Random Jottings

Domestic Ramblings

Another one of those busy weeks and I am off to London for a couple of days so all in all, time is short.   I have had a domestic time painting my bedroom for starters. Had not been done for some time and was really grubby. I did my usual faffing about with tester pots galore and then winded up picking something on the spur of the moment.   I decided in the end on a paint called Cornflower White thinking that it would be a white paint with a dash of blue in, well you would wouldn't you?  So a tad surprised when it turned out to be a pale blue-grey, where the white came into this is beyond my comprehension.  Am thinking of writing off to Dulux and asking them just where WHITE features?  Still, I decided to stick with it and now that it is done, it looks rather nice and with gleaming, gloss paintwork it looks good.  I used to climb up ladders to paint ceilings but no more thank you,  and I invested in one of those long pole thingies with a roller on the end which worked like magic and did the ceiling in 15 mins flat.

I took three days to do the room and ended up sleeping on the sofa bed one night surrounded by detritus and furniture from the bedroom. I do hate having the flat in a mess.   Anyway all done now, just touched up the ceiling this morning where, no matter how hard one tries, the other colour gets on it in little dabs. New curtains up, new throw for bed on its way and then I will add colour with some cushions etc.

And then I turned to my next big project - having the flat carpeted.  Have been saving up for this for a few years and now that my painting projects are all done, this is the next to be done and after dithering and faffing, again, I picked a nice neutral carpet and that is being laid next week so two more days of total disruption. Oh how I hate it but I know it will be worth it in the end.

Now in the middle of all this the radiator in my bathroom conked out. Gosh I know you are saying to yourself, Can this Post be any More Exciting?  I guessed the heating element in it needed to be replaced and this threw me completely as the last time it went I had an electrician see to it for me, but decided that it was time I Got a Grip and did it myself. So off to B&Q and found what I needed and came back. Got out the instructions and came to a grinding halt as I could not get the nut holding the element in to shift one iota.  In the end my neighbour came in with a huge spanner and a tin of some gunk that greased the nut and after about ten minutes we got it loosened and out gushed all this disgusting black water. Luckily, I had put a basin underneath.   Put the new element in, wired it all up and then switched on flushed with success.  Nada, nothing.   Left it an hour and then asked another neighbour, an electrician, if he would check it for me and yes the wiring was OK, he tested it with some electric thingy and yet nothing happened.  Decided to leave it and then re-read the instructions.  And what did I see at the bottom? DO NOT TURN ON THE THERMOSTAT BEFORE PUTTING WATER INTO THE RADIATOR.  Yes, you have guessed it I had forgotten to put the water in.....

So off this morning to get yet another heating element having totally buggered up this one and back I came and out came the screwdrivers again and off I went.   Did it stage by stage and filled it up and switched on, sat back and prayed and EUREKA success, it started to heat up and is now chuntering away merrily.   OK it cost me twice as much as it should have because of my stupidity but I feel very pleased that I now know how to do this myself and when my neighbour said I had wired it up very well, was inordinately proud.  The thought did cross my mind that it would be nice to have a man around to do this sort of thing, but then recalled that I used to do it even when I did have a man around so stop moaning....

In the middle of all this domesticity, I have been collapsing on the sofa at regular intervals with the Reacher books of Lee Childs as you can no doubt see from the blog.  I have them on my Kindle and I am really really enjoying them, pure escapism and will be writing about them all later.   I am also reading The Flowers of Evil by Simon Acland, the sequel to his first novel The Waste Land and will be posting about that in due course. In between read That Woman by Anne Sabba, yet another biog of Mrs Simpson, Duchess of Windsor which is immensely readable and got through it pretty quick. This was tied up with a doco on TV about some newly discovered letters of Mrs S which certainly make for interesting reading.   Again, more of that later.

Then last night I listened to the Hooray for Hollywood Prom on R3.  I had applied for tickets for this but was unlucky, I gather it sold out in four hours, which really made me cross but that is the luck of the draw. Great concert, though I felt it really only got going in the second half with a stonking rendition of the Serenade from The Student Price with lush orchestration and choir which brought the house down. It is on BBC this week and will be recorded by me for all posterior and will be tremendous to watch.

OK Boring post over - London for the next two days, to see Florence, meet up with a friend or two for fun and frolics and will be back on Thursday evening.

88 Killer And the Winners are...

I have now made the draw for the giveaway of 88 Killer and the names randomly drawn out of a hat (well, ok I wrote them all on a large sheet of paper, spread it on the floor, closed my eyes and stabbed with a pen four times...) are as follows:

Sheila Beaumont

Adele

Annabel

James

Could all of you contact me through my email addy on Random and let me have your postal address. I will forward these to Oliver who has promised to personally sign and send a copy of 88 Killer to each of you.

