Ach, it’s Auchtermuchty

‘Did you bring even more books I have to read?’ asked Daughter. ‘Yes!’ I did. With a car you should make the most of not having to carry stuff back and forth.

It was student moving day. While the more normal parents had come from Berkshire and beyond, to convey their little darlings back home after a year at uni, us abnormals traversed half the country (in the last few days I’ve been on more scenic routes than I thought possible) in order to give a lift to someone’s belongings from one room to another, two minutes down the road. And then go home again, with as empty a car as when we arrived.

So naturally I took the opportunity of providing more reading material seriously. Meanwhile, the Resident IT Consultant checked out the new landlady’s library, and found it reasonably satisfactory.

En route for this mini-move we stopped in Auchtermuchty for elevenses at the Tannochbrae Tearoom. Very Dr Finlay it was. Strangely quiet little town, but with lovely cake, and a refill of coffee for the Resident IT Consultant. I was a little taken aback to find a portrait of Alex Salmond perched on the cistern in the toilet, but each to their own, I suppose.

(For anyone who fancies running a tearoom, I gather it’s for sale.)

Oddly enough it was my second ‘Finlay sighting’ in two days. Helen Grant lives near a street called Rintoul Avenue, so my mind was already on Dr F.

If I’d had my wits about me you could have been admiring a picture of the tiny, but lovely, Auchtermuchty Library here. But I didn’t, so you can’t. I blame it on the lemon & lime cake. And the portrait in the WC. (I’d have understood if they’d put David Rintoul there.)

While all this was taking place, Son and Dodo set off for Sweden, to cut some grass, encountering rather hot weather. Son had a meeting to go to, so parked Dodo in the library park in the sunshine while he talked business.

It strikes me that that’s two pretty long trips for two small jobs. I’m glad insanity seems to be hereditary.

Isol and Victoria

If I rant about the lack of television coverage of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award ceremony in the UK, someone is bound to tell me it was on somewhere. (Was it?) I was lucky several years running in that I went to Sweden for half term and there it was, right on time. Big celebration with royalty and everything.

Music. Speeches. Foreign award winners shivering under blankets. With so much rubbish readily available, why not broadcast a little ceremony and very little pomp, even if it is rather foreign?

Argentinian winner Isol even danced the tango. Apparently. I bet Seamus Heaney didn’t do Riverdance for the Nobel prize.

She’s short, Isol. Although that sounds both too personal as well as rude (nothing wrong with being short). What I probably mean is I had no idea Crown Princess Victoria is quite so tall. We’ve not yet had cause to meet up, so I didn’t know. Taller than the minister for culture.

You see, if I’d been able to watch, I’d not have to resort to going on about what people looked like in the official photographs.

I expect there was less shivering, and possibly no blankets this year. They appear to have moved the whole shindig indoors. It doesn’t matter about the Swedish royals. They have practised sitting out of doors – totally umbrella-less – and smiling through almost anything. But foreigners, they are a more tender species.

As well as short. I can think of several non-tall winners. Philip Pullman, on the other hand, turned out to be taller than I had expected, so he probably beat Victoria.

And I still worry about the sheer amount of money. Is it right to give that much to one individual? I’d almost decided it wasn’t, but then I thought about people winning the lottery. All they’ve done is buy a ticket. At least these winners are professional writers and artists; one of whom is chosen every year.

Perhaps it is OK. Especially for someone who tangoes.

Stamps, Who needs them?

When someone on facebook got disgruntled about his most recent trip to the post office a few weeks ago, I had no idea I would be agreeing with him quite so soon. I mean, I was already gruntling along, and have been for years. But this is getting silly.

I have been concerned that I am single-handedly closing down post office branches. But I can’t be that powerful, can I? Besides, I wouldn’t want to.

The fb friend had been the target of the over-selling they engage in these days, even in the tiniest sub post office. I forget what, but have an inkling he wanted stamps and they wanted to sell him insurance. I generally pop in (although it has to be admitted, with increasingly longer gaps between visits) for stamps, other letter services or cash. So I don’t need to be asked if I require a top-up or if they can do anything else for me today? It makes me so uncomfortable I try and work out ways to avoid going in at all.

And if I avoid too many times, then closure of the branch is sure to follow. We don’t even get a newspaper any longer, although the chap on the ordinary shop counter is much more relaxed and never suggests I need a chocolate along with that copy of the Guardian. (The pick-and-mix sweets went three postmasters ago. Unhygienic.)

