may think of the current Israeli government (and for the record I'm against it) Israelis have good reason to be cautious in their dealings with others.

So first then Cardiff. To the garage that will sort out the damage done to my car in the shunt. Tuesday was just a man taking pictures and examining it. Apparently the bumper and " impact bar" needs to be repaired. It's set for Thursday. Will collect the courtesy car then too.

Whilst I was waiting started to read the next book on the list. The Crushed Flower and other stories by the Russian writer Leonid Andreyev. Earlier this year I chatted about his novel The Seven Who Were Hanged, which I liked.

Once that was done off to Bridgend to get lectured on dental hygiene by someone old enough to be my granddaughter. Still my teeth are still there....and they're mine. Of course had to wait before I went in. So again had Leonid's book to distract me from the dental diatribe to come.

Afterwards had some time before work. Which meant lunch....and chips. But had about forty minutes left afterwards to read and as it turned out finish Leonid's work.

In truth some of the stories I liked,some I didn't. But the  stand out tale was undoubtedly the title story. It was quite simply quietly stunning

So work. And during breaks started to read the next book.Fantasy Life by Matthew Berry. A quick tale. When I was unemployed years ago and depressed. I discovered the fascinating and very American sports podcasts by the ESPN channel. I enjoyed most of them immensely, but my favourite was the Fantasy (American)  football which involved him, Nate Ravitz, Stephania  Bell and their producer Podvader.

I've chatted about Fantasy Sports before in this blog. But have never tried American football. And yet I loved it. So when this biography come stories of people's experiences with fantasy sports I had to buy it.

Funny thing was. I started reading this book years ago. In Disneyland Paris in fact. But I'd electronically put it down and for some reason forgot about  it....until now. Well with the caveat that you need to be interested in Fantasy Sports I can recommend this book heartily. It's simply about an ordinary guy with an extraordinary passion and how it affected his life as well as the way Fantasy sports has affected other people's lives as well.

The next tome on the eBook pile turns out to be The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan. I was toying with whether or not to read this because of my dislike of the racism in Prester John. I decided to read it out of curiosity given that it is the author's best known book. It's a decision I already regret.

Until the next time.

On Books: Particularly The One That's Ninety Percent Belgian

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

First a quick word about this blog and me. Car had a bit of a bash last week. It's thankfully drivable and if the eyesight test is anything to go by will be right as rain once the garage the insurance company picks deals with it. Cannot obviously chat about the circumstances at this time....except it wasn't my fault.

Me? Shaken but not stirred.

Even when I get the courtesy car I'm a bit too nervous at present to do any exploring of places in South Wales new to me. So that bit of the blog will be put on hold for (I assume) a few weeks.

But there will always be the books.

So have at last finished Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again. I've discussed this book in an earlier post with regard to it's attitude to African Americans. I'm afraid to say that didn't change. It does however almost makes me delighted to tell you that this novel is just plain awful even if you took that part away.

Basically about the travails of an American writer. You think you know where this is going to and then for no coherent reason vears off in both style in location. It's as if Mr Wolfe wrote the novel, then felt that he needed to make it bigger thinking it would make the book more important than it actually is. Characters appear then wander off as if they had a prior engagement....I wish I did.

The new book from the Kindle is Operation Eichmann by Zvi Anaroni and Wilhelm Dietl. It's about the capture of the notorious Nazi and bringing him to justice in Israel. Mr Anaroni was the lead investigator, so it should be an interesting read.

As for the library, yesterday I borrowed two books. This was the first:

Jeffrey Archer - Tell Tale

This is an intriguing book for me as I've not read one of his works in decades (for reasons I'll chat about when I've finished it).

It's to book I'm about to start. Because the other, and the one I finished in a day, was this:

Alec Le Sueur - Bottoms Up In Belgium

Having married a Belgian woman Mr Le Sueur has knowledge of a much maligned country and so what he's produced here is part travel book, part guidebook, part history book, part reminiscence of things Belgian that most people across the channel would not be aware of (and even less so post Brexit - again it seems to be affecting a lot of what I'm reading at the moment).

It was written,I should point out, in 2014.

Perhaps I should mention my own "Belgian" story here. Many, many, years ago I was having a conversation with a guy and for reasons I no longer recall he demanded me to name him a Belgian writer apart from Herge.

"George Simenon" I replied.

"He's French" came the indignant response.

"Actually he was born in Leige". From which I swaggeringly left the room.

What might seem like an act of bigheadeness on my part was actually because I was afraid he was going to ask me to name another  Belgian writer. I literally quit whilst I was ahead.

I loved this book. So let's get the critisms in first. There were three chapters which seemed pointless to me. First was that on the Formula 1 Grand Prix. I'm sure you could create regional variations everywhere of "the traffic to get there is awful/it's expensive/it's noisy. Ditto the Belgian history in Eurovision (aside from the interesting fact that the entry is alternately in Flemish/French).

Even the chapter on the EU seemed not really all that "Belgian" to me (Brexit again).

That out of the way this is the book Belgium needed to sell itself to the outside world. It taught me many things I was not aware of (suspect British people will be stunned by what Mr Le Sueur reveals about Stella Artois and a certain "British" sportsman..I know I was) in a humorous and friendly way. And unlike the book on the Scilly Isles I discussed previously this wasn't the sort of travel book that focuses on the eccentrics of a place.

(Without wishing to spoil things for the reader I should mention that there's one chapter that because of circumstance ends on a tragic note. The author writes about the situation humanely and should be praised for doing so)

I'm not going to Belgium (or indeed anywhere else) any time soon. But the Belgian tourist board should give this man a medal. For it's made me want to visit one day.

Can I name ten famous Belgians? At a push yes. Two cyclists,one writer and a combination of footballers and the cast of Professor T.

Until the next time