Category Archives: personal

books, personal

Books that Changed My Life

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Really major life-changing events (marriage, an influential chance meeting) aren’t common but we all have them and usually several in a lifetime.

What I suspect is more common, at least of those of us who read, is to realise that one has a series of books which have been sufficiently influential that they’ve significantly changed the tone or direction of one’s life.

And reading Mrs Worthington’s entry “Books that shaped my life” in Tara’s Gallery this week I realised that I too had such a list. So I thought I’d document it. Here are some of them in roughly chronological order; I’m sure there are others.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass. I remember these from an early age. They started me thinking about language. Later re-reading it as a student I saw and became fascinated by the unexpected logic, something which has stayed with me. This was later enhanced by Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice.

TS Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This is something my father used to read to me at bedtime when I was probably about 7 or 8. I especially remember, and still love, Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat. I knew it off by heart and I still remember chunks of it. This was in the late 1950s, long before Cats, the musical. To this day I love cats and I love railways.

WE Johns, Biggles books. I read as many of these as I could get my hands on, probably from the time I was about 9 or so right into my teens. Yes, they were fantasy adventure, but they were also a world into which a repressed (even depressed) child could retreat from the world.

Boy Scout Association, The Chief Scouts’ Advance Party Report. This was the 1966 set of proposals for modernising the scouting movement at the time I was transitioning from Scouts to Senior Scouts. I realised it was important and read it. I didn’t agree with it. I saw it for what it turned out to be: the beginning of the emasculation of the Scout Movement as I knew it and as I believed then, and still believe, it should be. It was thus one of the 3 or 4 straws which directly led to me leaving Scouting; somewhere I would have liked to remain.

John Betjeman, High and Low. I don’t recall what impelled me to buy Betjeman’s latest slim volume of verse in 1966, but it soon became a firm favourite. As a late teenager it lived by my bed and if I awoke, sleepless, I would dip into it until sliding into slumber again. Why would a teenage boy in the late ’60s find a volume of poetry comforting? Isn’t that rather worrying? It didn’t so much kindle in me a love of poetry but an awareness of the changing world of architecture and railways.

Havelock Ellis, The Psychology of Sex. My parents had a copy of this and it was openly available to me on the shelves from a very early age. I read it, and learnt a lot from it, as a teenager. It kept me one step ahead of my girlfriend in our joint exploration and development of our sexuality.

Florence Greenberg, Jewish Cookery. No I’m not Jewish. I picked this up as a student because it is such a great cookery book. It covers all the basics and provides a wealth of interesting recipes. It wasn’t the only cookery book I had as a student, but probably the one I used most often. And I still have it and use it!

David Hockney, Photography. I’m unable to remember now which of Hockney’s books on photography it was that I recall seeing, but it was one of the early ones where he was experimenting with “joiners”. The book was probably his Photographs (1982) or just possibly Cameraworks (1984) although I had thought it was a late-70s book. But whichever it was I found the “joiner” technique fascinating and it is still something I experiment with from time to time. It has definitely been a factor in the development of my photography.


Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time. If there’s one work (it’s actually a series of 12 novels) that changed my life this is it. There are comments elsewhere herein (for instance here) about how I was recommended to read Dance by our friend Jilly, and how that simple recommendation led to what is now the Anthony Powell Society and such a large part of my life.

personal, photography

Gallery : Books

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I’ve not partaken in Tara’s Gallery for a couple of weeks. This has been partly due to the lack of available hours in the day and partly as the last couple of subjects haven’t grabbed me.

But I have to do this week’s Gallery as the subject is something dear to my heart: books!

And yet I find I have no photos of books. Except for this one.

Work in Progress

This was my home office, my desk, about three years ago.

For the last several years I was working I was lucky enough to be able to work from home much of the time. Despite being a project manager much of what I was doing could be done remotely: I had email, a mobile phone, a fax, a laptop. And because my teams were geographically spread meetings were held by teleconference. It actually worked well, and saved the company huge amounts of cash and travel time.

A couple of years into retirement it doesn’t look a lot different. The laptop isn’t there so often, and the fax machine has gone.

