Random Jottings

Getting a Grip

Am now determined to Get a Grip.  Kathryn off to Australia and now I can concentrate on getting back in the old routine.   More on this tomorrow, just taking it easy today.  Have posted over on Random Music if anybody wants to have a read and will be getting back to Random with a vengeance in the morning.

    

In the meantime, here is a picture of Bury cathedral taken on a recent visit for your delectation and delight.

The Lady of Sorrows - Anne Zouroudi

The Lady of Sorrows is the fourth in the series of 'The Greek Detective', Hermes Diaktoros a wise all seeing, all knowing visitor who arrives at the island of Kalkos where a famous icon of is housed in the church of Our Lady of Sorrows.   She is venerated and revered and has been on the island since 1863, when drowning fishermen were shown the way to safety by a vision of the Virgin Mary.   She is not, however, Greek but Russian so how did she come to be here in this out of the way place?   Hermes feels that the icon is a fake and calls upon an old friend to confirm his suspicions and to hand the matter over to the authorities until the island's icon painter is found dead at sea with his grandson half drowned beside him.  On the face of it a natural death, after all the painter Sotiris is an old man with suspected heart problems, but the Fat Man is not convinced and he decides to stay on Kalkos a little longer to see if he can find out the truth.

I simply love these books. I have read and reviewed the previous titles, the Messenger of Athens, The Taint of Midas but not it appears The Doctor of Thessaly (seems I did not write about this title , not sure why but hasten to add that I thought it was excellent) and now the latest which I think is the best so far.  I mentioned in a post earlier this month when I was looking at the books of Alistair McCall Smith and Donna Leon how the background and setting is so vital for the enjoyment of these books and I feel the same with those of Anne Zouroudi.  All with a Greek background, obviously, and it is clear that the author has a strong love and attachment to Greece.  As with Leon and Venice, we have a strong central character who we are getting to know and love with each book, we see him in beautifully described geographical locations and then, the food....oh how I love the descriptions of the food!

"Enrico had prepared papoutsakia, little shoes - aubergines filled with garlic rich meat sauce, baked with a cheese topped bechamel.  A salad of tomatoes and red onions was dressed with virgin olive oil and sprinkled with ferns of fresh dill.  There was a half loaf of still warm bread.....and a bottle of cold rose"

"The fat man had breakfasted on purple figs, yoghurt and honey and a slice of moist almond cake"

"...on the platter was a fish; a large red snapper charred in dark stripes where it had rested on the barbecue grill, its eyes baked white, its fins and skin crisp.  Arragedc round it on the platter were four quarters of lemon.  The fat man stood up from his chair, clapped Ilias on the back and hugged him"

See what I mean?  Doesn't that just make your mouth water?

But please don't think these books are all about scenery and food, they are not.  Hermes Diaktoris is a bringer and dispenser of justice, his origins are mysterious and he seems to bow to no higher authority.  The Guardian says  that he is 'half Poirot, half deus ex machina, but far more earth bound than his first name suggests....Diaktoris is a delight".

I am not about to argue with this description but my feeling is that Hermes is slightly less earth bound than this comment states.  "I am not a policeman.  There is no police force in Greece which would hire me. My employers are higher authorities".  

 The fat man comes and goes and seems to have no residence, no permanent abode, but vanishes once justice has been done and wrongs righted.  He is full of warmth, understanding and humanity as well as humour and is a wonderful creation.  I fell in love with him in the very first book and look forward to each one with huge anticipation.  I hope Anne Zouroudi keeps writing these for a long time to come.

Oh and by the way - Hermes is the Winged Messenger of the Gods.

Just a thought.....

Random Ramblings on Sunday

Well I said that Random might be sporadic for the next week or so due to daughter being with me before jetting off to Sydney, but I was hoping to find time to post until Friday when, once more, I was struck low with some violent stomach bug, the physical manifestations of which I will not subject you to, and am completely wiped out.  I was ill with a virus about a month ago and can only assume that I am under the weather generally for my succumbing to these illnesses. Normally I am of rude health.