Thank you to all of those who took part, I am sure there will be more giveaways in due course and those of you who did not win, what can I say except Get Thee to a Bookshop and buy.....:)

Hurricane Irene

I do hope that all of Random Regulars who are in the line of Hurricane Irene are all hunkered down, tucked up and good to go (sorry these are some of the phrases in the press) and that all will be well and you will all be safe.   Have been reading on line papers this morning and there seems to be a feeling in certain areas, that the press are hyping Irene up out of all proportions and the emphasis seems to be on New York only.    One Tweeter pointed out that while the world was watching New York, other parts of the East Coast, less high profile were being hit already, and badly.

Problem is that it is The Big Apple that could be hit and we have all been weaned on movies such as Independence Day, 2012, The Day after Tomorrow et al in which we have seen New York hit with apocalyptic waves/aliens/ice storms - you name it, it has been done and it is rather hard to realise that there is a real possibility that the City could be hit in such a filmic way.

Also, we are deeply aware of 9/11 and the trauma suffered by NY - so perhaps the press can be forgiven for going inter hyperdrive, and let's face it, better to be safe than sorry.

BUT Wherever you are on the East Coast, stay safe and if you have electricity and can get on line, then hope you read this and do drop by and leave a comment.

The Whispers of Nemesis - Anne Zouroudi

It is an early autumn day here with a fine, drizzly rain and a feeling of summer disappearing over the horizon, I have been blackberrying and generally a feeling of the seasons changing and the onset of winter not too far away is creeping up on me.  I therefore feel it will be good to review The Whispers of Nemesis which is set on a hot, sunny Greek island and try to forget the dark nights ahead.

I have read all of the so-called 'Greek Detective' books by this author and thoroughly enjoy them. This is the fifth and, as I have come to expect, well up to standard, beautifully written and such a wonderful feeling of place and character.   Hermes Diaktoris arrives at the tiny village of Vrisi on the island of Seftos, where a coffin is unearthed and broken open and it seems that the body inside is that of a pig, not that of the famous island poet buried several years previously.   There is talk of witchcraft and the devil's work but the truth is more prosaic, a story of lies and deception.

It is a poor place to visit:

"The island was no siren, no draw for crowds of visitors. Long, flat and featureless, its unremarkable landscape and an undistinguished history with no mention in the myths of ancient times nor any references in the guidebooks of today. Set on a wide and sweeping bay which gave no shelter, its town was ranged like a battalion, with trades men's premises and stores all at the centre and commonplace houses on either flank.  Behind the town grew acres of medler orchards, whose old trees blossomed, at the appropriate season, into an attractive pink; but the market for medlers was never better than slow..."

Hermes or the Fat Man as he is described, turns up when there is a mystery to be solved, a wrong to be righted, and punishment meted out to the sinner and, in many ways, he reminds me of Agatha Christie's Mysterious Mr Quin who turns up when least expected, and acts as a catalyst to the ensuing events.   In an earlier book when his status is challenged his reply was that he comes from a higher authority, one who we never see, but the feeling is that he is sent by the Gods from on high.  It is all slightly mysterious and a bit fey at times, but there is nothing whimsical about these stories - they are full of pragmatism and practicality as is fitting for the poor, hard working farmers and shop keepers we meet.   Hermes is kind and loving to those who do good and who try their best, but implacable when it comes to the charlatans, the fraudsters, the cheats and the liars and in the end they all get their come uppance before he mysteriously departs.

"He looked the fat man up and down, admiring his cashmere overcoat in midnight blue, his grey suit with its subtle stripe, his waistcoat buttoned over a pale blue shirt.  The fat man's owlish glasses gave him an air of academia and his greying hair, though in need of cutting, was thick with curls; he placed his bag between his feet, drawing the shopkeeper's attention, as he did so, to his white shoes"

If you have yet to discover these wonderful books, I really do recommend that you give them a whirl - I am sure you will be charmed and delighted by them and I list below links to those I have reviewed earlier on Random.   I am currently working my way through the Reacher books of Lee Childs, set in various locations in the USA, have also read Camilla Lackberg's books set in Sweden, read the last Wallander book a few weeks ago and then 88 Killer set in New York.  I have also been revisiting the Montelbano books by Camilleri which I now find I read on an annual basis, set in Sicily so have certainly been around the world with my detectives.   Ahead of me lies Norway, Rome, Iceland and many others to discover, but these stories set on the Greek Islands, which I have always loved ever since I read The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart and then holidayed on Crete, are amongst my favourites and I simply love reading them.

The Messenger of Athens

The Taint of Midas

The Lady of Sorrows

88 Killer by Oliver Stark - GIVEAWAY!

I reviewed 88 Killer a week or so ago, here, and raved about it as I did his first novel American Devil which I thrust into the hands of anybody who I could grab and persuade to read. I remember getting so enthusiastic about it in Waterstone's in Colchester that a reader actually put it down and rushed out of the shop - she obviously thought I was a bit weird....

