Random Jottings

Recently Received

I wondered in the summer if writers and publishers went on holiday but it seems not if the amount of books dropping on my doormat are anything to go by. I say dropping on my doormat, but my postie has now got used to the packages and parcels and if I am not in leaves them in the cupboard in the porch. Getting home from London late in the evening and checking and finding parcels there is a delight I will never get used to.

Anyway, here is a quick run through of recent arrivals and I hope you see something here that might make you want to go out and read.

At the top of the pile another in a detective series set in Florence by Marco Vichi.   I know this will sound daft but after reading the first one in this series which I loved and which I reviewed here, I have been saving these up as a treat and will then have a mad binge one weekend.  Completely barking I know. Lovely covers and beautifully produced.

Night Flower - Sarah Stovell. I reviewed a book by this author in the earlier days of Random, here, and I received an email asking if I would look at a new one and delighted to do so.

Travels with Epicurus - Daniel Klein. Is a rambling little tome on the pleasures of getting old, written while the author was in Greece. Lovely though it is I cannot help but feel if you live on a beautiful Greek island with the warmth and the sun, getting old might be a bit easier but we shall see. I am half way through.

Bad Mother by Isabelle Grey - know nothing about this but seems a newly divorced mother is told something shocking about her family which "unsettles her fragile world".   Sounds good.

Jean Erskine's Secret - DE Stevenson. I purchased this book (yes I do sometimes!) in one of my favourite bookshops, The Haunted Bookshop in Cambridge, which is packed to overflowing with lovely stuff. This is a DE Stevenson which was never published in her lifetime but discovered, along with others, in the proverbial trunk in the attic.   Looking forward to this one.

The Wimbledon Poisonor Trilogy by Nigel Williams. I recently discovered and reviewed Nigel Williams, here, and my thanks to those kind and generous people at Corsair who have reissued these and sent me a set.

Bad Little Falls - Paul Doiron. The third in the Mike Bowditch series about a Ranger in the wilds of Maine. Have just finished this and enjoyed and will review in due course.

And finally The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier. Headless body hangs suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff. This is a French best seller about which I know rien so will let you know how I get on.

I have also received Family LIkeness by Caitlin Davies. This sounds intriguing and I guess by the name that the author is the daughter of Margaret Forster and Hunter Davies so she has an excellent pedigree. It seems from checking that she has already published several books so, once again, an author has passed me by. Will rectify that.

And, now finally, I have been sent a book which has made the Booker Long List. I am not going to identify it because you know how direly I do when I try any of the titles on the list, Long or Short but I am going to give it a bash and see how I get on.

Can't say fairer than that can I?

Random at the Proms - Die Walkure

Tuesday found me dithering about going up to London. I know it is Bryn I thought but can I really sit in the Albert Hall in this temperature I asked myself and, yes I could and I did. But oh my goodness it was like a cauldron in there.  Packed house, not sure how many thousands it takes, but just imagine all that body heat, bad enough on an ordinary day but when the temperature was about 90F outside (I don't do centigrade) and over 100F inside, it was unbearable. How the performers coped is a mystery to me and they deserve a gold medal for sheer stamina.

Right, performance first.   Now I have to be honest and say that though the papers have been raving about Barenboim's Ring, I am not so sure. Oh I enjoyed it and Die Walkure has to be done pretty badly not to blow you away, but there was something missing, for me at least. I think it is because I am not overly fond of Daniel B, never have been and I have never deliberately sought him out as either a pianist or a conductor.  My main reason for attending this Prom was that Bryn Terfel was singing Wotan and I will grab any affordable opportunity to hear him do so.

