Category Archives: books

amusements, books, memes, words

September Quiz Answers

Literature

  1. What is Shakespeare’s shortest play?  The Comedy of Errors, with 1,787 lines and 14,369 words
  2. The Chronicles of Narnia is a children’s book series written by which author?  CS Lewis
  3. What German loanword means a novel that focuses on the psychological and personal growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood?  Bildungsroman
  4. Who is the author of the play The Importance of Being Earnest?  Oscar Wilde
  5. Who wrote the line “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker”?  Ogden Nash

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.

amusements, books, memes, words

September Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.

Literature

  1. What is Shakespeare’s shortest play?
  2. The Chronicles of Narnia is a children’s book series written by which author?
  3. What German loanword means a novel that focuses on the psychological and personal growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood?
  4. Who is the author of the play The Importance of Being Earnest?
  5. Who wrote the line “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker”?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

amusements, books, words

May Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

May Quiz Questions: Literature & Language

  1. What does the word conniption mean? A fit of rage or hysterics
  2. What is regarded as the world’s oldest language which is still spoken? Tamil
  3. Who wrote Songs of Innocence and Visions of the Daughters of Albion? William Blake
  4. Even with a small word list and simple structure it is possible to say almost anything in Basic English. How many words are in the lexicon of Basic English? 850
  5. In which play do the following lines occur?
    “A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
    And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead”
    Shakespeare; Julius Caesar; Act 2, Scene 2

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2022.

amusements, books, words

May Quiz Questions

Again this year we’re beginning each month with five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. They’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers, so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as have a bit of fun.

May Quiz Questions: Literature & Language

  1. What does the word conniption mean?
  2. What is regarded as the world’s oldest language which is still spoken?
  3. Who wrote Songs of Innocence and Visions of the Daughters of Albion?
  4. Even with a small word list and simple structure it is possible to say almost anything in Basic English. How many words are in the lexicon of Basic English?
  5. In which play do the following lines occur?
    “A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
    And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead”

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

arts, books, thoughts

On Poetry

Until now I had never read TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. So when Simon Barnes (yes, that Simon Barnes: environmentalist, journalist, author, former Chief Sports Writer of The Times) had a piece recently in The New European I took notice.

I know Barnes slightly; he’s a great fan of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time and gave the 2022 Anthony Powell Society Annual Lecture just a few weeks ago. So of course I took notice – especially as he read English at the University of Bristol, and I know him to be a thinker.

Why had I not read The Waste Land before? Well, I’m not a great reader of poetry; I never have been, partly because, like so much of English Literature, I was put off it by school. It’s not that I dislike poetry but all the

I wondered lonely as a cloud of golden daffodils

[sic] stuff turns me off, as does most modern so-called poetry that doesn’t scan and doesn’t rhyme – and I’m not even sure how Shakespeare brings off blank verse. So spare me, inter alia, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Longfellow (of the first type) and Allen Ginsberg, Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy (of the second).

But there is poetry I like. Coleridge, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834. Lewis Carroll, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43909/the-hunting-of-the-snark. TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (see Eliot can write “proper” verse) – I knew the entire 66 lines of Skimbleshanks off by heart when I was about seven or eight. Roger McGough, Summer with Monika. C Day Lewis, Requiem for the Living. John Updike. Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno.

But I’m sorry, The Waste Land is pretentious garbage – and the Four Quartets are not that far behind. It neither rhymes (OK, there’s the odd couplet) nor scans. For me it is in the same rubbish bin as Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Edith Sitwell’s Façade. None of them make sense, and they’re pretty unreadable. Pseudo-profound bullshit, one suspects written to make money from a clutch of gullible critics. And were they gulled.

No, sorry, you enjoy it if you want to, but it says nothing to me. Just leave me alone to be a Philistine.

books, medical

Book Review: Anatomical Oddities

Alice Roberts
Anatomical Oddities
Simon & Schuster; 2022

How much do you know about your insides? Most of us have an idea of how our bodies work; for some it is fairly sketchy, but for others there’s a bit more detail. But unless you’re a medic you’re unlikely to understand the minutiae and you need an anatomist to point out the nooks, crannies and curiosities.

