Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello to all

Not having caught covid up until now, I finally did so. A couple of unpleasant days (not even able to read ... ) but otherwise not too bad. Negative test + end of isolation on Saturday, so can go out.

Anyway, I hope you're all OK, all the best to CCC, and as ever happy reading.

Sorry to hear that GP....i am still covid-free and one of a small bunch i would expect, my time will come i am sure!

Reading is going well, with Hunter S Thompsons The Rum Diary, a lively tale of late 1950s Puerto Rico, its my first Thompson read for a long time and impressed so far

In Baghdad Diaries the late Iraqi artist Nuha Al-Radi describes life in Baghdad between the Gulf War and the end of Saddam. Witty, sparky and also very sad as she documents the steady collapse of Iraqi society

AB76 wrote: " Baghdad Diaries..."

Sounds interesting.

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Baghdad Diaries..."

Sounds interesting."

yes, she died quite young and is a very interesting diarist, mixing humour, anger and art

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuha_al...

I haven't been around for a while as I been fatigued since the heat wave and every time I picked up a book I found myself nodding off..
I hope that you are recovered AB, and Gp, Don't you wish that Thompson was still around to turn his keyboard On Trump?

long recovered now thanks Greenfairy...was a dodgy 3-4 days...not covid thankfully!¬

that's good:)

Hello all, glad folks are feeling better 0r soon will be and that CCC is soon able to come back to us.. I am off for what seems like my 99th covid jab this afternoon. Then Thursday to see the surgeon about my hip replacement op. Oh, the joys of getting older!!

Thanks again for the new thread G.

So I went for my covid jab and (75 years old) was asked "are you pregnant." I asked if she had to ask men the same question and she told me, with eyebrows raised, that she was supposed to!

I hope everyone recovers from their various lurgies and other stuff. Indeed, old age is no picnic it seems. Thanks to those who sent good wishes for the imminent birth, we are still in 'awaiting' mode. Though they say that they are being advised to go for 'induction' on Saturday, if the mini-sproglet doesn't get his skates on!.. I'm sure there is a cartoon in there somewhere. We are on tenterhooks... A whole new world, and person, awaits...

Tam wrote: "I hope everyone recovers from their various lurgies and other stuff. Indeed, old age is no picnic it seems. Thanks to those who sent good wishes for the imminent birth, we are still in 'awaiting' m..."

🤞🤞

giveusaclue wrote: "So I went for my covid jab and (75 years old) was asked "are you pregnant." I asked if she had to ask men the same question and she told me, with eyebrows raised, that she was supposed to!"

oh my!

Operation Front Room is concluded, moved back 90% of the books, while jettisoning 8% and relocating 2%(all vague %'s)

Was aghast at such a clearout at first, sitting in a room stacked with moved books,bookcases and other stuff but its all gone ok.

the room likes nice, smells a bit of paint....but finally it looks like home again

off with parents and middle brother(+dog) on a long weekend canal trip on Friday...

AB76 wrote: "Operation Front Room is concluded, moved back 90% of the books, while jettisoning 8% and relocating 2%(all vague %'s)

Was aghast at such a clearout at first, sitting in a room stacked with moved b..."

Which canal may I ask ?

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Operation Front Room is concluded, moved back 90% of the books, while jettisoning 8% and relocating 2%(all vague %'s)

Was aghast at such a clearout at first, sitting in a room stacked..."

kennet and avon, been there b4 many times, did the oxford last time about 5 yrs ago, as kids we always did a canal holiday in october half term

Gpfr wrote: "Hello to all

Not having caught covid up until now, I finally did so. A couple of unpleasant days (not even able to read ... ) but otherwise not too bad. Negative test + end of isolation on Saturda..."

Well, I'm inspired; the pharmacy says that the COVID booster should be available this week. Best of luck.

AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Operation Front Room is concluded, moved back 90% of the books, while jettisoning 8% and relocating 2%(all vague %'s)

Was aghast at such a clearout at first, sitti..."

Lovely area. Have a great time.