So I am here at the laptop very shaky and wobbly but feeling humanoid again. I have managed to have a shower and wash my hair and that has made me feel better, but had to have a lie down afterwards to recover.   Kathryn is with me tomorrow and I think we will just spend the day lolling around as a projected trip to Cambridge is not on, but hopefully Tuesday I will be better.

I have only been able to read very light stuff the last few days and you will note from the list on the left of this post that I have been reading quite a few of the mystery novels of Georgette Heyer.  I have avoided reading these for years so devoted am I to her Regency stories but pitched into them a few months ago and have now read the lot, courtesy of a friend who loaned me her collection.   I am very glad to have borrowed them and not bought them as, fun though they are, they are very variable in content and plot and some of them are rather silly and preposterous.  Of course, the problem with reading them all in a batch is that you can see patterns emerging and certain types of character appearing and you begin to get the sense of who is more likely to be the culprit than others.  She has a repeating super cool sarcastic man about town who pops up in most of the stories who is acutely irritating and I will admit that by the time I had read the last one, the stories had lost their charm.  They are still well worth reading though, just because they are Heyer and I think she is a good writer, and because they are of the 1930's crime genre which is my favourite, but I think that she would agree that they are not up to her usual standard.

I read two of them last night when I awoke at 3am totally unable to sleep so gave up the attempt and settled back with them.   Kept me going until 5.30 am when I finally dozed off.

As I have headed this post up Ramblings I now turn to a totally unrelated subject.  Was intrigued to read in the paper on Friday that a film is to be made of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre. As many of you will know I have recently started reading this author's work and am hugely impressed by it and have also been a fan of the BBC series of the aforementioned, plus Smiley's People for years so I will be most interested to see if they will be able to recreate the claustrophobic and menacing world of The Circus as portrayed in the novel.  According to the press:

"Gary Oldman is in negotiations to play the breathtakingly ordinary George Smiley, the anti James Bond in a big screen version of.......Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender and David Thewlis are in early discussions about playing other vital roles in the film, about a Soviet mole at the heart of what Le Carre called 'The Circus' - the secret intelligence service MI6.....the detail of the social, class and political layers of Britain were in the seven part BBC drama and those who have read the script have been equally impressed at how he has managed to put the heart and essence of Le Carre's classic into the screenplay"

We shall see that is all I can say.  I am an admirer of Gary Oldman but doubt anybody can do it better than Alec Guinness. 

Ok that is it folks - ramble over and I am going for a lie down as writing this has finished me off again.  Oh dear....

The Nation's Favourite Aria

Radio 3 have been featuring this over the last few weeks and the final ten have just been announced. Have just posted about this over on Random Arts so do nip across and check it out.

The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg

This is the third I have read by this author featuring Patrik Hedstrom, a local detective based in Fjalbacka.  He is now a proud father and this adds extra poignancy to his grim task to find out who murdered a child both he and his partner Erika knew well.

Before we go any further I wish to mention the translator, many of whom may get overlooked when a book is reviewed.  His name is  Steven T Murray and HarperCollins must be very happy with the brilliant job he has done.  There is an argument that it can be difficult to judge whether a book is really good because we are not reading the original which I think is a fallacy.  Bad writing, no matter how excellent the translator and translation, will always be bad writing - nothing can dim good writing and the combination of Mr Murray and Camilla Lackberg is a partnership which I hope continues.

By now the reader will know the regular characters in the police station at Fjalbacka:  Inspector Meliberg, Patrik's superior yearning after a return to city policing and eager to take credit for any cases solved by his junior colleague and allowed to show his more human side here;  Ernst Lundgren lazy and careless who would prefer spending his days playing computer games than actually solving crime and Patrik's competent and able partner, Martin, sidelined by Meliberg out of sheer contrariness.

The parents of the dead child live with the maternal grandmother, Lilian, a sharp tongued and spiteful woman engaged in a never ending dispute with her neighbour Kaj, who has built a new house next door to her bitter resentment.  He has an autistic son, Morgan, who spends his days in his room working on his computer and suspicion and gossip begin to point to him as the possible murderer, particularly as he had seen and spoken to the child on the day of her death.    His condition has caused stress and estrangement between his parents, Monica and Kaj who now lead totally separate lives neither of them knowing how the other spends their time and this is crucial to the unravelling of the chain of events which lead to the murder.  I really don't want to say too much as I might give away a clue to the eventual outcome and this book is too good to be spoiled in this way.