As I am sure you all know by now I first heard Bryn when he appeared in the Cardiff Singer of the World contest about 27 years ago. He sang the first act aria from The Flying Dutchman and I could not believe what I was hearing. I said then that in twenty years time he would be a great Wotan and when he did his first Ring I would be there to hear it, and I was.   It was good then but he really has grown into the part over the last ten years or so and it is now in his heart and soul.  He is a weak, fallible, tortured Wotan, capable of great love but is also deceitful and full of self hatred.   The one shining thing in his life is Brunnhilde and it breaks his heart to have to leave her at the end of this opera surrounded by the ring of fire. His performance was superb. I adore him.

I am not going to comment on the rest of the cast and the orchestra as the papers have had their say on this. They played superbly well and the cast sang superbly well. I am not sure that I like some of Barenboim's tempi which I found somewhat rushed, but as I learned my Wagner with Reginald Goodall who was notoriously slow, that is hardly surprising. I have heard it done faster but less frenetic if that makes sense, but I am nit picking and overall the evening was wonderful.

There were two issues during this Prom which have made the Press the first one being an altercation between DB and his leader of the orchestra (or Konzertmeister) at the end of Act II. It appeared that somebody in the string section cocked up big time and DB let rip about it.   First of all, hardly the leader's fault; secondly, DB had no business to do anything in public in front of a packed Albert Hall and with the standing Prommers less than ten feet away. Discourteous, unprofessional and downright unpleasant and no matter what he may have felt this discussion should have taken place back stage. Pity the performance wasn't on television so the viewers could have seen his disgraceful behaviour.   Apologists have rushed to his defence citing the heat and it made him 'snap' - yeh well the orchestra were feeling it too and so were the soloists; oh he is a perfectionist and a genius and we must bear this in mind - well, I don't care if you are Einstein, there is no excuse for arrogant behaviour.   End. Of.

OK other event - Nina Stemme who was Brunnhilde, came to a grinding halt in the final scene.  In an opera house there is a prompter, but obviously not here and it was clear she was in trouble and had a memory lapse.   Barenboim did not even turn round or give her a cue and it was left to Bryn, walking over and embracing her in character, who gave her her line and on she went and was fine for the rest of the opera.  Again apologists for Barenboim said it would have been difficult to cue her in when he had his back to her and he probably did not want to turn round in case it made her mistake obvious!    Utter bilge - it was already obvious, she looked distressed and everyone in the Albert Hall knew she had missed her line. We all felt for her and there was an audible sigh of relief when she continued.

The end of the opera saw the audience rise as one for this wonderful performance - I was cheering for the performers not the conductor and good to see Bryn, when he came out for his solo bow, going straight across to the leader, before acknowledging the audience, and shaking him warmly by the hand.   

Now I cannot write a post without trying to inject a bit of levity and, let's face it after five hours of Wagner, a little bit will not go amiss.   First up, I was sitting next to a guy who was dripping and I mean dripping with sweat.   We all were and best just to sit as still as possible but this bloke fidgeted, kept wiping his brow and showing the result on his hands to his wife who put up with it for as long as she could and then when the orchestra was playing a loud bit, hissed at him Will you SHUT UP. He did.   He did not return after the interval which I was pleased about as he had been wearing the most ghastly aftershave.    His wife said to me Oh we have got plenty of room now and can stretch out so we both dumped our bags on his seat, kicked off our shoes and attempted to get comfortable.

By this stage of the evening the temperature was awful and I had the bright idea of using the ice cubes from my drink to cool me down. There were lots of them and I ended up shoving them down my bra and then looked up to find two other women looking at me in amazement. One then said My dear what a WONDERFUL idea and promptly tipped her ice down the front of her dress as well, followed by her friend. I think I managed to start off the equivalent of a Mexican Wave as people down the row started hurling ice cubes about their person.   I must say it helped enormously.

I always find it hard to come out into the real world after Wagner.   To step outside in a warm summer's night with traffic and people and buildings and streets always comes as a bit of a shock. I am surprised not to find a Walkyrie or a God around a corner and the music is in my head and will not go away.