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Operation Front Room is concluded, moved back 90% of the books, while jettisoning 8% and relocating 2%(all vague %'s)

Was aghast at such a clearout at..."

thanks

just had a Covid jab in one arm and one for 'flu in the other.
Both arms are aching, but fine apart from that :)

Keep us posted Tam, how exciting!

Greenfairy wrote: "just had a Covid jab in one arm and one for 'flu in the other.
Both arms are aching, but fine apart from that :)"

great idea these are being done at same time

i'll have to wait for the covid jab as i'm under 50 and i dont think i get a free flu jab yet either

i was in the 9th or 10th "tranch" of covid jabs when we all got them and i did find something special about this great NHS of ours, the top floor of my local hospital cleared into a huge room, with ten desks for injections and ten lines of people, ushered in by volunteers. It wasnt quite Lichfield Cathedral(oh to have had my jab there) but both those universal jabs were worth it.

Plus i didnt lift a finger to organise it, two texts delivered to my phone about 6 mths apart with an option to select times and that was that. Some friends and older relatives were having to go deep into the backwoods to a clinic to get jabbed after hours on the phone

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, just published.

This is a piece of well-done popular fiction with a purpose. It starts off light and, you think, forgettable, and becomes both more serious and more comic.

It is the America of the 50s and early 60s. We meet the redoubtable and unsmiling Elizabeth Zott, chemist, whose talent is demeaned and exploited by her male colleagues, because women in general, and women in science in particular, were not taken seriously. She has plenty to unsmile about. (Same sort of territory as Hidden Figures.)

On the first page we are told that Miss Zott, improbably, becomes a hit on afternoon TV with her lessons in cooking-as-chemistry, which in reality are lessons-in-life. Her performances are hilarious and bitter. There is also of course a lot of chemistry of the human kind, and one of the principal characters is a dog.

Was it mentioned by someone here? We were away for a few days and I managed to leave behind the bag with my laptop and books. The place we were staying had precisely one book, this one, and I recognized the title, so I picked it up and started reading. Recommended.
…
Best wishes to everyone ailing/recovering/expecting!

Hello everyone. Just dropping by to say that I've been out of circulation while my mum's been very ill in hospital. I hope all's well with everyone here.

welcome back Anne :⁠-⁠)

Our book club read Lessons in Chemistry and we all fell in love with the dog !

Anne wrote: "Hello everyone. Just dropping by to say that I've been out of circulation while my mum's been very ill in hospital. I hope all's well with everyone here."

Glad to see you and I hope things are much better with your mum.

Russell wrote: "Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, just published.

This is a piece of well-done popular fiction with a purpose. It starts off light and, you think, forgettable, and becomes both more serious a..."

It might have been me, I read it a few months ago and I loved it.

Gpfr wrote: "Hello to all

Not having caught covid up until now, I finally did so. A couple of unpleasant days (not even able to read ... ) but otherwise not too bad. Negative test + end of isolation on Saturda..."

Its good to hear you have got over the worst of it. Thanks for opening this newest thread :)

Anne wrote: "Hello everyone. Just dropping by to say that I've been out of circulation while my mum's been very ill in hospital.."

Hello Anne, good to see you. Sorry to hear about your mother, hope things are better now.

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Russell wrote: "Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus,"

It might have been me, I read it a few months ago and I loved it...."

I've got this, but haven't yet read it — good to hear the praise :)

Hello to all - back from France on Sunday, still feeling pretty shattered (old age) so will - or may - respond to earlier posts later. But for now, just a silly one. I had always assumed that the significant murder rate in Oxford depicted in the wonderful 'Morse' series was a bit fanciful. Apparently not - it's all true! (or used to be at any rate):

Oxford had a per capita homicide rate four to five times higher than the other two cities (London and York). “Oxford is sort of this cauldron of violence,” Brown said, adding that students made up the majority of the perpetrators and victims.

This is perhaps not surprising. At the time, only clerics could become members of the university, Brown said. “These should be single men, young men – the type of people who are more likely to commit violence right up through to today,” she said...

There was no shortage of friction, including between students and town dwellers, and between students from north and south of the Humber. “They really, really hated each other,” Eisner said...