What I miss is the staff who would tell their colleague that ‘Mrs Bookwitch likes her cash in tens.’ Staff who sold me the stamps I wanted, and if I had forgotten to order them they would get them in anyway, because they knew roughly what I’d be wanting.

Anyway, on the day when fb friend wanted no insurance, I went in to buy the new Jane Austen stamps. I’d not double checked the issue date, but fb had been awash with comments on the postal Miss Austen, so I felt I was about right.

‘What?’ said the girl on the counter. ‘I would like to buy the new Jane Austen stamps, please,’ I said again. ‘Uh,’ she said. ‘We don’t have them. We only have the Doctor Who stamps.’ ‘OK, I’ll have some of them then.’ (I didn’t recall the issue date, but had no wish to argue.)

She went behind the scenes to speak to the boss, returning to say that they are such an insignificant post office they don’t get the Jane Austen stamps. ‘And we can’t even sell the Doctor Who stamps yet,’ she finished. I thanked her (for what?) and left, with no sale made. Not even a little top-up.

Once home I looked up the dates. Jane Austen was the day before my visit. Doctor Who is today. So it would have been very surprising to get them five weeks early.

This is precisely why I don’t want to go there. I can’t get what I want, and I can’t want what they can let me have.

The last literary stamp debacle was a couple of years ago when I rashly decided I’d like the fantasy book ones, featuring Nanny Ogden and Dumbledore and all the rest. So I ordered them from stamp headquarters in Edinburgh. The professionals. OK, so it cost a bit extra to have them sent, but I saw this as saving on the bus fare to the main post office.

These professionals sent me only some of what I ordered. I emailed to demand the rest I’d paid for. The automated reply suggested I should expect to wait five weeks for a reply. I emailed back telling them to get their skates on. They apologised and sent me some stamps.

Not all of them, obviously. I wrote back. Had another offer of a five week wait. I mentioned the skates again. They sent some more. Not all of them, obviously.

And so we went on, until my order had been fulfilled. The lovely thing about stamp headquarters is that they sell to philatelists, so wrap every stamp very nicely and well. That’ll be why they charge extra. This way, I had beautifully presented – albeit in short measure – stamps every time they posted some more out. That must have cost them a lot, in the end.

It was with this in mind that I really didn’t want to bring Jane Austen up at the local PO. Nor did I want to renew my email correspondence with those incompetent professionals up north.

One solution is to send no post. I suspect that far too many of us already do this (don’t do this?), and that’s why they are going under. My old postal heart is bleeding, but what can I do?

The Talent

I don’t watch talent programmes. Can’t stand them. I’m also becoming wary of too many dystopias, so an ebook that combines the two wasn’t going to be at the top of my shopping list. But since it’s that very busy bee Philip Caveney who wrote The Talent, I decided to give it a go. Published a year ago, you can see how long I’ve taken getting started, but I had my reasons.*

Set in Manchester some time in the not too distant future (a parent character recalls going to the kind of concert we have today), people are hungry and poor and live in crowded conditions, sharing flats with strangers. Tobacco and alcohol are illegal, and corruption is rife. Joining the Army is almost the only guaranteed job, but a very bad one. Police brutality is a daily possibility.

Josh plays the guitar, and caterwauls his own songs on the roof of his block of flats. His grandfather believes in him, and now that Josh is old enough, he will try for The Talent, the television programme the whole population follow avidly. If you win, you have a future.

If Josh didn’t get in, there would be no story, so it’s no spoiler to say he ends up taking part. I won’t say too much about what happens, but Philip has added all those things we already worry about, or can see are happening, and this makes his future vision a very realistic one. I can see all this coming, rotten tomatoes and everything.

Not quite totalitarian, but close. Many of the characters are stereotypes, but I believe that’s what makes this effective. We already know these people. We see them on the news and in the talent shows today.

The plot has several interesting angles apart from the competition itself. Is it rigged? Will they fall in love? Is Josh’s MIA father dead? What to do about Holly’s father? Can society even survive?

There are some surprises, and some fun solutions to the problems. Mostly it’s simply an exciting story about musical talent and honest behaviour.

And it’s not only the dystopian future that Philip has portrayed accurately (as we see things today). One of the characters says that he ‘could eat a horse.’ I wonder how he knew?

—-

*Somehow I had mixed in some of the ingredients from the Hunger Games with this book. To put it bluntly, I was under the impression that anyone who didn’t sing well enough was likely to be shot. Or something like that. Not tempting. Sorry to be such an idiot. (And now that I have done all the silliness for you, you can just get on with the reading.)

Bookwitch bites #101

Who wants books when they can have videos? You do?

