Random Jottings

Random at the Opera

Well I have had a rant this week and a book review so now I am going to have a ramble.

Last weekend I took my eldest granddaughter, Florence, to the opera. She loves classical music and plays the violin and we were discussing opera one night and she said "Grandma will you take me to the opera for my birthday?" I was simply bowled over and said I would love to.

So last Saturday we went to the Royal Opera House to see the Marriage of Figaro.  I had splashed out on good and expensive seats, mainly for my comfort I freely admit. The days of the Gods and the Amphitheatre are long gone mainly because of my arthritis.  Beforehand I had booked us in to the Crush Room for supper. 

It was all wonderful and the staff there courteous, friendly and efficient. I had told them it was Florence's birthday celebration so she got a free drink to go with her meal and when her dessert arrived, the chef had piped Happy Birthday on her plate.  She loved it so much she wanted to take the plate home with the writing on...

And the good thing was that our table was there for the evening so we could leave coats, scarves etc there in safety so no stuffing under the chair or queuing to collect garments at the end.

Well, the opera itself. What can I say? I had forgotten just how funny Figaro can be and the audience were in fits at times. I knew none of the cast as I have not been to the opera for years but it did not matter. They were all brilliant and what is so wonderful about Figaro is that it is like listening to Mozart's Greatest Hits one after the other.  There was one moment at the start of the third act when Susannah and the Countess were singing what is called the Letter Duet, when the beauty of it made me catch my throat and I just welled up. Sublime.

I was so proud of Florence. She was so grown up and self assured and polite and a joy to be with. It is a long opera and I think we were both flagging a bit by the end to be honest and the icing on the cake was that as we left the opera house there were her parents who had also been in London at the theatre, and we went home by taxi. Such a luxury!

A simply wonderful evening and the opera was just, well, glorious.

The Invisible Host - Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning

This latest title by the wonderful Dean Street Press is really intriguing.  And what is intriguing  about The Invisible Host was the introduction in which we read that five years after a film was made of this title  “there appeared a novel by a popular English mystery writer that bore and uncanny resemblance both to the film and the play and the book which inspired it.

The author of this novel is of course Agatha Christie”

And the Christie title which is mentioned is And then there were None, surely one of Dame Agatha’s most well known books.   The question of plagiarism reared its ugly head but a crime writer of the time stoutly defended her saying that Agatha Christie was unaware of the existence of, much less, had read the Invisible Host.  Can we be sure?  She may have unconsciously drawn on it as it is possible that Dame Agatha saw the film which was released in England in 1934.

Of course we will never know but it does put this mystery in a fascinating context.   And if you have read the Christie title, then the setting of the Invisible Host will need little explanation.

Set in New Orleans, eight guests are invited to a party at a luxurious penthouse apartment and when they arrive it turns out that nobody knows who the Host is.   We never see him but only hear him as he communicates with the guests through a radio. I freely admit that I found this device rather clumsy and is a clear indication that one of the guests must be the Host as its questions and replies and interaction between the two parties could not be scripted and depended on events and reactions.  No matter but it is a pointer.

All of the guests are linked, albeit in a tenuous way, and all of them have done something that could reflect badly on them. The Host knows all about these peccadilloes and weaknesses and has decided that they must pay for their actions.

As with the Christie one by one the guests meet their demise in more and more bizarre ways and it is here that I feel The Invisible Host parts company with And then there were None.  In the Christie there is more plausibility and logic. In the Bristow title we have electric doors to prevent escape, poisons a plenty and servants in the kitchen drugged so they cannot help or know what is going on. It is all slightly over the top and overly dramatic and I must say I simply adored it. I read it through in one sitting and then immediately checked and found that Bristow and Manning have more titles available. I can feel my fingers twitching already…..

I don’t think I am giving much away if I say the ending, which I did see coming (but then I have read too many crime stories) is different from the Christie but if you want mysterious deaths and pile up of bodies – there is even a stack of coffins on the balcony for the other guests to drop them in – this is the book for you.