The books have been reorganised but are largely the same. These are my working books; the ones I use every day; just a couple of hundred of the thousands in the house.

Here it is today; when I was in the middle of writing this and even with the image above on the screen!

Desk 2012

See still lots of books, bigger geraniums and chillies creeping into the top right corner — not a whole lot different!

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 49

Week 49 of the experiment, and it’s been another manic week. Indeed it has been so manic I’ve had to scrub a couple of things I wanted to do; one needs a certain amount of elbow room and breathing space. Anyway here are my five picks of things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

  1. Productive Meetings. I’ve had several meetings this week and at least two have been really good and productive.

    Yesterday was the Anthony Powell Society AGM; as a charity we have to do things by the book. Like all these meetings it is seldom hugely well attended although, as yesterday, we normally get 20-25 members present (as well as a tranche of proxy votes). This makes for a productive meeting with some useful discussion and excellent ideas from the members to keep people like me on our toes. And somehow I always manage to find an interesting speaker; yesterday was no exception so thanks to John Blaxter.

    And on Monday I had a really good meeting with our doctor’s Practice Manager and his deputy working through how we’re going to organise and run the Patient participation group which I have now been fingered to chair. Another extremely productive hour.

  2. Cold Sausages. I love sausages. Almost every sausage from plain British bangers to Bratwurst in a bun. But cold sausage always goes down well in a sandwich for lunch.
  3. Adnam’s Ghost Ship. Naughty child that I am I’ve had a couple of pints twice this week. One of them was Adnam’s Ghost Ship, a very pale, light, beer with a delightful fragrance and a citrus-y flavour, almost like a clear Wheat Beer. Here is Adnam’s own description:

    This beer has good assertive pithy bitterness with a malty backbone and a lemon and lime aroma. Ghost Ship is brewed with a selection of malts – Pale Ale, Rye Crystal and Cara. We use Citra, and a blend of other American hop varieties, to create some great citrus flavours.

  4. Left-Overs Risotto. One evening during the week we had accumulated several bits of left-overs: the end of the beef joint, some dressed salad, some spare veg and a couple of steamed potatoes. Thrown together i n a p[an with some Arborio rice, some stock from the freezer and a good slug of red wine it made a really hearty rich risotto.

  5. St James’s Church, Piccadilly. As I mentioned above yesterday was the AP Soc. AGM which we held at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. But “Arrgghhhh!!!!!” there’s the TUC Anti-Austerity March going along Piccadilly exactly when we need to get the car there to deliver stuff; not a hope due to road closures. So we had to go early in the morning and waste time. I asked the church if I could leave our boxes there for the morning (we had the room from 1pm). Not only did they oblige but they let us have the room for most of the morning, to guard our valuables and set up at leisure. They even evicted the TUC stewards who were using another of there rooms as their coordination point and squatting in the adjacent room! Excellent service and way beyond what I’d even dreamt of. They are also extremely good value; room hire is so much cheaper than almost anywhere else in London; and it’s an historic church with many associations, which does good work and is well worth supporting. Oh and Tuesday through Saturday every week they have a super antiques and/or craft market in the churchyard — well worth visiting for those special presents.
personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 48

At week 48 we’re now 80% of the way through my 60 week experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

Yet again it’s been a busy week, but a week crammed full of good things, so here are my top five picks fro the week …

  1. Lunch with Friends. All this really isn’t good for my waistline or my blood sugar levels. Twice this week we’re had lunch with friends. First on Monday we had one of our 3-ish times a year get-togethers with a few former colleagues. Then on Thursday we were in Norwich (again) to see my mother whose birthday was on Friday and we again had a superb gastro-pub lunch with a friend. All most enjoyable.
  2. Smoked Chicken. I think it must have been Wednesday evening we had smoked chicken breasts with salad. The Rannock Smoked Chicken comes from Waitrose. Surprisingly isn’t any more expensive than the regular stuff, but a whole lot nicer. In fact it’s so good we always keep a couple in the fridge.
  3. Online Shop. At last, after weeks of work an d endless head-scratching, I managed top get the Anthony Powell Society online shop up and live. It’s been a lot of work, not because it is inherently difficult but there was a lot of it and there was a coding bug I just could not find — but which I did find on the third minute read-through of the code. And it is already proving it value with a number of unexpected orders flowing in.