Anyway, Oliver has very kindly offered up FOUR, yes FOUR, copies of his latest thriller for all you lucky Random Readers and he will also sign them personally and send them anywhere, so this is not restricted to UK readers only.  I want to spread the net wide and so does he.

So all lovers of thrillers and crime fiction please enter now by putting your name in the comments column. I will draw the names of the winners next weekend.

Go on, you know it makes sense......

Bits and Pieces Week

I have been running around all week and hither and thither and grabbing a chance to read when I can.  I feel I need to take up commuting again as it seems more restful.  Only kidding....

First part of the week I was taking care of my neighbour's cats as they were away for a few days. This was the first time I had done this so, though no problem with the cats as I love them all, there are four in case you are wondering, it would be sod's law that something would happen on my watch.  The two elder cats are Fraggle and Moomin. Fraggle was so disgusted with being left in the care of an incompetent he stalked off into the woods at the back of the flats and that was that. Moomin, a lovely little ginger cat, is such a delight. Then there is Monty, a black, svelte cat who appeared out of nowhere about six months ago, scrawny and thin and miserable and decided to stay. He is now a sleek, healthy cat with a shiny black coat and is so affectionate with us after his nervous start.  He is solid muscle and when I picked him up to cuddle him I felt like I was holding a baby panther.

Main problem was Purdey a simply gorgeous little tortoiseshell teenage cat who is being kept in until all her shots have been given and she has been neutered which will take place this week. She had twigged that leaping up onto the kitchen work surface was the way to get out the window and she tried to escape three times, with me managing to grab her just in time.  She is very mischievous and I had visions of calling out the fire brigade to get her down from a tree.  In the end they hopped in and out of my window and I fed them in my flat after feeding Purdey on her own and she sat looking mournfully out of the window.  I felt really guilty.

Then later on in the week a call from Helen to ask if I could come up and take care of Florence who had not been well and had to stay at home and not go to nursery so I motored up on Thursday evening with the rain simply carting down. Had one scary moment on the A12 when a car overtook me, sloshed through a slick of water and threw it all over my windscreen so that for a second or two I was totally blinded. Knew I had a car on my tail so could not brake and just drove on until it cleared - felt a long time I can tell you.

So up early on Friday and taking care of Florence all day and by the evening came I was shattered and she was back to normal, anti-biotics had worked and she was bouncing off the walls and I was a wreck in the armchair. But, oh she is just so gorgeous now, walking so well and confidently, beginning to use proper words and identify objects in her books and generally is wonderful and reduces her grandmother to drooling adoration every time I see her.

Not a great deal of reading then this week though I am working my way through the Jack Reacher books by Lee Childs and am now addicted to them.  I gather it is a done deal that Tom Cruise is going to play him in a movie and really, it makes you want to spit.  I feel this is just another vanity project for Mr C who wishes to show his action man credentials and really he is getting a bit long in the tooth for it now. As I mentioned before, I am a newcomer to the Reacher Party and I find it irritating that a five foot vertically challenged film star is playing somebody who is at least a foot taller in the books, and the die hard Reacher fans are LIVID.

Then I have been watching the final test match and if England win it, and it looks as if they will, then a complete whitewash of 4-0 will be chalked up to this now incredibly, consistent, brilliant team.   This time, rather belatedly, some of the Indian players have given them a bit more of a fight with Raoul Dravid scoring a superb century today and a real tough battle commenced between the two sides, thus giving us  a glimpse of just how close it could have been if only the rest of his team mates had applied themselves.

Once this is over then I feel the summer is well on its way out and I shall miss Test Match Special with its ramblings, its vast consumption of cakes sent in by listeners, Phil Tufnell's humour, the baiting of Geoff Boycott who falls for it every time, and it is all so English somehow and I love it all.

I am painting my bedroom this week, cleared my diary in order to get on with this and it must be done, I have been putting it off for weeks, but I will be dropping in as often as I can, I promise.

Why take the wrecking ball to BBC Four? - Telegraph

Despite showing such apparently high-brow and challenging fare, BBC Four has proved a hit, reaching one in six television viewers every week and increasing its share of viewing by 30 per cent over the past two years. And it achieves all of these things with a commissioning budget of £50.8 million, a pittance by television standards: BBC One, for example, costs us more than £1.1 billion. Indeed, BBC Four is a very cost-effective way of delivering precisely the new editorial priorities that Thompson set just 18 months ago, including “inspiring knowledge, culture and music” and “ambitious UK drama and comedy”.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

Here we go. BBC4 is an excellent channel for those viewers with brains who wish to be stimulated, entertained and given something interesting to watch. I am no purist or intellectual snob (Strictly Come Dancing anyone?), but the BBC sometimes rouse me to fury, well quite often actually.