When this book arrived and I saw the names of the two authors, Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, my first thought was “that’s a familiar name” and my mind went back to when I worked in a library in London years ago in my youth, and a novel Calico Palace by one Gwen Bristow was on the shelves and I read it and loved it.   And yes it is the same writer but this is one in a series of Classic 30’s mysteries and light years away from her Out West titles with which I was familiar.  These are now available so I feel my finger twitching...

I simply loved it and Dean Street Press have another winner on their hands.

Random Rant - How to keep warm and save on heating bills...

Time for a Random Rant. First of the year though I daresay more will come.

This morning Ovo Energy published advice on how to keep warm this winter and save on heating bills.

Among their suggestions were the following:

Cuddle your pet - ok perhaps if you have a dog or a cat that will deign to let you cuddle them, but as somebody pointed out on Twitter what if your pet is a hamster, or a gerbil or a goldfish?

Cuddle your children - yeh right. Grab your teenager son/daughter, if you have them and hug them and then wait for Oh Mum gerroff

Leave your oven door open after you have finished cooking and switched it off. They do say that if you have children you must be careful. Yes, all you need is the baby to crawl in...

Wear an extra jumper - now I agree that this is sensible advice. At the moment I am sitting with a pair of thick joggers on, thermal socks, thermal vest, a jumper and a scarf.  I do not need telling.

Do star jumps to warm yourself up - FFS. words fail. I, along with millions of other customers who have received this "advice" have arthritis in one of my knees, my hip and my spine. Star jumps? I wish

Hula Hoop -yes use a hula hoop. See star jumps response above for my answer to that.

Go to the gym.   Again, see my response re star jumps and hula hoop. Oh and by the way Ovo Energy gyms are expensive, yes expensive, and some of us cannot afford it because we have to pay our HEATING BILLS.

When I read things like this I despair. Last year Matt Hancock (remember him?) told us at Christmas we had to keep apart, sit at separate tables and sit Granny by an open window so she would not be infected with Covid from the no doubt rabid family sitting two feet away.  Ok that is fine, just let her die of cold or double pneumonia instead.

What these directives have in common is the bone headed utter stupidity of it all.  Was there not one person in the company, in the marketing department, in the PR department, all sitting no doubt in their beautifully heated offices, who thought "You know what I am not sure this is a good idea?"

There are people who are disabled, lonely, living on their own and worried sick about their heating bills and they are told to do fucking STAR JUMPS?

I apologise for my language.

Actually no I don't.

OK rant over. Ovo Energy have now deleted this from their website and apologised.  Words fail.

PS - I was with Ovo for a few years. They spent most of their time sending me emails telling me they were upping my direct debit as I was using too much electricity.   At the same time I logged onto their app and it told me I was well in credit and all was well.

When I complained, as you know I would, they said "oh it is the computer" so in the end I told them to stuff their computer and moved elsewhere.

The Armourer's House - Rosemary Sutcliff

I cannot think of a lovelier book to start off my 2022 reviews than the Armourer’s House by Rosemary Sutcliff.  I first read it in my teens, adored it, and have re-read it many times right through to adulthood.   It is a joyous glorious book.

In the last couple of years I have discovered the Roman Age books of this author which I never read in my youth as they just did not appeal to me. I preferred the Tudor stories – The Elizabethan Story, Brother Dusty Feet and Simon (not a Tudor but set during the Civil War). I really was not interested in what I deemed the Dark Ages. More fool me but it has meant a late treat when I fell for the gorgeous editions published by Slightly Foxed. Check them out here.

But back to the Armourer’s House.  It tells the story of Tamsyn “she was like any other little girl except that she had one unusual passion: she loved ships”.  She has to leave her family home in Devon and go to London to live with her aunt, uncle and lively cousins and at first she finds it strange and her homesickness makes her unhappy.   But she gradually settles down and discovers a kindred spirit in Piers, who too loves ships but following the disappearance at sea of the eldest son, is now taking his place in his father’s armoury.  Piers is regarded by his brothers and sisters and slightly odd and a bit dull, but he and Tamsyn soon discover their mutual interest in the sea.

During a shopping expedition Tamsyn slips away to watch the ships on the Thames:

“Soon the sails would fill and she would drop down river with the tide. Tamsyn wondered where she was going; to white ports along the coast of the Mediterranean for ginger and sandalwood, or just across the narrow seas to bring back the red wine of Gascony…….