North v South, eh? Who would have thought it? You live and learn!
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...

giveusaclue wrote: "So I went for my covid jab and (75 years old) was asked "are you pregnant." I asked if she had to ask men the same question and she told me, with eyebrows raised, that she was supposed to!"

I can confirm that I have been asked this question... :-(

scarletnoir wrote: "
I can confirm that I have been asked this question... :-(

Wonder what the reaction would have been if you had said yes!

AB76 wrote: "we always did a canal holiday in october half term.."

Very nice... one of my first holidays with madame (then just 'partner') was on the Trent & Mersey with my brother and his wife. Fascinating to see scenes from an industrial past - travelling from Cheshire to Burton-on-Trent, we climbed Heartbreak Hill with its 31 locks on day 1 (my brother was no fool - he wanted deckhands to help with this task - we had to use windlasses to open/close each lock) and then get through the Harecastle Tunnel (1.6 miles/2.6km long) before nightfall as it's one way only and 'priority' changes every 12h...

We saw any number of bottle kilns in the 'potteries' (Stoke-on-Trent) and passed through a disused factory which was being dismantled (distant scenes of oxy-acetylene torches), came down another flight of locks to Stone, Staffordshire and finally arrived at the wonderful and recently closed (!) Bass Museum (later called the 'National Brewery Museum') in Burton.

https://nb-firecrest.co.uk/a-lot-more...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecas....

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "we always did a canal holiday in october half term.."

Very nice... one of my first holidays with madame (then just 'partner') was on the Trent & Mersey with my brother and his wife. F..."

we are avoiding the lock staircase at Caen Hill, (29 locks!) and sticking on pottering between Bath and that location

giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "

Wonder what the reaction would have been if you had said yes!"

🥰🥰🥰

AB76 wrote: "we are avoiding the lock staircase at Caen Hill, (29 locks!)."

Very wise... we had to run between locks with the windlasses as there was no point getting back on the narrowboat... but we were young then.

I know that Michael Wolff's latest will never reach TBR piles here, but the review of it has some interesting info - (gift link) - https://wapo.st/467afIR

PS - Looks like we here in the US are headed to a chaotic weekend as Federal employees are being notified of shutdown.

AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "we always did a canal holiday in october half term.."

Very nice... one of my first holidays with madame (then just 'partner') was on the Trent & Mersey with my bro..."

Was at the Caen Locks a couple of years ago as covid relaxed. Walked the towpath the length of the locks not thinking the walk back would be rather steeper. And was just beginning to suffer from plantar fascilitis!
But it was a sunny day!

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "we always did a canal holiday in october half term.."

Very nice... one of my first holidays with madame (then just 'partner') was on the Trent & Merse..."

yes staircase locks are fun when you are young!

Some good reading as autumn fails to arrive in the shires, its sunny, mild and rather boring weather, almost like september is an extension of summer

Hunter S Thompson's The Rum Diary, written in 1959 is far more intelligent and observational of the state of Puerto Rico than i imagined it would be. His only novel is soaked in booze and bad living but feels reserved compared to his later non-fiction writing. One feels a sense of impending doom, amid the lively prose and the tropical setting

Lyttton Stracheys Eminent Victorians has been on my non-fiction list for 18 mths and have finally started it. His first subject is Cardinal Manning, one of many Victorian Anglicans who made the move back to popery. Strachey is witty and diligent in his study of Manning and the strange group of protestants who wanted to return to the old church

AB76 wrote: "... Lyttton Stracheys Eminent Victorians has been on my non-fiction list for 18 mths and have finally started it. His first subject is Cardinal Manning..."

I remember thinking, decades ago, that Eminent Victorians was certainly a good read but less of a take-down job than I had expected, though Florence Nightingale did emerge rather poorly, more dragon than saint. Nonetheless I went on to read everything he published. His Queen Victoria was hardly critical in any way, the exact opposite of what you would think from the great demolisher of that age, in fact very sweet and involving, Elizabeth and Essex was a rip, and especially enjoyable were his several collections of short essays, e.g. on the famous historians in Portraits in Miniature. I still refer to his little volume on Landmarks in French Literature (for the Home University Library!). The point with Strachey, I rather think, at least for me, was not his iconoclasm but his superb style – wit, flair and elegance in every sentence, and no drudgery. I started on the well-regarded biography by Michael Holroyd but found myself not very interested. Why read that when you could read the inimitable original?

Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "... Lyttton Stracheys Eminent Victorians has been on my non-fiction list for 18 mths and have finally started it. His first subject is Cardinal Manning..."

I remember thinking, decade..."

totally agree on the style Russell...very readable but also elegance and humour. its a rare skill to combine all the elements he manages so far in the story of Cardinal Manning

Gpfr wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Russell wrote: "Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus,"

It might have been me, I read it a few months ago and I loved it...."

I've got this, but haven't yet read it — good to he..."

I've now started it and am thoroughly enjoying it so far.

Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes by Jacques Ellul(1965) is a well translated work from the famous French Protestant sociologist and philosopher.

I uncovered it via a clear out of my front room for decoration and am going to see how far i get reading it, sometimes these texts can very dry and start to labour a point but so far its fresh and fascinating. I'm reading it with modern propaganda in focus, mentally, rather than applying it to its times in the Cold War, as we live in an age of less organised but possibly more chaotic elements of propaganda spread by the internet, social media and by conspiracy nuts like Russell Brand and the anti-vaxx mess

. I think of the 44 yr neo-liberal propaganda turn since 1979 in the UK, how elements of it stir and corrupt the idea of a state that helps the most vulnerable and respects other people. How the Brexit vote relied on propaganda and action (action not thought being the key result sought from propaganda). In the constant bickering of low tax advocating think tanks out of Tufton Street, the deep, ingrained right wing media domination in the UK and the spectacles of Joe Biden currently facing an impeachment inquiry, where republicans can sit and circulate unsubstantiated allegations in Congress for hours every day. Its timely that this small, aged volume slipped out of a pile of books a fortnight ago but sad that in 2023, there is war in europe, a refugee crisis in africa and a right wing government in the UK for 13 years....

The guardian mods cancelled this post on the G, what idiots, really annoys me. they need to be educated and given penalities for bad modding....which is 99% of the modding they do...dolts

AB76 wrote: "Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes by Jacques Ellul(1965) is a well translated work from the famous French Protestant sociologist and philosopher.

I uncovered it via a clear out of my fr..."

You ought to know better than to go against the Guardian agenda. 😀

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes by Jacques Ellul(1965) is a well translated work from the famous French Protestant sociologist and philosopher.

I uncovered it via a clear..."

its mad though, this country has barely three non-right wing newspapers, nobody on the Ersatz TLS is on the right wing side of anything really and we all, all of us, are ending up being modded

sometimes i feel that the left is just too divided to ever organise itself like the neo-liberal right as its always fighting amongst itself. "Comment is free, unless the mods deem you to have not toe-d the party line"

my points were fairly mild and not made in an offensive way, maybe i should have not mentioned that Russell brand goon!

AB76 wrote: "my points were fairly mild and not made in an offensive way, maybe i should have not mentioned that Russell brand goon!"

I am quite frankly baffled that your comment was removed - but it's also happened to some of mine for no discernible reason. If someone objects (a Brand admirer, say) do the mods just delete the comment without checking? I wonder.

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "my points were fairly mild and not made in an offensive way, maybe i should have not mentioned that Russell brand goon!"

I am quite frankly baffled that your comment was removed - but..."

it might be to stop a load of brand admirers swamping the book section but again, i cannot see where my comment needed removing, thats the main problem, where are the parameters defined. they should make the mood goons explain to each poster why they removed it, that would make them think twice

Finished The Rum Diary which i really enjoyed, Hunter S Thompson in great voice and the world of 1950s Puerto Rico

Next up is a long anticipated read, since i found it last year, an argentinian classic by Haroldo Conti called SouthEaster(1962), set on the coastal Parana delta, north of BA. I fear it may dissapoint as its been anticipated by me throughout 2023 but lets see.

Conti sadly "disappeared" during the military dictatorship in Argentina, a loss to the literary world