timebug

I was brough up to respect books too much,probably, so I never,ever mark them, bend corners or write in them! A bookmark for me is often a slip of scrap paper or a shop reciept,just slipped between the current pages. I actually own a few 'real' bookmarks that have been given to me over time,and i generally forget where I have them, or can't be bothered to look, so long as i have a slip of paper handy!

Strangely cooler than the past few days here, but incredibly humid. You could grab the air and wring it out!

A poweful book, and a powerful film. Grimly 'kitchen sink' in aspect, it is like all 'working class' classics, so very true in its aims and aspirations.

Welcome and good to know you!

Hot and humid here for the past few days. My garden triffids are like others mentioned,impervious to weed killers, so have to be forcibly ripped from the ground and ritually dismembered! I suffer occasionally from sciatica, and during an attack, am unable to crouch or stoop to do the job,so with weather like the recent heatwave, they have dominated my garden! But like others here, I will be triumphant. It just may take a while....

It impressed me when I first read it aged around twelve.Have re-read it a few times since, and although bits are dated, most of it is still powerful stuff!

The Long and Winding Road - The Beatles

A bloke named David from Bangor Could wake up the dead with his snore Although he tried hard,

I do not like awarding books on a 'star rating' myself. Like you, I enjoy most books that I read and find I am only occasionally disappointed.Certain authors have never failed to keep me entertained or engrossed; others,which many of my friends suggest as being 'excellent' leave me cold. I am 'long enough in the tooth' as it were to have no patience with something that is obviously not 'working' for me. In that event, I have set books aside;sometimes I have returned and tried again, mostly I do not bother. If a book fails to grab me or keep my interest, life is too short to worry,and there are far too many good books out there waiting to be discovered!

That surprises me too! But I suppose, if it encourages anyone to read the story,where they may otherwise not look at the book, it is all to the good in a way!

It always annoys me, that in a lot of modern books, (and films/TV) the protagonist is in a sticky situation, and decides to call for help. Only to find that their mobile phone has no signal, or is out of battery! I suppose the older equivalent, was that they could never find a phone box, or that if they DID find one, it had been vandalised! A trope that can work, so long as it is not beaten to death with over-use. I am a great crime fiction reader, and it just crops up often enough to annoy me, which I know is my personal issue,and I can understand the writer using it as a valid point to increase the tension of the scenario, but nevertheless, it does grate after a while!

Yes a shame. They also warned us youngsters off H.P.Lovecraft and M.R.James, who are respectively, the top writers of weird fiction and ghost stories!(IMO) Our school was staffed with ,in hindsight, poor staff. It was in the fifties,and WW2 had claimed some of the cream of the crop, leaving the shabby bunch we had to put up with. We had one good English teacher, who was able to encourage us in the right direction(s) as regards good reading and the classics, and I am always thankful for that!

Rained heavily at one stage on Saturday, Sunday we had a short shower, and today (Mon) so far it is dry but 'threatening'!

I read it as a twelve year old,and have re-read it many times. Poe was considered a 'pulp' writer by some of my elders (and teachers), or a man with a warped outlook on life! I simply enjoy his tales for what they are!

Sunny and pleasantly wrm here on this Saturday morning. But the forecast claims heavy cloud later, and probably rain this evening.

Have you watched the BBC series 'The Hollow Crown' ? The first set,which was 'Richard II', 'Henry IV Pt 1', 'Henry IV Pt 2' and 'Henry V' are particularly good. They are basically the plays of the same name, but with jusicious editing and the removal of certain bits,that do not in any way detract from the power and the beauty of the works. There was a second run, which I did not find as good, even though it included 'Richard III', a powerful drama by any standards. Check them out if you have missed them, they are well worth it.

I had a similar 'meeting' with my cousins grandaughter. She was born a year ago,and with lockdown(s) and safety precautions, I was unable to actually meet her properly and hold her, until about three weeks ago. All our family are now fully vacinated, and it was a delight to hold the baby girl, who is now on the verge of walking, and therefore will only stay with anyone for a couple of minutes, before getting the urge to be mobile again!