Short Tube ride (thank goodness) to Mile End where my daughter Helen had waited up for me and after a lightening cold shower, bliss, got into bed prepared for oblivion. I should have known. After Wagner I can never sleep, I am too elated by it all and did not drop off until nearly 1 am.   At 6am I heard a giggling and a cry of 'Grandma, grandma................'

Hoyotoho!

Random Teeth

The reason for my disappearance earlier in the week was toothache.   Have not had it since I was in my twenties and had problems with a wisdom tooth and I had forgotten just how horrid it was. It is not a pain you can isolate or ignore, it is right there in your head with its throbbing and aching.   I had discovered a wobbly tooth at the back right hand side. My dentist had told me last year that it should come out as it was no use to anybody but as it was OK at the time I said, if it was all the same to him, I would like to hang onto it as long as I could. Not unreasonable I thought but he wrote a rather snappy note about it on my file apparently which came to light the other day. 'Patient wishes to keep tooth' he had written with a row of exclamation marks.  I did not see him this time and the dentist I did see said that he though my wanting to keep my tooth was a pretty understandable thing to want to do. .....

When I booked an appointment the toothache was minimal but after three days when I was due to go it was getting pretty bad and by the time Friday came I was quite looking forward to having it taken out. Got into the car and off I set to Ipswich. I registered with the same dentist I used to take my mother to as it made sense at the time and I have never changed to one in Colchester as it only takes me about 25 mins door to door. Not last Friday though. Stuck in a vast tail back as I approached a big roundabout on the outskirts of the town. Used to be busy but the traffic moved round and all flowed nicely.  Then they upgraded it and bunged in three sets of traffic lights. Result - chaos. Inched forward, head pounding, jaw throbbing, in pain, windows open as I sweltered. Made the appointment by the skin of my teeth (an apposite expression in the circs) and ushered into the consulting room.    As I had never met this particular dentist before I thought I had better let him know that I loathe the dentist and tend to hyperventilate when in the chair. Our conversation went something like this:

"Just thought I should let you know that I loathe the dentist"

"Now how can you say that when you don't know me?"

"Well I just loathe the dentist"

"No you shouldn't say that, what you should say is 'you loathe coming to the dentist'. You can't possibly loathe me because you don't know me and I am rather a nice person'

"Well I suppose that is what I really mean, yes you are right"

"Good, I am glad you said that"  says he wielding what looked like a rather large pair of pliers

"Yes so am I as you seem to be in the seat of power at the moment" says I with visions of Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier running through my mind.

Anyway, he was lovely and the tooth was plucked out in a moment. Worst part was the injection and said that this was going to sting and be painful as he had to inject into the swollen gum. Managed not to ricochet off the ceiling by dint of clinging onto the arms of the chair until my knuckles were white and then it was all done.   He then warned me that it would be more painful for about another ten minutes and then the pain would start to recede. I went downstairs and collapsed in a chair in reception while I waited for my nerves to settle, the pain to lessen and my hands to stop shaking.    Going to the dentist always leaves me a gibbering wreck.   

Drove home and on the advice of friends, ate bowlfuls of ice cream and then went to bed and woke up the next morning feel drained, shaky and awful. It seemed I had a bit of an infection as well so decided I was going to do nothing and as the Test Match was on and I was able to recline on the sofa and watch us stuff the Aussies, and that helped my recovery enormously.

So thus endeth the Tale of the Tooth and glad I am to feel better as tomorrow I am going up to London to the Proms and will be seeing and hearing a concert performance of Die Walkure with Bryn Terfel as Wotan and that is going to be simply wonderful and marvellous.The gaping hole in the back right hand side of my mouth will all be forgotten.

Staying overnight with my family and Wednesday with my divine grandchildren. Back Thursday.

Au Reservoir.

