No doubt you are as surprised as I am by the beginning of this post. But I feel that until she was criticised for her grammar this past week, I have been fighting – or thinking about – a losing battle. Me versus I.
I remember noticing this in the 1970s, when studying in Brighton. Not sure whether we actually learned this (but I would like to think we did), or if my gut told me how it ought to be. Because I did notice when my landlady Mrs G used ‘I’ instead of ‘me’. I didn’t mind. I just found it fascinating to see what I’d learned, in the wild, so to speak.
My retort has always been, that if you say ‘for my husband and I’; if you really can’t see why it should be ‘me’, that you get rid of the husband, and then see how you feel about your sentence.
David Cassidy (and I never thought I’d hold up this US heart throb as a leader on grammar) used to write a column in teen magazine Fab 208, and one time he reminisced about a girl from school, running after the other children shouting ‘wait for I’.
Told Daughter about this the other day, and she was first astounded and then very grateful. She had been taught this ‘I not me’ at school and never liked it. But if the teacher says so…
And now I have seen it very sensibly in print, in this week’s New Statesman newsletter, making it worth every penny of the subscription cost. Thank you Nicholas, whoever you are. And maybe Kingsley Amis too. Also Shakespeare.
I’d planned more of a celebration today. But time isn’t always under our control, and I dare say that I can remember my mother’s birthday without any fuss.
It’s been six years since I read Ellen Renner’s Storm Witch; the book where there is a brief flash of an almost sacred memory from my own childhood, something that gave me back what I hadn’t realised I’d lost. Now all I need to do is revisit that page, in my mind, and I’m back there.
(This is my mother’s bougainvillea. She had it for more than 25 years, and it’s now been with me for even longer. The lampshade in the background also belonged to her. It’s the one she only bought one of… But that’s another story.)
We drove the wrong way to the Golden Lion. (Let’s call it a dry run.) As I was decanted from the car, I noticed the bus stop was busy with people, and suddenly they all crossed the road, leaving behind a lone piper. Those were the VIPs on their way to the Bloody Scotland launch.
Following them in and up, going into the ballroom to steal a chair to sit on, I got there just in time to see director Bob McDevitt sort of falling off one, making me worry about mine. When I was seated, blogger Lizzy Siddal came up to chat, and I’ve clearly been coming to these launches too many times, as I knew to grab a couple of programmes for us from the box behind me on the bar.
Publicist Fiona turned up with Val McDermid, the star of the day, and ushered her into the ballroom. Wondered if the tall man I saw mingling was ‘my’ Georgian from last year, and when his wife joined him I concluded I was right. They seemed to remember me too… And yes, I’ve really been coming too many times when I can recognise the back of the Waterstones bookseller.
These days when sponsorships of book festivals is a bit of a sore point, I welcomed hearing the names of those sponsoring Bloody Scotland. Thank you! Bob spoke very briefly to introduce this thirteenth crime weekend, which starts on Friday 13th [September]. Tickets for sale now!
Before collecting Aunt Ochiltree at the front entrance, I put my borrowed chair back, right behind Val, who seemed to be sitting on the chair that almost unseated Bob… I explained my presence behind her back. Once Aunt Ochiltree was sitting down near the front, with Val still occupying ‘my’ spot, I found myself a new back row seat.
This year’s taster event for Bloody Scotland was ‘the majestic Val McDermid,’ talking to Craig Robertson about her new book Queen Macbeth, which is a sort of re-telling of what we have learned from William Shakespeare, and better than the history lessons in school. A thriller, but not a crime novel. Those three women are not witches, but her friends. Real women, who did all the work while the men went to war.
Val reminisced about a hotel venue burning down just before an event on Queen Macbeth, ending up doing her talk practically on Shakespeare’s grave. Then there was the burning of a banqueting hall, but that might have been in the book…
There was to be no medieval ‘forsoothery’ in her book. But herbs. Ginger. Mary Beard is a useful ally for checking the likelihood that ginger could have grown in Scotland back then. Or sourced when visiting the Pope in Rome. And they knew how to dose opium correctly. She’d like some for her back surgery next month.
The Q&As brought up important stuff like whether Karen Pirie is a bumbag or backpack kind of person, and how old Allie Burns will be in 2019. No, Val doesn’t want to go on to 2029. She quoted P D James on ending Dalgliesh early enough that she wouldn’t die mid-book. And Val has given her name to an award, despite not being dead. Television or film for Queen Macbeth doesn’t matter, as long as the book is still the best.
Say what you want, but events like these are a safe bet to bring Aunts to. Especially if followed by afternoon tea. In fact, there is something very useful about daytime entertainment of this type. We foraged for tea, as our US guests queued up for a McDermid autograph in their freshly bought book.
He’s been twice now, the Resident IT Consultant. And by that I mean the Outer Hebrides. The Inner ones have always been a little easier to access. Even I have been to some of them. And I know not to pronounce them as Daughter’s Swiss colleague did; He-Brides. But we do like that version.
Anyway, when he returned home the first time, the Resident IT Consultant did so bearing book for me. Mairi Hedderwick’s An Eye on the Hebrides, An Illustrated Journey. And it is gorgeous. I believe he found it in Ullapool, which is both logical and likely. When I wanted to buy a copy for a friend, I managed a click and collect here in Stirling, but it seems that was their very last copy, so I don’t know what anyone else is supposed to do.
Mairi made the journey in 1988, spending six months driving around every last island in an old camper van, with a bike on top. Having met her, I’m not surprised by any of this, but I might have been if I’d not. And being her, Mairi obviously created wonderful art wherever she went, of the places she saw and the people she met. She’s good at meeting people.