BBC3 which is the Corporation's so called 'yoof' channel could be axed as hardly any 'yoof' watch it, they have better things to do, but for us grown up please leave BBC4 alone.

Huge Twitter action on this plus Facebook and petitions everywhere. Will the BBC listen? Will they hell.

Latest books added to lists | guardian.co.ukTixDaq

Dame Barbara Cartland, whose romantic novels have already sold over a billion copies worldwide, faced furious allegations of plagiarism, previously unpublished letters that were sent in 1950 reveal. The writer Georgette Heyer accused Cartland of trying to "cash in" on her work and of acting like "a petty thief".

via www.guardian.co.uk

Though Barbara Cartland is mentioned here, I remember reading a Regency novel by another author, NOT la Cartland, and was totally gobsmacked to find a situation, a scene, an event and dialogue lifted direct from The Convenient Marriage. I could not believe that this had got by without anybody noticing. I will not name this author as this person is still alive and still writing and it was a long time ago. Hope this person was warned off.

I am looking forward to this new biography IMMENSELY as I love Georgette Heyer as all you who read Random know

The Vault - Ruth Rendell

The Vault is the latest Inspector Wexford novel. When I reviewed the last one The Monster in the Box, I mentioned that some reviewers had found it a bit sub-standard and my response was that a sub-standard Ruth Rendell was better than others best.  However, this latest one is rather thin on plot and I really feel that perhaps it is time to retire Reg permanently, he is already retired from the force in this title, and seems rather lost and unsure.  It had been mooted that The Monster in the Box might be the last Wexford novel and from interviews given, it seems that he is Ruth Rendell's least favourite character. So why has she written another one?

There is certainly very little new about The Vault as it harks back to a case which took place in an earlier novel - A Sight for Sore Eyes.  I remember this one very well because I found it quite disturbing and feel it fitted better into the psychological thrillers she writes under the name of Barbara Vine.  The ending left me feeling really sick, not a nauseous sickness, don't get me wrong, but the sickness of realising what was going to happen to the main protagonist.

My feeling about using this and adding a layer of mystery onto it for Wexford to assist in solving, is a bit of a cheat and in my opinion, though this book can stand on its own feet (just), you cannot really enjoy it or get the most out of it without reading this earlier title and I recommend that you do. When it was published one of the reviews stated "it grips you from the very first page and has you by the throat until the inevitable, horrible denouement" and I am certainly not going to disagree with that comment.

Inspector Wexford has now retired and he and his wife divide their time between Kingsmarkham and Hampstead and a chance meeting in a street with someone he had known briefly as a young police constable, Tom Ede, changes Reg's retirement plans.   Tom is now a DI and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case. The first thought that came into my mind was Why?  Well, without this there would be no story but it is a rather thin hook to bring Wexford back into the limelight.

A house is being renovated and a basement planned. It is clear there has been a staircase leading down to an underground cellar but it has been bricked up and the only way in is through a manhole outside in the garden.  When the builders investigate they find three skeletons which have obviously been there a long time. Once the cellar is opened up and the police investigate they find that a fourth body has been recently dumped there.  So, did the murderer know of the earlier deaths and decided to add one more to those already there, or was it coincidence? 

Apart from the main story line there is a sub-plot concerning his daughter Sylvia, who is stabbed by her young, jealous lover and I really feel that this could have been abandoned without any problem at all as it adds nothing to the narrative and seems to be there to merely illustrate, as in previous books, how torn Wexford is in his feelings and treatment of his two daughters, Shelia being his favourite and Sylvia the one who always seems to cause trouble.  I always found her a bit of a bore I must admit and  I found this part of the book thin and, to me, it smacked of padding.

I am aware that any comments of mine are superfluous and will make no difference to the sales of this book so I am quite conscience free about stating how very disappointed I was with this story. I was thrilled when it dropped through my letterbox having been a fan of Ruth  Rendell for some twenty years now and having read everything I can lay my hands on by her, and her alter ego Barbara Vine, and this is the first time I have been let down by one of her books.  

I do dislike not liking a book, especially when it is by an author I admire so much but I really think that perhaps it is time for Inspector Wexford to bow out.  And I hate saying that, I really do.

We are No 1!!

 

The final wicket bowled by Tim Bresnan and caught by Kevin Pietersen which finished off the Third Test and made the England Cricket Team No 1 in the world.  What a simply wonderful achievement.  I texted Kathryn who received this just after midnight in Sydney where she was in the Opera Bar with a crowd of friends.  She leapt to her feet shrieking YAY and announced it to all and sundry.

Suffice it to say, it did not go down well...................