The reason for the title?   Camilla Lackberg uses a familiar narrative ploy of running two stories alongside one another, the current murder investigation and the story of Anders Andersson, a stone cutter from Stromstad in 1923.   The reader knows that somehow his story is linked to the death of the child, Sara, but this one certainly could not fathom out why and kept me intrigued right to the end when the link and the murderer is unmasked.

I have reviewed this author's previous two books, The Ice Princess and The Preacher and enjoyed them very much, but this one is the best so far and I feel that Lackberg is hitting her stride with this series. I very much look forward to the continuing story of Fjallbacka and The Stone-Cutter ends with a real cliff hanger prepping us for the next instalment.

Can't wait...

Tuesday rambles

I feel as if 2010 has really been a topsy turvy year so far.  The joyous arrival of Florence and becoming a grandmother is, of course, so marvellous and wonderful and I simply cannot get over my total besottedness with this tiny little baby.  Then my lovely mother died, as you know, and am finding this very difficult to come to terms with.  Then in two weeks time, Kathryn, is off to Australia and will be gone for a minimum of four years.   So a lot to contend with and my ups and downs have been reflected in Random.

I am off to the station in a bit to collect Kathryn who is now in Colchester for two weeks before flying off to Sydney.  She is finding it all very emotional saying goodbye to her friends and colleagues in Leeds, where she has lived and worked for fourteen years, and now has the leave taking amongst her family to face.  It is going to be hard and I am going to miss her quite appallingly, but parents cannot hold their children back and I have always tried to be a supportive and loving mother who wants the best for her children and who has encouraged them to fulfill their talents and abilities.   A stiff upper lip is going to be called for and it is likely that Random will be sporadic again for a week or two.   I am almost looking forward to Kathryn's departure and it is done with so that I can sit and be quiet and sort myself out and try and get back to my routine as I very much dislike being at the mercy of events.  Just call me a control freak....

Every time Kathryn stays with me, she ends up sneezing and snuffling and eyes swell and go red and we have come to the conclusion that it must have something to do with all my books and the dust they inevitably attract.  Regular Randomites know full well that I loathe housework and will do anything to avoid it.  I don't live in dirt and squalor, I keep my flat clean and my kitchen and bathroom are spotless, but I am not a fan of hoovering and dusting and, while I may have built up an immunity to my own personal dust mites, Kathryn has not.  So on Sunday I spent most of the day taking my books off their shelves, dusting and cleaning them and wiping down surfaces and re-shelving.  This was very good for me as it made me tidy up said volumes and rearrange and generally have a sort out.  I ended up with a pile of books to go to charity shops etc as I was quite ruthless and cleared out those which (a) I bought ages ago, never read and know I never will (b) have read and know I will never read again and (c) duplicates of which I had quite a few.

By the evening all was neat and tidy, boxes of discarded books neatly tucked away in a corner until I can deliver them to my chosen charity, other boxes with review copies in which I sort out and pass on to those fellow readers and friends I think would like them and all was gemutlich.   Today, I got the hoover out. Yes, I know but mothers make these sacrifices for their children and I could not have Kathryn hacking  and coughing away while she was with me.   Hauled it out of the cupboard in which it dwells, dusted it and off I went.  I went through the flat like a dose of salts loathing every single moment. If I was not careful the blasted thing attached itself to curtains and rugs and attempted to suck them up and it was determined to trip me up as often as it could manage as I turned and twisted under the beds and round the cupboards, getting into corners and behind furniture. By the time I finished hauling it around I was hot and tired and in a thoroughly bad temper.  I don't mind dusting, or cleaning out the sink or even ironing but  hoovering  really drives me mad.

Still, it is done and the flat is now as dust free as it can possibly be.  I remember years ago seeing Quentin Crisp being interviewed on the TV. He lived in a tiny flat in total squalor and said he never dusted because 'after five years nobody notices the difference'.   This struck me at the time, and still does, as a comment of remarkable commonsense....