And then suddenly she saw Piers. He seemed to have forgotten the crowds coming and going all around him….he was watching the ship as though the only thing he wanted in the whole wide world was to be sailing with her”

Rosemary Sutcliff is such a wonderful writer. I could quote the entire book for you to illustrate how she conjures up a picture of a place which is so vivid and beautiful that it is in your mind’s eye as you read.  Such a rich texture of language, such beautiful use of words, each one placed so perfectly you cannot imagine it written in any other way.

I have a very old edition of The Armourer’s House published by Oxford University Press. It is battered and the pages are a bit stained but it has a dust jacket and illustrations by C Walter Hodges who is one of my favourite illustrators.   This new edition does not have these illustrations but it has a feel about it.   I know that sounds a bit silly but you know what it is like to handle a book and take enormous pleasure in the binding, the print and the feel of it? Well, this is such a one.

It is published by Manderley Press and I can honestly say I did not know of them but as they are very new I forgive myself. Well I know now. I ordered this as a Christmas present to myself (I am very fond of doing that…) and it arrived in time beautifully wrapped in orange tissue paper to match the cover.  Please check them out here and I have signed up to receive news of any new books in the future.

I love small publishing houses as I find as I get older that my interest in modern fiction, which was always rather luke-warm (I am a Victorian reader at heart) is less and less and I prefer to read books of my youth. But ignoring the fact of my preferences, if you have not read The Armourer’s House, please do snaffle a copy of this and give yourself a treat.

A lovely way to start of 2022.

Happy New Year everybody.

2021 Reading - Part Two and Book of the Year

As I mentioned in my earlier post on 2021 reading my non-fiction this year has been pretty low as I have sought reading matter that has not tested the little grey cells to any extent. Just getting by was my mantra over the last twelve months.

But though they may be few, I have enjoyed them so here they are and those I have reviewed I have linked to my posts.

Traitor King - Andrew Lownie.  The author disagreed with me on my view, ie that though the Duke of Windsor is, by all criteria, a traitor he did not think so. Too selfish and egotistical to think that he had done anything wrong. We had a lively twitter exchange.

Faber & Faber by Toby Faber - this history of the publishing house is sheer delight and it was lovely to meet Toby who came to the Felixstowe Book Festival in 2021 and gave a witty and amusing talk.

George V - Jane Ridley.   Having loved her biography of Edward VII I could not wait to get my mitts on this and gosh it was good.  A simply excellent portrait of a king who most people view as dull and stupid.  I became really fond of him after reading this. A good man in all.

Diaries of Chips Channon - Volume 1.  I am currently working my way through Volume 2 though heaven knows when I will review it as it is over 800 pages and I am only up to page 350... Superbly edited by Simon Heffer.

Other non fiction enjoyed but not reviewed.

Elizabeth and Margaret - Andrew Morton. A chatty gossipy book about the relationship between Her Maj and her sister who I have always felt got a vicious beating in the press.  Despite all the ups and downs their relationship was strong and Margaret was intensely loyal to her sister.  I always rather liked the way she thought Oh sod the lot of you.

Nureyev - Juliet Kavanagh. A re-read of this after seeing the film based on his life, White Crow.  I remember thinking what an utter shit he was after my first read and I see no reason to change that opinion.

Only Happiness here - Gabrielle Carey. A "biography" of Elizabeth von Arnim which I found rather tiresome as the author made it all about her and her depression and struggles and linked it with EVA. It went to the charity shop.

Kaiser Wilhelm John Rohl  I wanted a life of the Kaiser but rather balked at The One recommended which is two volums and massive so I read this instead.  Concise and interesting. I will try The One sometime. I think.

The Artful Dickens - John Mullan.  A super book. I love Dickens but despite reading biographies and essays on the author, this book shows up just how much subtlety and wit the reader misses.  I read the blurb, see below, and knew I had to have it.

From Pickwick to Scrooge, Copperfield to Twist, how did Dickens find the perfect names for his characters?

What was Dickens's favourite way of killing his characters?

When is a Dickens character most likely to see a ghost?

Sheer fun.