This is where Alice Roberts comes in. She is first and foremost an anatomist, with an incredible artistic ability. So just the person to explain the idiosyncrasies of our anatomy – which this delightful book both does and doesn’t.

Every part of the human body has a name, and a story (or several). Roberts has selected just under 60 pieces of anatomy; some known to us all; some totally unseen; but all with a story of language and/or discovery. The text is concise and clear; we’re treated to one-page sketches of the people who unearthed the anatomical secrets, and the meanings of the words used to describe them; with, on the facing page, an original illustration by Roberts.

So this book is an artistic and linguistic adventure taking us on a journey to discover some hidden landscapes of our bodies. The text is more about language, the derivation of the names of things, and their discoverers, than it is about form and function. I love these explorations of the language and names, but felt slightly cheated at the frequently superficial explanation of medical function.

In this context I also felt Roberts’s lovely art needed some explanation and annotation to show exactly what we’re looking at – it’s not always obvious which part of a drawing is the structure under discussion or how it fits into its surroundings. Nonetheless Roberts’s original art is interesting: quirky and bizarre, but always beautiful.

Roberts explores the quirks of evolution which have given us the weirdest and most wonderful pieces of anatomy – most of which we’ve never heard of – in an immensely readable and well produced book. Like all her books, this is a delight.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books, food+drink

Book Review: Understanding European Wines

Charlie Boston
Understanding European Wines
Charlie Boston; 2022
Ordering details on http://www.charlieboston.com/

How many clues do you have when choosing a bottle of wine in a restaurant? If you’re like most of us, not very many, which is a state of affairs Boston sets out to help you correct. As he says …

I have always had an interest in wine, especially European wine, so I decided to write this book about European Wines.

Nowadays people so often assume the best value wines come from the southern hemisphere and, whereas Australasian and South American wines are frequently very impressive, in my opinion, they do not offer better value than European wines. Furthermore, in this day and age when we should all be concerned about “carbon foot prints”, it is hard to justify importing wines from the other side of the world, particularly when the best wines are right here on our doorstep.

The aim of this book is to allow those faced with the responsibility of choosing a wine from a wine menu to make an educated choice. There is no guarantee that the wine you choose will live up to expectations, but at least you will have expectations.

There you have it in a nutshell. This is a book for the amateur enthusiast who wants something European and enjoyably drinkable, with or without a meal.

Boston started off his working life in the wine trade, so he knows what he’s talking about; and this leads to some good hints and highlights, and some equally strong opinions. He doesn’t impress easily. Many (although I’m not one of them) will no doubt disagree with him over his hatred of the over-hyped and over-fashionable Prosecco. Amongst other scything comments we are treated to:

The fact is all the finest white wine in the world is made in the Côte de Beaune and all of it is made from Chardonnay. Accordingly, anyone who likes white wine and says they do not like Chardonnay is, I’m afraid, an idiot.

Retsina is considered to be the traditional wine of Greece. It has its origins in ancient times when the pots in which the wine was matured (“amphoras”) were sealed with pine resin. Nowadays, resin from the Aleppo pine is added to the must during fermentation to produce the distinctive resinated style. It is very much an acquired taste which, in my opinion, is not worth acquiring.

Naturally enough Boston concentrates on France, with Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal all getting their own chapters. There is then a chapter on sparkling wines; another on pudding wines; and notes about other countries in a further chapter. I found this slightly puzzling: why give Austria and Switzerland their own chapters, but not Greece, which in my limited experience has equally as many, and as good, wines? For me, Italy and Spain produce just a much good wine as France (which still produces the very top-most wines), with the added bonus that it is usually slightly cheaper.

This is a easy and often fun read, and I found I kept turning the pages and reading the next chapter. Boston’s style is light and chatty, but informative, although I did feel it to be a little lacking in detail – I wanted to know more; but that’s not the book’s aim.

Sadly my biggest gripe is the maps. Boston provides maps of most of the major wine areas. Many are excellent, whereas others are barely readable: either with tiny type (originals too much reduced in size) or very fuzzy. That’s a shame as they are otherwise quite interesting and useful. The maps, plus the glossing over of Greece, lost the book a star.