Unfaithfully Yours - Nigel Williams

I like to think that I am pretty well read and though I do not keep totally up to date with modern authors and I am not exactly au fait with the Booker prize list, I pride myself on my bookish knowledge so when I am sent a book to read and review and I discover that the author has written 16 novels, two non fiction and 17 plays and I have never heard of him I feel rather ashamed.   Such, sadly, is the case with Nigel Williams. However, my thanks to Corsair for offering me a copy of Unfaithfully Yours which I read and hugely enjoyed.

It is an epistolary novel, seem to be reading a few of those at the moment and, as you already know, I rather like this form of narrative as the reader is left to imagine the characters and it is all rather fun. I tend to cast them as though I was filming and it is rather distressing to admit how often George Clooney and Richard Armitage feature in these musings.  Benedict Cumberbatch is a new addition to my Imaginary Rep Company too.

When I first started this book I thought it was witty and funny. And so it is. Elizabeth Price engages a private detective Roland Gibbons to follow her husband whom she suspects of having an affair. Or rather she wants to know who it is as her husband has been having an affair with somebody or other all their married life. Her husband, Gerald, is a successful barrister and, on the face of it, vulgar and loud and crassly insensitive.

Others in the playlist, for such it seems, are Mike Larner a retired BBC producer, a widower whose ghastly wife Pamela died in mysterious circumstancees, Sam Dimmock a bluff and hearty and boring dentist, Mary his wife, John Goldsmith a handsome and popular doctor and Barbara his wife who writes clever novels and despises him.

All of these purport to be friends, to be part of a set, but as letters fly backwards and forwards between them on different subjects and topics it is clear that nearly all of them loathe at least one or two members of their group and seething resentments and lust and love lurk beneath the surface.   The revelations as they come are very cleverly and wittily done and the writing is marvellously crisp and polished. As the story commences and more and more bile rises to the surface and revelations are made, one wonders what is going to come next.   The face shown to the world is not the real one. Take Gerald talking about his wife and his son:

"The wife has been a bit depressed of late. Maybe it's being married to me; but I suspect it might be something to do with the Conrad situation. I do wish he would get a job. Or at least look as if he's interested in finding one. She won't let me read him the riot act and I am forbidden to force his head into the toilet bowl in order to emphasize any points I want to make to the little bastard"

And then later on a letter from Gerald to Elizabeth to tell her he is leaving her:

"I am, I know, a bit of an oaf. People have often called me that to my face......I am trying to be a better person and in this letter I am trying for the first time in our marriage to be completely honest......I thought I was going to enjoy writing this letter but of course I haven't. I can't bear to write any more"

He is never going to be anything but a rather unconstituted male, and some of his letter is still pretty outspoken,  but out of all the characters in the book I rather warmed to Gerald the most which means that Nigel Williams has made me succumb to his rather raffish charm as well.  

By the time I had finished Unfaithfully Yours when everyone, and I do mean everyone, has been unfaithful to everyone else and Roland Gibbons has been caught in the general toils, I realised that really the book is rather sad and painful.   None of these characters have been happy, none have been honest, none have faced up to how they really feel.   In the end they do and there is a rather marvellously vitriolic exchange of letters between them all which is rather wince making to read.   And then I realise that in the end, perhaps it is not so sad after all.  By ridding themselves of the dislike and resentment each of the protagonists look as if they might find some happiness after all.

Witty, funny, perceptive, clever, amusing, sad - this book is all of these things but best of all it is beautifully written and I am simply delighted to have discovered this writer.    Rather late I admit but better late than never.

And Corsair have been even more generous to me and sent me the trilogy written by this author The Wimbledon Poisoner which they have just reissued. Just started the first one and I am hooked already.

I hope you will read Nigel Williams and not leave him undiscovered as long as I have done.

Reading Round Up

Well I am back and apologies once more for lack of posts but have been somewhat incapacitated this week of which more of another time.

With the heat the way it is at the moment I have spent a lot of time in a horizontal position reading. Too hot to do much else, not that I need an excuse and as I am getting a bit behind in my reviewing, here is a round up.