Princess Mary: the first modern princess - Elizabeth Batsford.   A biography of the only daughter of George V and Queen Mary.  A portrait of a thoroughly nice woman, hard working and dutiful but, I have to be honest, I found this biography incredibly dull. Not sure whether it is the subject or the writing.

I have no guilt about the ratio of fiction to non-fiction. When I first started this blog I was frightfully ernest and made lists of Books I WIll Read and Write About.  I also took up Book Challenges set by other bloggers and got into a fearful flap if I failed to meet the target.  So now I think oh to hell with it, I will read just what I like.   If all my readers come to Random Jottings for erudite and intellectual reviews I am pretty sure by now you have realised you ain't going to get any.

What you will get is a chatty dissertation on books I have thoroughly enjoyed.  On checking my list I have read over 190 books this year.  I am a very quick reader and can read two books in a day if I put my mind to it - which I frequently do.

My book of the year was, until a few weeks ago, the history of Faber & Faber but then along came the Jane Ridley biography of George V and pipped it to the post.  Loved every minute of it.

2021 Reading - Part one

A bleak dreary day today and I am sitting here with a rug over my knees and a hotwater bottle at my back as I ache all over. I always do after a busy time. Christmas was stressful in that right up to the last few minutes of Christmas Eve I did not know whether I was going to see the family or not as they had had Covid and we were taking tests like mad. Finally all negative on the Day so slung everything in the car and off I went.

So now all quiet and a bit of music in the background and musing on my reading year. Not a vintage one as, along with many of you I suspect, life had got in the way and my resding has been of the light variety. Of course you may belong to those who have finally ready Proust, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in lockdown and if you have please don't tell me as it will make me feel inferior...

Glancing at my list it is no surprise that detective stories form the main bulk of my reading. I re-read all of the Bill Slider books by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles and can really recommend them. The mysteries are excellent, the writing witty and funny and the characters are warm, clever and lovable. Best to read in order as there is a story line relating to Slider's private life which develops throughout the series.   I love them and looking forward to the next one in 2022.

Kate Rhodes - her Alice Quentin series are my favourites but she also has a new character, Ben Kitto, and these stories are set in the Scilly Isles.  Still hoping we will get another Alice novel but these are also immennsely readable and so well written.

 

I re-read all the Peter Diamond books by Peter Lovesey set in Bath and love them. The main character is lovable though difficult and grumpy and knowing Bath fairly well helps place them. There are over 20 of them so if you want a nice new series then try them. Again, best read in order.

Jane Casey - I have read and loved all her Maeve Kerrigan books and am madly in love with her male protagonist, Josh Derwent, who is all man and simply gorgeous with it and if the author does not get them together soon I shall burst.   A new book by this author this year and though not a Kerrigan book "sob" was excellent and exciting. The Killing Kind, a stand alone but oh so looking forward to the next Maeve. If you have not read this series you have a treat instore but do read them in order.

E C R Lorac - a Golden Age crime writer and a new discovery by the excellent British Library Classic Crime series all of which I manage to get my mitts on as the BritLib send them to me. A huge selection of authors, not all of whom I get on with, but most of them are well worth reading. Along with Lorac, who also writes as Carol Carnac, I am working my way through Freeman Wills Croft who I love for his detail and minutaie.

Loads of re-reads this year and one of the best was the series of books about the Carey family by Ronald Welch and published by Slightly Foxed. I have written about them before and simply love them.

I discoverd the Malmo mysteries by Torquil McLeod. Scandi-noir and enjoyable.

I have also been reading a huge amount of chick-lit though I really dislike that description. Romantic fiction would be better. A huge amount of snobbery surrounds this genre and I can never understand why. Yes some of them are a bit meh, but that is not confined to romance alone.  Milly Johnson, whose I wish it could be Christmas Every Day I reviewed recently, is lovely and yes sentimental at times, but also funny and witty. Jenny Colgan is my current binge read with a heap of them sitting on my To be Read shelf.  I tend to avoid titles such as The Little Beach Tree Bakery and the Christmas Bookshop but one of my regular visitors recommended her and so I tried one and have since been thoroughly enjoying them.

