KEV67

Tell you what, that Iachimo seems like a very ill bred fellow. Notwithstanding, I would not want to fight him with anything more deadly than my fists, because he might be good.

Don't think so, but say what you think.

I have only started reading the actual play, although I have been reading the introduction. I don't want to put it down for Anthony and Cleopatra.

I did not find the opening scene particularly easy to follow. I gather the king is annoyed because his only daughter married a commoner rather than his stepson. I would have thought that was a dangerous thing for a commoner to do. I am surprised he could find a priest prepared to conduct the ceremony.

I went to two in Reading today. I went to English Martyrs Roman Catholic church this morning. Not exactly what I was expecting. The congregation was very multi-cultural. There was a lady cantor who led the singing. The young priest was Irish. At least I did not need my reading glasses, because it was all up on monitors. There is a plaque to Hugh Faringdon on the outside. He was the last abbot of Reading Abbey, who was hung, drawn and quartered following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. However, I don't think I will go there again. In the evening I went to St Mary's Castle Street Church. I think this is Church of England low church. The Lord's prayer went 'Which art in heaven', not 'Who art in heaven', or even worse, 'Our Father in heaven'. In the creed it says, 'He (Jesus) descended into hell' rather than 'He died' or whatever they usually say at other churches. The bibles are King James version. The Book of Common Prayer had not been modernised. The sermon was about thirty minutes long about two sentences in Matthew 16, regarding the Saducees and the Pharisees. We had to pick our way through a number of unsingable hymns and psalms. This is what a proper service should be like. I do not like participating in the Eucharist. In evening services, I do not think there usually is one. Even better, at the St Mary's church, they only do the Eucharist the first Sunday of each month. All the other Anglican churches in Reading seem to do the Eucharist every Sunday. Thing is I want to explore more of the local churches. There are a couple more Roman Catholic churches. I have already been to one where they do Latin mass, which I might go to again, but they have masses every day. Then there are two or three Methodist churches of various flavours. Then there are the Baptists and the United Reform churches. I think I will give the Seventh Day Adventists, the Pentecostalists and the Quakers a pass. However there is a local Salvation Army church and an independent church, which does not appear too wacky. Then there is a branch of the Christadelphians, who I think reject the Holy Trinity. I have already met the local branch of Unitarians. You can count them on your fingers, and they rent a room once a month at the local hippy centre. The problem with them is that they don't actually believe anything. They are wary about committing to any belief in case science proves them wrong. There is also a Mormon church in Reading. I do not actually regard them as Christian, but I might poke my head in.

Cool

I have started reading the introduction, although I won't get very far into the introduction before it is time to start reading the play. It has a fairly modest score on Goodreads, only 3.57. One of the reviewers said it was one of the easiest Shakespeare plays to read.

I have bought my copy of Cymbeline. It looks like quite a long play. My copy is from the Arden series. I often like the introductions in that series more than the actual plays. I think if I can finish Sagittarius Rising soon, I will start reading the intro.

I was thinking 1st August.

Cymbeline then.

I will give a choice: Cymbeline or Anthony and Cleopatra.

How about starting a Shakespeare read-along in August? Who is in? I know lunababymoonchild is. Which play do you fancy or not fancy? Personally, I do not want to read Macbeth (did it for O level), Richard II, Othello, Midsummer Night's Dream (read them in the last three years) or Hamlet (want to save that for later). I am open to all the others.

I watched the 1935 film adaption of Midsummer Night's Dream. Some of it looked good. I thought James Cagney and Mickey Rooney were good, and whoever it was who played Oberon. Other bits bored me, especially the play within a play at the end. Does anyone one want to do a group read along in, say, August?

Some say Boris Johnson was too convivial But the charges against him were trivial Still, the death toll in Iraq was considerable And Blair's justification was equivocal

I thought this was very good. It messes with your mind. It was written or published in 1969, but set in 1992. Some aspects seem a lot more fantasy than science fiction. For example, telepaths and psychics, not to mention people capable of changing time lines: they are very improbable. I was intrigued Philip K. Dick thought there would be moon bases and travel services to the moon, but that people would still need call boxes and paper money and coinage, although that was true for 1992, just not so true now. The other big technology innovation described in the book was cryonic suspension. Dying people were put in containers of liquid and somehow their brains were hooked up and kept alive, but in a shadow world.