The Sleeper - Emily Barr.   I have read several books by this author and have enjoyed them all.  On the surface one could be tempted to view her work as a bit 'chick-litty'. Some of her covers have featured headless women wandering a beach etc and this can give an incorrect view of what the book is about. They start in a straightforward manner, wife/husband/divorce/argument/setting by the sea/setting in suburbia etc etc and then they morph into something slightly sinister with nasty creatures coming out the woodwork. The Sleeper is the same and I enjoyed it very much.

For a start it is set on a train. Very Christie.  Put a group of characters on a train, all in an enclosed space and interacting with each other, sit back and see what happens. Well a murder is what happens. But in case you are thinking this is a sub Murder on the Orient Express you would be wrong.  Prime suspect is Lara Finch, married to her devoted husband Sam and living in Cornwall. She is bored to tears and realises that she does not love her husband so when she is offered a new job that involves commuting to London on the sleeper train she leaps at the chance.    There is a community of regulars on the train and before long she meets the fascinating Guy.....

An affair follows, then a death and Lara vanishes.   A friend, Iris, does not believe she is the murderer and she sets out to see if she can find Lara and discover the truth.    Iris has her own problems to deal with but by taking on this search and embarking on an adventure which takes her out of herself and out of England, she too finds what she is searching for.

Great read, well written and a real page turner. Recommended.

The Feast of Artemis - Anne Zouroudi. The next in the series featuring the Fat Man, Hermes Diaktoros, the mystery bringer of justice who comes with 'a higher authority' and set in Greece. Oh I love these books. The story is always intricate and fascinating and I love the settings, in villages on the Greek islands which are imbued with heat and hardship and azure skies and glittering seas. And the descriptions of the food!! Oh my goodness, drool, drool......

"Stavroula lifted the covers off the dishes revealing chicken in a walnut and coriander sauce, a salad of lentils dressed with red onion and yoghurt, and a spinach pilatf............for dessert a plum cake. The plums from the tree are sweet and she adds a little cinammon. A little honey drizzled over the top and some yoghurt on the side"

See what I mean?

Wherever Hermes visits he is there to mete out his own particular brand of justice and, in this case, he arrives in Dendra for a celebratory festival and finds a bitter feud between two families which runs deep through the people of the town and causes hatred and misery.   

As always, he is able to bring a solution and peace to the local people and, as always, I loved every word.   

And now for something completely different:

The Promise of Endless Summer. A collection of cricketing articles from the Daily Telegraph over the years and simply fascinating. Well, for cricket lovers anyway.    Some of those written about I know, others I do not, but one and all they are full of interest and humour.

People who play cricket seem to have a wit and style all of their own which seems somewhat lacking in today's current England team with their all purpose response to journalists, their drilling in what they say in public etc.   The days of carousing the night before a match and then turning up the next day and scoring a century are long gone and so have the great characters. But a lovely read.

I was always rather fond of one of our Prime Ministers (and I don't say that very often), John Major, and I think it was mainly because he loved cricket and also had a wife who loved opera. Not a combination one comes across in our Esteemed Leaders - Major was despised by everyone including his own party and I have always felt that he was secretly rather relieved when he lost his final election and could leave No 10. 

In the morning he left Downing Street and in the afternoon was spotted at Lords with a pint of beer in his hand, watching the Test Match.

There is a man who has his priorities right I thought.

We will forget about his involvement with the ghastly Edwina Currie however.......................

Shadows of Justice - Simon Hall

I was going to get this review up last week but was in recovery mode after Wimbledon and then we have just had a nerve wracking Test Match which reduced me to a gibbering wreck.  Having been sitting in the sun and relaxing today, I am finally getting down to this post.