OK, I will let you have book related video clips, then. With real live authors. Who to start with? I know it’s usually ladies first, but let’s get the boys out of the way. Just to get them out of the way.

That Lemony Snicket chap hasn’t given up yet. He has more weird books coming our way, and someone is about to tell you as little as possible about the next one. It’s what’s known as a leak. (No, not that kind of leak!)

http://www.egmont.co.uk/lemonysnicketleak/

Our second boy is less secretive. We can actually see what Neil Gaiman looks like as he talks about his new book (October in this case) Fortunately, The Milk… which is a book about milk, as well as many other silly things. Third boy, Chris Riddell, is doing wonderful illustrations of interstellar dinosaurs to go with the milk.

Moving on to the girls, we have Julia Skott, who will have her first book published later this year (and it has just struck me I don’t know in what language…). It’s non-fiction and it’s about bodies and health. Julia is the daughter of a Swedish journalist and a Russian academic, which is why she sounds like this when she speaks:

http://juliaskott.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/video-bokangest/

Someone who sounds pretty English and also pretty involved with saving libraries, is Fiona Dunbar, being grilled by someone on Sky News (who seems a little anti-library). Very brave of Fiona to venture into a television studio like this. Some of us would have seized up completely…

Finally to our last girls, who are not on video. There is a brand new blog featuring the life and works of Joan Aiken, run by her daughter Lizza. I wasn’t surprised to find a very early story by Joan on there, in facsimile. She clearly had the story-telling gene working right from the start. It’s about a teapot, and Satan. Obvious choice, really.

Joan also has a facebook page now. Please like!

Darcy’s puddle

Couldn’t help noticing there’s been a lot of Pride and Prejudice stuff everywhere. I’ll pitch in with the famous puddle, now that we supposedly will be flooded again. This swimming pool is more elegant than the one at the bottom of the Bookwitch garden.

But strictly speaking I’d say the stretch of water in the photo is a similar distance from this – slightly larger – house, although I daresay it’s not all rain water.

I would like it to be summer again. Or spring. Something with sunshine and a little warmth, and less of the H₂O from above. I won’t absolutely require Colin Firth to make an appearance, but if he did that would be perfectly fine.

… and rock ‘n’ roll

This week we’ve mentioned the sex, and the alcohol. That leaves the rock ‘n’ roll. Wine, women and song. All bad stuff.

There’s so much music in novels these days. Perhaps there always was, and I’ve been deaf and blind. Adrian McKinty (yes, him again) puts lots of music in his books. Sergeant Duffy listens to a wide repertoire. He’s a bit of a show-off, that Duffy.

In Adrian’s YA novel The Lighthouse Keepers, which I’ve read but not yet reviewed, the young main character raves about music. Not so sure he’s not too precocious in his musical taste, but never mind.

Might be an Irish thing? When I first ran into John Connolly – outside the Ladies, before an event, and before he knew who I was – he pressed a CD into my hands. I gather he listens to a selection of music each time he writes a book, and those tracks end up belonging to that particular novel.

I added John’s favourites to my iTunes, and every time a track I can’t identify pops up on shuffle, I can be certain it’s one of his. I only added the CD because it contained a Lee Hazlewood track. I used to be a great fan.

A Jodi Picoult novel from a couple of years ago also included a CD. I passed the book and CD on to someone else, while making sure I put the tracks into iTunes first. I like them a lot.

It can be inspiring having an author’s choice of music for when you read. But what if you don’t like the music that helped them write? If every time the characters play their favourite tracks, you just can’t stand the music? Would you rather do without it?

Rather like when you find out which actor inspired someone’s character. If it’s the ‘wrong’ actor, you’ll have to quickly re-imagine them as someone you’d prefer. (Nobody tell me their heroine was inspired by that Keira woman! I’d have to burn your book.)

Music is an age thing, too. Adrian – again – is the wrong age for me. He doesn’t pick the music I listen to, nor the stuff forced on me – I mean, made available to me – by Offspring. I have a whole decade, that’s been almost completely blacked out. (When Son did a GCSE project on a decade in pop music, he was given the 1980s. Naturally. And we could offer no help.)

It’s not only the music behind a book, or the albums enjoyed by a fictional character. The whole book can be based on music. Obviously. Recently Son translated extracts from a couple of music based novels written by a Norwegian author. That was 20,000 words featuring an opera and all the backstage stuff. Luckily it was a made-up opera, so it ended up being less of a fact checking nightmare.

And we get YA books about pop groups, and wannabes. With the current talent programme epidemic on television we will probably end up with many more of them. It beats vampires, though.