Do you think Noddy and Big Ears were homosexual? Laurel and Hardy shared the same bed, but they also had wives in some films. I heard Ernie and Bert off Sesame Street were a gay couple, but was that always the case? I remember them from the early 70s. I don't think they were out then. Morecambe and Wise also shared a bed, but in one episode, Eric Morecambe tells Ernie that having Peter Cushing following them around all that time would be inconvenient because he has a date later that evening with a woman who's a raver. In one of the Christmas specials, Ernie Wise dressed as Mark Anthony attempts to leap on Glenda Jackson, dressed as Cleopatra, with obvious lust.

Is this the one that won the prize? Someone I follow on YouTube said the Walter Scott prize winner was very good this year.

Is it actually astonishing or can you guess what's going to happen?

Good summary.

Thanks for that. I have read one or two, but about forty years ago. It seemed like ancient history back then. I think I read Thunderball, but I do not remember it being much like the film. The oddest thing to me was that Bond seemed almost devoid of personality or charm. Connery and Moore had wit and charm in their different ways. Even George Lazenby had some charm. I will have to read one of those Ian Fleming books again. I was surprised to find out what Ian Fleming was doing in the war. He was hatching cunning and ruthless plots. I read about one which did not come to fruition. They were going to fill a captured German transport plane with commandos and crash land it into the sea near to a Kriegsmarine ship. When the ship's crew rescued the commandos, the commandos would kill the crew and steal the radio encrypting equipment. Good God! Edit: actually it was not Thunderball; it was Moonraker. I put Moonraker first, but then remembered it was nothing like the Roger Moore film where they were up in a space station. I seem to remember they had to dive to get to a nuclear bomber that had crashed in the sea, which seemed more like Thunderball, but Wikipedia says that is a film script.

This week I have mostly been listening to Tears Go By by Marianne Faithful. I like the oboes, guitar playing and that big drum (or is it a double bass). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-efIjZ_1yQg

She's an American booktuber on YouTube. Her videos are like lectures on Regency life. She is so good.

I still want to read one of Ian Fleming's James Bond books. I am sure I read one or two when I was younger and I wasn't that taken with them. I found him a bit dull. He smoked too much, drank too much and did not take enough exercise. He drove a Bentley blower. I got the impression he did not look after himself or get married because he did not think he would live very long. I might read a Jeffrey Archer book. I have been prejudiced against him because he was a Tory and a crook and he was unfaithful to the fragrant Mary Archer. However, he has written a lot of bestsellers, so maybe I should see what he is like. I have seen Mary Archer once or twice. She was president of the Solar Society, who are concerned with photovoltaic solar panels and renewable energy.

American books: suppose I should read some Toni Morrison. I am not enthused, but I suppose it should. I might have a crack at Villette by Charlotte Brontë; see if my French is as good as hers. Then I might have a go at Paradise Lost. That is after I have finished Crime & Punishment and the two last Barsetshire books. Then I might read Les Miserables and try and work out why this Google AI likes it. Then there is the Forsyte Saga and something by D.H. Lawrence There are still too many books.

One thing that always irritated me about The Martian was that the Martian sand storm that made the crew take off and leave Mark Watney behind was not scientifically possible. Andy Weir admitted it himself, but could not think of a better plot device. Later on in the book there is a Martian sand storm and Mark Watney hardly notices. Well, I thought of a better contrivance on the train to work today: There is a comet or asteroid heading for Earth. There is a 99.9% chance it will miss, but 0.1% x 7 billion people is still 7 million people's worth of risk, so the POTUS orders the crew to take off and nudge the comet/asteroid out the way. I don't know why they had to leave Mark Watney behind, but that's a detail. I watched Andy Weir on YouTube say that while he was publishing his book online, readers would give him feedback, saying what bits of technology were feasible or infeasible. Do you think it's too late to make my suggestion?