I have read all of Simon Hall's mysteries featuring the TV Detective as he is called, Dan Groves. He has forged a close, if unlikely, alliance with Detective Inspector Adam Breen. I say unlikely, but there is a TV series at the moment called Castle in which a thriller writer is teamed up with a NYPD detective - a glamorous female one of course, so obviously the idea has possibilities. In any case, in reading fiction one has to suspend disbelief else we would spend our time not believing anything and where is the fun in that?

Simon Hall's writing is intelligent and incisive and his plots are well thought out and tight with no loose ends. As with all good detective series there is a running narrative concerning the personal life of the main protagonist or, as in most case, the lack of same. Dan has an on off relationship with Claire another detective and I always enjoy these threads running alongside the main storyline as they add interest and provide extra tension.   In this story Dan finds himself becoming rather attracted to Katrina, a glamorous specialist called in to help which does not go down very well with Claire who is keeping a close eye on him.

Shadows of Justice opens in a court room where we await the return of a jury with a verdict. We do not know what the crime is or who is on trial and the story flashes back to enable us to find out what is happening. We learn that there has been a kidnapping. The daughter of a prominent businessman has been taken and held to ransom and Dan finds himself working alongside Adam once more to assist him in tracking down the culprits and, if possible, rescue the kidnapped girl.

Now I have to be really careful here because it is almost impossible to tell you any more without giving away the plotline and the outcome. I will therefore keep details to a minimum.   What I can say is that the kidnapping has a dreadful effect on the victim and her family and sets off a train of shocking events and leaves the reader pondering on the tricky question of when is it right to take the search for justice into one's own hands, if it ever is.

As always with Simon Hall, I find once started I have to sit and read the book right through to the end and, as always, there is a twist which I did not see coming. I was preening myself on solving the mystery only to find that I was wandering up the wrong garden path......

I have reviewed earlier books in this series by this author, see links below and I can highly recommend them. Best to read them in order I feel so do get started, you have several to enjoy ready and waiting for you.

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2010/09/the-balance-of-guilt-simon-hall.html

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2008/09/evil-valley---s.html

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2010/02/the-tv-detective-simon-hall.html

Wimbledon and now the Ashes

My apologies for my absence.  After I recovered from the nervous exhaustion that always sets in after Wimbledon (all that screaming and shrieking) I needed a day or two to recover and am now watching the Ashes and loving every minute of it.  I promise faithfully that I will be reviewing a book soon, yeh I know, as they are piling up in the corner and looking at me reproachfully.

Went to the beach early one morning this week, Frinton, lovely and deserted and found a nice corner and lay down and basked. Was there for about two hours and was dozing nicely when a voice said 'Excuse me' and when I opened my eyes there was an elderly gentleman standing there (everyone is elderly in Frinton) 'but did you know the tide was coming in?' Shot to my feet to see the waves about five feet away from me. Thanked him profusely, had a bit of a laugh and then off to the car and back home.

Cricket today should be fun. Stuart Broad edged a ball last night and was caught but the umpire, for some peculiar reason, did not give it so Broad stayed in his wicket while the Aussies fumed and steamed. Of coursethey could have called for a review but as they had used them all up and got them all wrong, they were stuck. So a furious debate has arisen should Broad, in the spirit of the game, have walked?   The cricket pundits were as one in saying No, it is the umpire's job to make decisions, not the batsman and this is what the review system is for. If the Aussies had wasted their reviews well, tough.  Even the Australian pundit said the same thing.   As the Australian team have been doing this for years themselves they can hardly take the moral high ground but I expect Board to be on the receiving end of a lot of sledging and a lot of bouncers this morning!

Oh I love Test Cricket. One day matches are fun and exciting but nothing beats the ebb and flow of a five day Test Match.

Back soon.

I promise.

Au reservoir.

PS - I have put the pic of Alistair Cook in for no reason at all other than he is GORGEOUS.