Not a huge amount of non fiction this year but will be writing about those I have enjoyed in the next post.

Merry Christmas

Random Cookbooks

Do nip over and read this post

should you wish to natch...

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_and_the_great_colc/2021/12/random-cookbooks-old-and-new.html

Current Reading and recently received

Not a great deal of reading going on at Random Towers this week as I have been busy doing various Christmas related things but I am delighted to say that all my Christmas shopping is now complete and I can sit back and feel smug. I don't send cards, gave up years ago so that is no problem. 

Anyway here is Wot I am Trying to Read at the mo.

Get Back - this is the book that goes with the series that is on Apple+ which I do not have. It was produced by Peter Jackson and goes on for hours. Having looked at this book and read the ramblings of John, Paul, George and Ringo I have decided I am not bothered if I do not see it. Some critics have said oh how wonderful to see these creative geniuses at work and others have said zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Let us not forget that Peter Jackson, after a fantastic Lord of the Rings trilogy, then managed to turn the Hobbit into a three part bore-fest so he has form in dragging it out.

But it is a wonderfully produced book and as a fan of the Beatles this does bring back happy memories.  This book was couriered to me one night, pouring with rain and I was cooking supper, when it arrived and it was sent by a marketing company who I have never heard of and have no idea why I was sent a copy. Still, I am not complaining.

Any Beatle fans in the family might enjoy this as a present.

Every now and then Amazon email me and say gosh look at these wonderful books on Kindle for 99p and I zap through them and have a look and usually buy one or two to try.  And if I don't like them well I have not broken the bank.  A few weeks ago I bought the first in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny.

I will write further about them at some later day, but I have now read about five and I am conflicted about them.   All delightful and a lovely setting but they seem to me to be overwritten and some of the characters are a bit of a pain to be honest. I am curiously fascinated by them though and note there are 17 so far.  OK that is a plus as far as I am concerned cos I like a long series but they all take place in what appears to be a murderous village near Montreal and I am wondering how a place can produce so many bodies. A bit like Midsomer Murders where the entire population has been decimated.  If anybody knows this author I would really love to hear from you.

The Pit Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Croft.   One of his early books before he series featuring Inspector French.  A little bit stilted and I feel he had yet to get into his stride but, as with all books by this author, the tiny details are fascinating.  This is the blurb:

"Seymour Merriman’s holiday in France comes to an abrupt halt when his motorcycle starts leaking petrol. Following a lorry to find fuel, he discovers that it belongs to an English company making timber pit-props for coal mines back home. His suspicions of illegal activity are aroused when he sees the exact same lorry with a different number plate – and confirmed later with the shocking discovery of a body. What began as amateur detective work ends up as a job for Inspector Willis of Scotland Yard, a job requiring tenacity, ingenuity and guile . . ."

I agree it does not sound very exciting but, as I said, the intricacies of it all are intriguing.

Jenny Colgan. This author was recommended to me by a Regular Random Reader and my thanks for this as I am reading and enjoying them all.  Some of the titles are a bit twee, The Little Bookshop on the Corner, the Little Beach Street Bakery etc and they are set in sea side villages or country corners and as we read we know this is pure escapism. But you know what? Who cares? I am thoroughly enjoying them and heaven knows we need to escape from the reality of the dismal world at the moment.

Bruno's Challenge - Martin Walker.  I binged on all the Bruno books earlier this year. Set in France in the small town of St Denis, Bruno is Practically Perfect in Every Way, beloved by all the community, brave, handsome, sexy, wonderful cook - yes it can get a bit Yuk after a while but, once again, I wallow in them and really enjoyed them.  This is a collection of short stories, most of them incredibly flimsy and insubstantial and the publishers have clearly decided to gather all of them from wherever they were first published and bung them in a book to keep us going until the next full length one comes out.  Can't blame them really.

I have also been purchasing cook books again. I really don't need them but I so enjoy them. I have been going through my collection as well and will be writing about those over on Random Cooking.

Dark and cold now. Time to light the candles and put the kettle on.

I will be back..

Random Cooking - I have made minestrone soup

Just the day for making soup. Do nip over and check this out

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_and_the_great_colc/2021/12/minestrone-soup.html