Physically brave – by which I mean she happily suffered uncomfortable trips on boats, etc – and good at seeing the humorous in most situations, Mairi has produced the most wonderful travel ‘blog.’ My copy is the third version from not very long ago, and the early facts and figures have been updated each time, so you can see how the population has gone up, or down, and then maybe again in whatever direction it needed to go.
There is no way of summarising what Mairi did, and as I said, she went absolutely everywhere, even to St Kilda. All the illustrations are a work of art in themselves, but I especially love the one from Barra where you can see the view through the house, to the other side. That’s the kind of house – or view – that I want.
When Sweden enjoys a national holiday, and I dream of green cake.
Screenshot
The Resident IT Consultant gave me a crime subscription, starting with a novel where the female character discovers she’s married to a murderer. Which is absolutely nothing to worry about. (It’s the British Library’s Crime Classics collection, as introduced by Martin Edwards.)
So, that was book one at breakfast. The second book turned up just after lunch, and I did wonder how fast they thought I could read.
In between those two books, he delivered me to the Book Nook for elevenses with some of the authors from the other week, making good on our promise to meet up soon again. No green cake, but a rather acceptable cupcake. And then there might just have been another one. Twenty purple tulips, a Moomin badge and an emergency birthday card, followed by much chat.
Like is it all right to have ketchup with your food, even in fancy restaurants? (Yes, it is.) Should one like Earl Grey tea, and from what age, and does it taste of soap? (Yes, earlier than that, and no.) School buses. The awfulness of. And is it therefore OK to drive the worried to school? (Yes, it is.)
When the Resident IT Consultant had walked enough, I gathered up my tulips, hugged and left.
After an interval, there were Offspring and Dodo. More tulips. After some Earl Grey – yes, indeed – with a slice of [brown] ginger loaf, we went back to the same street as in the morning, where a few doors down we gorged on Indian starters. When we were full, but not too full, we squeezed down some sweets as well. And tea, but the masala kind. No soapy Earl Grey.
I’m a purist who feels birthdays should be full of cake and stuff at home, but I have to say that this eating out, and more than once, is winning me over.
The first book is waiting. Except the Resident IT Consultant is taking me somewhere…
I should have taken my own advice and left while the party was still fun.
Although, if I had, it wouldn’t have made any difference to what’s happening in the book festival world now. And it’s unbelievably ugly. It will probably get worse.
And I used to think it was just that ‘my kind’ of books were no longer published.
I would like to think that authors and others involved in the book trade are quite good at reading and understanding words (unlike, say, the people supporting the 45th president). Far too many people have signed a list against, well, is it against Baillie Gifford? Or is it actually against book festivals, and those authors who haven’t signed the list?
As some sensible writers in the media have pointed out, they picked easy targets; those who would care, and then stand back. At first I thought why don’t the festivals stand firm and refuse to be intimidated? But as someone said, if they are threatening the festivals, then visitors to those festivals are potentially in danger. So they ‘had to’ do what the signatories to the lists say. Give up the ‘dirty’ sponsor money. Or else.
This will presumably mean the end of festivals, at least as we have known them. Which is the same result as if they had ignored the list from last August, warning that the signing authors would never darken the doors of the festival ever again.
With ‘friends’ like these, who needs a sleazy government slashing funding?
The Baillie Gifford statement was extremely well written. Can those on the list see and understand what is being said?
As someone pointed out, the sponsor money will be spent on something else. The climate is not being saved while the books world is being savaged. And as for the situation in Gaza and Israel, maybe it’d be a worthy sacrifice to have no literature, if only these lists threatening book festivals in the UK could put a stop to the atrocities.
Will I attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival at its new venue this August? (Will Salman Rushdie?) All it takes is some nutcase to take it upon themselves to set things right, and they needn’t even be anything to do with the list-people at all. The idea is now out there. And the people of Gaza will most likely be no better off.
(I speed read through the names on the list. With very few exceptions, I’d never heard of them. But that makes little difference. The threat is out there.)
There was a ‘John Wayne’ moment in Adrian McKinty’s latest Sean Duffy novel. The seventh by my reckoning, and a long awaited return. I mainly note it because whatever Duffy’s faults in the past, I’ll admit this came as a surprise.
But other than that, it was good to be with Duffy again. The 1990s have just begun, and will it be a new and bright future? Well, with hindsight we know what we know now.
Duffy is on his way out, but is dealing with a double – or is it triple? – agent. They can be hard work, but then, it’s probably a nerve-wracking occupation, if you think about it. And there is a missing traveller girl, and no one cares all that much. It’s what happens to such people, seems to be the general consensus.
I did half sort of see the ending coming, but it was none the worse for that.
I’ll be interested to see what a new Duffy might be like. And I would like for him to be published in the UK too. This one seems to come only from across the Atlantic. Do we really care so little?
I’ve heard about Linda Sargent’s project Tosh’s Island for a long time now. It’s nearly ready to be published, by which I mean you only have to wait until October…
Tosh is sort of Linda, but perhaps not 100%. With the assistance of Joe Brady and Leo Marcell, and obviously David Fickling Books, Tosh’s Island is a graphic novel, based on Linda’s own childhood and adolescence in the Kent countryside. I am hoping for the graphic equivalent to Linda’s Paper Wings, which I loved.
I grew up reading comics, but read very few now, because I find them hard on the eyes. But Tosh looks so approachable that I can only say I expect no technical issues there. Can’t wait!
The Occasional Bookwitch 