Wimbledon 2013 -final Random word

So it is all over and now the nation can relax. Never again will we chew our nails down to our knuckles, never again will we hide behind the sofa, never again will we feel that awful dawning realisation that our guy is losing and will continue losing, no more the acceptance of defeat, no more the discussion between Sue B et al as to whether Andy will ever win Wimbledon.   Now the chat has turned to How Many more Grand Slams can he win? and so it continues. But he has done it and done it in style and it is a well deserved victory which has arisen out of bloody hard work and determination and he deserves it.

But I cannot let this year go by without making a few comments about the presentation. John Inverdale has put his foot in it this week with his comments about Bartoli not being a 'looker' and womanhood rose as one and had a go at him.  The fact that Andy is not exactly Brad Pitt is never touched upon of course or the fact that some of the male players are not exactly 'lookers' themselves (Cilic and Stepanek to name a couple), but they are men so that is OK.   But if you are a woman tennis player then your appearance will be scrutinised and commented upon and if you are a Tennis WAG then you can expect the BBC cameras to zoom in on you at every opportunity and it goes without saying that all Tennis WAGS are size ten, slim, golden haired, immaculately dressed with gleaming white shiny teeth and hair, masses of it. I gather Kim Sears hair has a Twitter account all of its own.

Shame that John Mac has a contract to comment on the men's final with a US channel as we could do with him in the commentary box for the BBC on finals day. Instead we had Andrew Castle, who I don't mind though I know some people loathe him, Tim Henman with his monotone drone and Boris Becker who is quite fun and at one stage told us all that he 'was getting quite excited'.   We all know what happened the last time Boris got quite excited in a small space..........

The build up to the final was so portentous I had to switch off. We had a VT on what felt like a loop so often did we see it, of the aforesaid commentators telling us over and over again it had been 77 years since a Brit last won a Wimbledon title (OK forget all about Virginia who won in 1977) and we were told that Roosevelt was President then, Baldwin was PM and Edward VIII abdicated. All complete with doom laden music and black and white news reels. We then had yet another showing of a VT of Andy, goes without saying it was in slo mo, the BBC are obsessed with this, and this time we had patriotic type music and a choir. It was totally cheesy, nauseating and totally over the top. If I listened very carefully I could almost hear Dan Maskell turning in his grave and muttering 'Oh I say'.   Dire dire dire.

Wimbledon is the greatest tennis tournament in the world, everyone knows this, but it is time the BBC stopped treating it like an extension of a Queen's garden party with all the slebs in the royal box and the cameras zooming in all the time. 'Oh look there is Posh' cries Andrew, thank goodness he did not point out that she appeared to be wearing her nightie, she spent most of the match on her phone texting; 'Oh Hollywood is here' cries Boris as he spots Bradley Cooper and Gerard Butler.   Wayne and Colleen Rooney were there both looking bored stiff and Anna Wintour, trying to pretend she was sitting on the front row of a fashion show.

WHO decided who gets to sit in the Royal Box and what bright spark decided the Rooneys are worthy of a ticket, or any of the bunch free loading on an afternoon when real fans had been camped out for days in the hope of a ticket.  Most people sitting in the box are not interested in tennis and are just there to be seen or, as in the case of David Cameron, hoping a bit of magic will rub off on his electoral hopes and victory will reflect on him.   Worth mentioning here that local tennis courts in Wimbledon are being dug up and being converted into a local football ground and the Lawn Tennis Association did nothing to stop it so committed are they to finding the next Andy, not.   David Cameron has certainly done nothing particularly of merit for sport but, as with Tony B, he never sees a bandwagon without hopping onto it. The pictures in the paper today of Nick Clegg, Dave et all gushing over Andy at No 10 were quite nauseating.

Ah well, it was ever thus and nothing should take away from Andy's achievement. He now holds two of the four Grand Slam titles this year with Nadal and Djokovic holding the other two. Where are you Roger I cry. After years of dissing and criticising Andy Murray and saying he will never be any good, he has gone and done it and I do hope you watched the match and raised a glass in his honour.

Yeh right.

