Are Books Like Buses?
It’s funny, but it must have been some years, since an author sent me a copy of his new book. When I arrived back on Saturday, I didn’t have one new edition in my post, but two from separate authors! And people that I like to think of as friends.
Both look at a first glance to be interesting reads!
Life After Debt
We Are Not Manslaughterers
They must be like buses!
Do We Need Libraries?
I rarely use a library and I haven’t borrowed a book in perhaps forty years. I’ve still actually got it as my mother-in-law’s dachsund chewed it and as I had to pay for it, they let me keep it.
I only use a library for reference. I was in Cambridge a few months ago and I needed to answer a question, so I looked it up in an old directory of the city. At home, I would have used the Internet and usually on the move, I’d find an Internet cafe.
So to me libraries only have one point and that is as a place to look up facts or perhaps get ideas.
To me books are something to buy and cherish. Perhaps, this is because my father was a printer, but also because most books I read regularly, are the sort of reference books or histories, you don’t find on the web or in libraries. I suppose now, I probably buy more books on the Internet than anywhere else too.
Books too, are a recyclable resource. When I move, a lot of my fully-read histories and references will go to Oxfam. but why can’t they go down the pub or the local cafe. The rules should be as they are in many hotels; you can take the book, if you add another one to the collection. Many pubs and cafes could and some already do, provide a quiet room, where customers could read, whilst they are having a coffee or a glass of something stronger.
So I very much feel that libraries as we know it are past their sell-by date. Perhaps, though, we do need quiet reading rooms in very much the old Victorian tradition, where knowledge can be passed on, books can be recycled etc.
The trouble is though the Middle Classes won’t like it. But in these times of austerity, they’d actually support more jobs, by buying the book they want to borrow in the first place and then recycling it creatively. They might even get more pleasure, if they then swapped it in the local cafe for something they would have never thought about reading in the first place.
So before you criticise me, just think when was the last time you borrowed a book from a library!
Remember too, that before public libraries were as common as they are now, companies like Boots used to run them.
Jill Bolte Taylor
Although, I was told about this remarkable woman a few weeks ago, I hadn’t followed her up until I read an interview with her on Caring.com. I have now found her web site and ordered her book, My Stroke of Insight.
She is a brain scientist, who suffered a much worse stroke than I did and her insight may well aid recovery for many and help to shape and improve healthcare.
Fraud from Russia Concerning Amazon
I have had a lot of e-mails purporting to say that I have ordered something on Amazon. I know they are not genuine orders, as they come to an e-mail I never use for orders, but watch for e-mails.
They are baed on a fake AMazon web site, with a Russian domain name.
Be careful, as if you are a regular Amazon purchaser, your account has a valid credit card.
So login to the real Amazon, change your password and if you can, change your e-mail to something that you reserve for purchases over the web.
The Third Man
I hadn’t seen this film before and as BA had a large number of films on the entertainment system, I chose to watch it. It is a marvellous story, but you’d expect that as it was written by Graham Greene, an author that is always worth reading. He’s actually a good read if you don’t like long books, as some of his best are about two hundred pages. They are just as fresh as when they were written.
The film is good and often rated as one of the best films ever made. It was shot in the ruins of Vienna and mostly at night or in the sewers, so to call it a dark film would not be an understatement.
Years ago, I met a man called Roland Landman, who was in The Guards and they were some of the soldiers who liberated Vienna from the Nazis. He said that the city was in a dire way and for example, if you wanted a woman, that would cost just two cigarettes. We don’t know what poverty is!
There was talk that Austria would end up under Russian domination and according to Rolnad it was touch and go, whether the Austrians decided to throw in their lot with the communists. But he told the story of the Major in the Irish Guards, who said that the people needed entertainment and that being Irish, they should organise a horse race meeting.
Everybody thought he was barmy, but they did.
The finery came out, everybody had a good time and Austria stayed in the West.
Whether this tale is true or not, I do not know, but after seeing The Third Man last night, I can understand it a lot more.
Let’s hope we never go through any more wars like that.
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman has come in from a lot of criticism about his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Myths)
But interestingly, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, cites Pullman as one of his favourite modern writers. Others are not so charitable.
Fair Comment?