Alexander Kents 'Richard Bolitho' series are similar to the Hornblower and Jack Aubrey ones, you may like them. Then the older books by Captain Marryat may interest you, as might the CS Forester stuff, mostly maritime and incuding the well known 'The African Queen'. And if you like gentle humour, set onboard a small Glasgow 'Puffer' try 'The Para Handy' tales, three volumes complete! (a favourite of mine which I have re-read many times!)

It rained during the night here, following a week of glorious sunshine and high temperatures. It is now overcast, but very warm and incredibly humid in our area. Possible rain given for later today,and tomorrow!

Hayley, I cannot read sheet music,although I can work through tablature, given time! Most of our group sheets are just the lyrics with the chords written above the words to show where and when to change. I played every instrument I have ever used 'by ear' and intuition,I guess.My brother in law is a classical pianist, and over the past three or four decades has tried to teach me to read sheet music. I can't. Some form of musical dyslexia I suppose, I start off okay and then it just goes to white noise in my head! Rather like 'A Brief History of Time' which I have started umpteen times,and it begins okay, but suddenly I find Hawking is speaking a foreign tongue to me. There are 'connections' both in that book , and in sheet music, that my brain just fails to grasp. I have been a solo folk singer, a band member of a couple of folk groups, and then a band member in various 'rock' bands over the years. Rock and roll is something (like the blues...my favourite!) that can't be written down or passed on...you either 'get it' or you don't! I suppose to many people of my generation, the Beatles (and the sixties) ruined a passive outlook on music, and made us committed musical fanatics? I love many kinds of music, and a lot of what we play in our group now, I would have considered 'rubbish' as a younger man. But to paraphrase Louis Armstrong, there are only two kinds of music; Good music and bad music! We are what we are, and I am a music lover.

72 but still twenty, if you follow? I dunno where all that time went, but I have enjoyed my life so far, and still have things on my 'to do' list!

I have, since the age of about five, been interested in musical instruments,particularly stringed ones! I had a toy violin when I was about ten, and I could actually coax a tune from it, although it was realistically a toy, rather than a real instrument. I spent almost fifty years finding out the intricacies of guitars, six string, 12 string,acoustic and electric. I learned the (to me) wonderful mysteries of the blues slide guitar; along the way I had played or toyed with bass guitar, double bass, sitar, harp, dulcimer, mandolin, violin, cello, auto-harp, ukulele and Banjo. Following a major illness, I gave away all my guitars and lost any interest in them. After about eighteen months, I got hold of a cheap ukulele and started to tinker with that. I now own five such instruments, two of them luthier built by craftsmen; one cheap and cheerful one to take anywhere with me, one B/U (Banjo-ukulele) and one Resonator ukulele which I built myself. I also run a small uke group, and we amuse ourselves playing music from anytime in the past eighty years or so.And then, trying to work out a particular piece, that I used to play on guitar*, I asked a friend for a loan of one of his guitars, for an hour or so; He gifted me a wonderful classical guitar, hand made in Spain, so I have almost come full circle! I quickly worked out the piece that had been bugging me,and still consider myself mainly a ukulele player now; who also owns one guitar! *Struggled to work out the piece as it involved transposing key(s) and fingering as Uke and Guitar vary in many ways,and I do not read music!

It is the only Dickens that I actually enjoyed reading. I have read (had to read,at school!) most of his works, and this one has a magic that appeals to me, on a simple level. As for his other works....well let us just say, i have read them, and wish I had not!

A colony of bats hanging from the roof of a large cave, start to wake up for their evening flight and search for food. The leader of the colony sees one bat on the floor of the cave, standing upright. 'What are you doing down there?' he calls. 'Yoga' came the reply.

I cannot enjoy anything of Agatha Christies for this reason in itself! I understand why the fans love the works, but they fail for me,as so much relies on coincidence, and repeats itself throughout the work. I read a lot of her books when I was much younger,and liked them for what they were, simple whodunnits with no deep psychological twists and turns; that is now exactly what puts me off them. A self created world, where everyone knows their place, and the surprises, really do not surprise me anymore. Each to their own, if you enjoy them, you have a large volume of work to read at your leisure.