I love it all and now that I have Sky I can watch tennis all the year round, not just these two weeks, glorious though they are.   Going to have a crack at the ballot for next year again. I gave up applying some years ago as in twenty years of the ballot I never got one ticket but think it is time I went back and saw the Centre Court again. To be sitting watching a wonderful match in this magical arena is simply wonderful. It has an atmosphere all of its own and I want to see if I get lucky for 2014.

New balls please.

What a day - all Hail Andy, Wimbledon Champion 2013

Congratulations to a great and worthy champion

Random Reading Round up

I have been spending most of my days watching Wimbledon in the last week or so, which you have probably gathered by now, hence the lack of posting.  I have managed to read quite a lot in between hurling shrieks and abuse at the TV screen and am doing a round up of these else I shall rapidly fall behind.

The Heist - Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg.   Not sure how much of this is Janet and how much is Lee as the style and narrative and characters are more or less slight variations on the Stephanie Plum books. Don't know how she manages to churn out so many, perhaps she needed a bit of help, hence Lee Goldberg. Whatever. So this is a new series featuring Kate O'Hara, an FBI Special Agent who is obsessed with taking down an international crook Nicolas Fox. He is dashing, daredevil and, naturally, devestatingly handsome. Well she gets her man. Or does she?   Double dealing with the FBI and deals made ensure that Nicolas Fox is now on undercover with the FBI and Kate, again naturally, is the agent assigned to work with him. Lots of fun, lots of daft adventures and lots of heavy breathing between the two of them which will obviously not end up with them in bed until at least book seven in the series, ensure that these are going to be as fun and as successful as the Plum books.

The Memory Key - Connor Fitzgerald.   This is the latest in the series featuring Alec Blume, an American born detective who lives in Rome. These books are not your normal go get 'em detective thrillers. They are more cerebral than that and you need to sit and read and concentrate on them. They are elegantly written with great style and ensure that the reader uses those little grey cells (pace Poirot).    Sofia Fontana is a witness to a killing. The victim is an ex-terrorist, Stefania Manfellotto, who has been involved in atrocities in the past.  She does not die but the bullet has killed the memory lobes in her brain and she has no recollection of the past, and her memory span is minimal.   It is assumed that she was the victim but when the witness Sofia is then killed herself Alec believes she was the original target all along though he has problems ensuring that the police feel the same way. 

One of the suspects involved is Sofia's professor, a man obsessed with the Memory Key and how one remembers information and data.   It is ironic that Stefanie met him regularly and they discussed her politics while she passed on information about her old colleagues and she then loses her memory.

As I said, beautifully written and, as always, a thread concerning Alec's personal life running through the book and we can chart the progress or lack of it, of his relationship with one of the detectives he works with, Caterina. Like most police officers in a series such as this, he is pretty poor in his dealings with those he loves.  Due to be published on 1 August but you can pre-order.

A Killing of Angels - Kate Rhodes.   I read this author's debut novel, Crossbones Yard, last year and really enjoyed it (see my review here).  The heroine of this promising series is Alice Quentin a psychologist who has so many problems of her own I am surprised she is allowed to practice. After her first foray in assisting the police she decides she will not help them again, but of course she does and, in this case, she is asked to build up a profile of a killer who is targeting bankers in the City.   You might think the only good banker is a dead banker and this murderer obviously feels that way as his calling card left by each body is a picture of an avenging angel.

Pacy, engaging and most enjoyable I sat and read this through in one sitting. And, once again, I did not see the end coming or the identity of the killer.   Next time I read one of Kate Rhodes I shall look for the most unlikely, nicest, and seemingly innocent person and target them as the baddie. That way I might have a chance of guessing who did it.

OK that is it for today - more crime thrillers to review next week but for the rest of this Sunday I shall be watching the Men's Final at Wimbledon.   Or I may not. It depends whether my nerves will take it or not. I have strawberries and cream to hand.   And Valium.....