Although having said that, I seem to recall that one of Anne Rooney’s vampires played in a band.

And Elvis lives.

Twelfth Night miscellany

Gargle.

One has been awarded the Gargie Award. It’s rather ugly, but one takes what one can get. It’s for outstanding services in one’s field, or some such thing. (One doesn’t actually know what a field is.) Thank you, dearest Gargoyle.

I really wouldn’t have minded getting a new dress for the occasion, however.

Bet Sally Gardner had a new outfit for the Costa award do. Bet she looked great. I would also like to bet that Sally will win the whole Costa, but I don’t know how to. Bet the Resident IT Consultant doesn’t want me to find out how to bet.

No betting needed as regards Mrs Pendolino, who achieved grandma status on New Year’s Eve. She feels very awarded, and I would too if I could cuddle a red and wrinkly baby like the one she held in her arms. Congratulations to Miss Pendolino, who did the hard work. (Note to Offspring: No need to copy Miss P just yet. One red, wrinkly, adorable baby is quite enough.)

It’s Twelfth Night. (I know you know that.) If it wasn’t also Borgen night, I’d be tempted to watch Twelfth Night, just to feel all cultured and proper. As it is we will go Danish. I have spent just under a week assisting Daughter in her catching up on season one of Borgen, just so she can watch it with us. You need some Danish in your life.

How noble

Beware of marrying someone who stands a chance of being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics! That is, if you don’t feel like having the King of Sweden as your dinner partner at the Nobel dinner. Reverse my advice if you do. (And by the time Crown Princess Victoria is Queen, you will probably need to win the prize yourself. Unless we start getting a few more female scientists.)

I need to mention that you can’t ever expect to win a Nobel Prize. Nor can you apply for it, and there is no queueing system. Countless books mention the happy outcome of a Nobel Prize as something the really outstanding will eventually receive. Most clever people – even in books – are never quite that outstanding.

Just thought I’d dash any hopes. Hence my suggestion of marriage. Choose well.

There is so much happening in Sweden on Nobel Day (10th December) every year. Prize ceremonies. Dinners. Everything televised. Followed later by interviews and round table chats with the winners, who always turn out to be not only intelligent, but witty and fascinating company.

My pesky GP Cousin (after all these years, still four years my senior) seems to share my fondness for the round table chat. When we were last together in December some years ago, it’s what we sat down to watch on television, in the middle of his dinner party. That’s when he worried that the Grandmother might find this far too complicated to follow. That’s when I told him she’s a Physics graduate so no need to worry.

But, anyway. Here in exile we miss most of the fun. And then I was chatting to Swiss Lady on the phone the other day. She explained how she’d managed to get most of her Christmas baking done in the peace and quiet when GP Cousin was in Stockholm. I agreed it’s always good to ‘get rid of’ the boys every now and then.

As an afterthought she mentioned what he’d been doing. My ancient cousin had worked as a wine waiter at the Nobel dinner.

And he thinks I’m crazy for doing my bookwitching…

Arthur

I confess I’d forgotten about them. And that we had so many.

How could I forget the wonderful Arthur books? I know I said only the other day that Arthur brings me out in a rash. But I meant that other – serious – one. Today I’m on about Arthur the Aardvark. I’d not forgotten about him at all. Just the books. Because he’s a television star. Him and little sister DW and all their friends.

It was a throwaway comment on facebook about Arthur a while back that made me realise I’m not the only intelligent (cough) adult who is a great fan of the best aardvark on children’s television. Any television. Of all aardvarks, come to think of it.

So many adults came forward to chat about species and Binky Barnes, etc, that I can only hope there are also children out there who like Arthur. He can’t be just for us oldies? Actually, Offspring – the junior version – liked him a lot. Like, even. I suspect it’s one of the few programmes from back then that we would all happily sit down and watch together and enjoy.

But as I said, there were the books. We have lots of them, I discovered, when I’d dispatched the Resident IT Consultant into the attic for something else. I think I bought so many in order to tempt Daughter into reading. We were just wanting to bridge that gap between thinking about it and actually reading.

We have sticker books and picture books and early readers. And I happen to love them as much as any child. Even today. There is a lot of wisdom in there, especially from DW (who is not something you grease stubborn locks with, although I do get confused about this). Arthur’s neighbourhood is full of interesting characters, and in the American way, it’s a mix of people from different backgrounds. Rich, poor(er), aardvarks, bunnies, colours, brains.

Great stuff! I hope I never grow too old for Arthur.