I have been following the progress of the action against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association with interest. As a scientist, I believe strongly that in science we get progress by research, experiment, peer review and open debate, and not by resorting to the law. I’ve also always had a deep regard for Simon ever since he wrote Fermat’s Last Theorem: The story of a riddle that confounded the world’s greatest minds for 358 years
So perhaps I’m biased.
But I am rather pleased that he has obtained a judgement in the Court of Appeal, that allows fair comment as a defence in certain libel actions.
PeopleQuake
I heard about this interesting book as I was driving along at three in the morning. I’ve just ordered it from Amazon.
A Scattering
I’ve never been a great one for poetry, although at school my poetry was better than me prose. But that didn’t mean much.
But I was pleased to see that the Costa Prize has been won by Christopher Reid for his book, A Scattering
It is about the death of his wife, the actress Lucinda Gane.
I heard part of it being read on Radio 5 and I was moved.
It is actually refreshing that a book about such a dark and often untalked about subject should with a prize. Things like this will make life for those left behind easier in some cases.
Belle de Jour Comes Clean
I first came across Belle de Jour‘s blog in about 2005, when I was writing a book about the Internet. I found it well-written, amusing and above all true. But it is not something that I read regularly, as quite frankly I prefer real and proper relationships with women. To me these are all about doing so many things together; seeing a film, enjoying a meal, having a walk on a beach, sorting out your mutual troubles, exploring interesting places and sharing a bed with all that entails.
Now she has decided to come clean in the Sunday Times.
She is a research scientist by the name of Dr. Brooke Magnanti. In some ways this alone will upset the literary establishment, as scientists aren’t supposed to be able to write. I’m a scientist/engineer and I was told at school that my writing was abysmal in every way.
In my life, I’d have three brushes with prostitution. I should say that it was all on a purely non-sexual basis, as quite frankly, I want a proper relationship with a woman and I had one of those for more than forty years. So if I have another relationship hopefully it’ll last an equally long time. If I could achieve that it would take me past my century and I would love to do that!
I was in Boston in perhaps 1980 and I needed to take a taxi back to my hotel. I got in one door and a very attractive lady a few years younger than me got in the other. I said sorry and made to get out, but she stopped me and asked where I was going. I said I was going to the Copley Plaza Hotel and she said that would do her. As we drove along, she was nothing less than honest and said that she was a hooker and would I like to enjoy her body. I said no, but I was a stranger in the city and would she have a drink and perhaps lunch and show me the sights, as I had about four hours before a meeting. It was the days before mobile phones and she said that she would have the lunch, but she’d have to phone her agency afterwards to see if she had any work. I had a pleasant lunch and for perhaps an hour she showed me around the shops by the waterfront. I did hear a lot of her life history and felt that with a bit of luck and without a rather nasty boy-friend, she’d have done well. Perhaps she did sort herself out. I hope she did.
A few years ago, I needed financial advice and went to see a very eminent accountant. He told me how he helped prostitutes do proper accounts, so that they could buy houses and eventually set themselves up securely. I’ve mentioned this several times to other accountants and I’ve got a few knowing smiles, so perhaps this is not as rare as you think. It’s certainly a better way to remove some of the worst aspects of prostitution.
But perhaps the most interesting brush happened a few months before I sold my first major company in 1985. I was travelling to London on the train from Ipswich and I was sitting having breakfast in First. Opposite me was a very well-dressed lady in perhaps her late forties. You’d have said she was a lawyer or perhaps a secretary to the Chairman of a major company. From about Manningtree she quizzed me about what I did and I told her how the company I had started with three others, had developed world-beating project-management software. I said how we sold in about fifty companies world-wide and were very big in Norway, Australia, the United States, and the Far and Middle East. It was about Chelmsford that she told me what she did. She was a madam and fitted up companies with beautiful, intelligent girls to ease the pain of getting contracts agreed and signed. Who’d have thought it?
So when people say that prostitution should be banned, there is absolutely no way, that the desired outcome will happen. It is just too ingrained in society, business and life.
Dr. Magnanti has also proved that if you want to blog and be anonymous you can do it. A little bit of scandal and sexual tittle-tattle may be one thing, but we’ll see blogs written from the inside of politics and other sensitive areas in the near future. And the great and good, will be unable to stop or even censure them.
The Anonymous Widower 