Otherwise this is well produced and and enjoyable read with some useful tips.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, natural history, science

Book Review: Endless Forms

Seirian Sumner
Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps
Collins; 2022

This is a book about wasps. It isn’t a book of wasps; not a field guide; nor an academic description of the minutiae of wasps. But it is about wasps.

Prof. Seirian Sumner (full disclosure: I have met her) has devoted her academic life to studying wasps, and specifically (but not only) social wasps like our friendly picnic-bothering yellowjacket. So this could have been an academic tome, but it isn’t. Instead it is a very accessible 380 pages of description which takes us through the world of wasps: what they are, how and why they work – and indeed why some seem unreasonably interested in our picnics. All of that is held together with stories and anecdotes about often hair-raising research field trips; some successful, others a total disaster.

With around 100,000 known species in the world, wasps are important: as predators and parasites of other insects, and as pollinators. No, don’t panic as the vast majority of those 100,000 species are solitary wasps; many are tiny (2mm or less) and most don’t sting. There are only 74 known species of hornets and yellowjackets worldwide, and it is these yellowjackets which bother our picnics. This is something which Seirian stresses and explains: they may be after a share of your chicken or burger; or late in the summer a share of your strawberry jam. Give them a share, on the side, at the other end of the table and they’ll generally leave you alone. Oh and DO NOT go flapping around: that’s the surest way to annoy them and get stung as you’ll remind them of their arch-predator, the badger.

Most of the social wasps are hunters, after juicy morsels of meat (usually arthropods, but also carrion) to feed their brood. The solitary wasps hunt too: some are predators of a meat feast for their young; others lay eggs on the still living meat to parasitise them. Yes, Nature is gruesome, but without wasp pest controllers we’d be knee deep in creepie-crawlies. Seirian estimates that even in a bad year a social yellowjacket nest can get through almost 300,000 arthropods; it can be 8-10 times that in a bumper year. That’s a lot of caterpillars!

And to cap it all? Without the ancestral wasps, we would have neither ants nor bees for both groups are descendants of ancient wasps. Ants are wasps which (mostly) lost their wings. Bees are wasps which forgot how to hunt. Social wasps are unusual in that they too have learnt to live in colonies.

Seirian takes us through all of this. How did wasps develop such a multitude of forms. Their lifestyles and how the societies of social wasps work. Why they’re important. How scientists have managed to work all this out.

This is a fascinating book, well written, eminently readable, and almost chatty. I found it hard to put down and had to restrict myself to a couple of chapters a night in order to not burn too much (expensive) midnight oil. I guarantee you’ll come away with a totally different view of wasps.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books, food+drink, history

Book Review: What’s in a London Pub Name

James Potts & Sam Cullen
What’s in a London Pub Name
Capital History; 2022

Greater London has thousands of pubs – so many that probably no-one had counted them; and in any event the list would change daily. In 136 pages the authors of this slim volume describe the origins of over 650 of the more unusual or interesting pub names in Greater London – all the way from “Aces & Eights” (Tufnell Park) to the “Zetland Arms” (South Kensington). As one can imagine, at an average of about 5 pubs and a photograph per page, the descriptions are not very detailed. This is a shame, as there is undoubtedly more to be told about most of these names, and many others.

The sheer variety of names is astonishing, from the ubiquitous “Red Lion” to the eccentric “Queen’s Head and Artichoke”. Even so, as the authors admit, the list is far from comprehensive. They’ve set out to document those names with an interesting story and consequently have omitted many of the more obvious, like the “Queen Victoria”.

Sadly though I came away with one (or maybe it is actually two) criticisms. There are too many new names: for example the ubiquitous Wetherspoons “Moon” names (historic, not!) creep in, although thankfully the “Frog and …” names don’t get a mention. Against, or maybe because of, this the authors’ stated omission of many more common or obvious names does mean there is too little on the historic origins of pub names, which are often rooted in heraldry or other medieval/early modern symbolism or celebrity: are all the “Queen Victoria” pubs really named for our 19th-century monarch? Something more comprehensive would, for me at least, have been more satisfying.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting and well produced little paperback, but I have my doubts as to how long the spine will last with even moderate use. It is eminently suited to being dipped into – although you’ll find (as I did) you can read it from cover to cover! At £9.99 from Amazon (other suppliers available), it would make a great stocking filler for the London, or pub, aficionado.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