    Sunday Morning Lay-in

  4. Sunday Lie-in. With such a busy week we’ve had a number of early starts and I haven’t been sleeping well. How lovely then to not only sleep pretty well last night but also sleep late. I know I came to a couple of times in the night (that’s normal for me) but I didn’t even begin to surface properly until almost 9 this morning, and didn’t manage a vertical position until 10. All done naturally, without alarms etc., so I felt rested and relaxed (so relaxed I’ve done nothing much today).
  5. Roast Beef. One of the two major things I’ve done today is our roast beef dinner. A melt-in-the-mouth double rib of beef, nicely rare (actually a bit too rare for Noreen — sorry!) with jacket potatoes, and steamed cabbage, broad beans and fennel. Roasting beef never was one of my strong suits, but hopefully I now have it sorted, although I still can’t be bothered with the faff of doing Yorkshire puddings.
personal

Happy Birthday, Mother

Happy Birthday to my Mother who is still going strong at the excellent age of 97! OK she’s very deaf, fairly frail and needs a frame to get about — she’s entitled to at 97! — but she is all there mentally still. She spends her days reading, painting, knitting and sewing. She makes endless soft toys and the like for anyone who wants one. We went to see her yesterday; we popped in mid-morning and left with her an orchid of hers which I have nursed into flower again. Returning after lunch she had already done a little painting of the orchid! As she says, she’d rather wear out than rust out.

Here she is enjoying the care home garden in Summer 2011, just before her 96th birthday.

[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96
I’ll be delighted if at 80 I’m as good as my mother is at 97!

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 47

Well her we are at week 47 in my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

And what a week! I’ve not had time to turn round this week and the next two don’t look any better; I’m feeling seriously stressed and lacking “me time”. But it serves me right for volunteering!

So anyway, to my five things. This week I give you …

  1. Family Reunions. On Monday I met up with my father’s three half-sisters. The eldest I have met once before when I was 10 and she was 18. The younger two (both within a year of my age) I had never met. My grandfather’s illicit liaison, which started during the war, ended up splitting the family as my father was always seen by his brother & sister to be on grandfather’s side against grandmother, and grandmother wouldn’t give grandfather a divorce. Frankly my father was trying to be fair to everyone (even if somewhat heavy-handedly) and give his half-sisters a chance in life, especially the younger two who ended up in Barnado’s — after all their predicament wasn’t their fault. Anyway, yet again I’ve managed to put a broken piece of the family back together. My half-aunts were overjoyed as they thought their father’s side of the family was lost to them forever. We spent a great afternoon with them and a couple of my half-cousins, sitting in a London pub just catching up of family things. And here’s the photo to prove it …

    Family Reunion

  2. Norwich. It was Noreen’s birthday on Thursday and she chose to spend the day in Norwich. Fine by me as we both love Norwich. We took one of our friends and spent the day revisiting old haunts, and discovering one or two new ones. Then on the way home we dropped in to see my mother briefly. Yes, it was a good day, and even almost dry! Photos on Flickr when I get some time!
  3. PayPal. One of the things I’m doing for the literary society is building a decent online shop. And in the process we are trying to move our credit card merchant facility away from the current provider (who are charging us too much) to PayPal. After much to-ing and fro-ing PayPal finally accepted us this week! Now I just have to get the shop pages to work properly!
  4. Pork & Apple. See here.
  5. Sunshine. After a dismal start to the week we’ve had several sunny days and i even managed to spend an afternoon in the garden — actually repotting houseplants. Lovely crisp sunny autumn days!
personal

Five Questions, Series 2 #5

OK, so slightly later than planned let’s look at the last of the five questions (series 2) I posed a few weeks back.

Question 5. What places would you have pierced on your body and which parts would you never have pierced?

Well there’s a very easy answer to that: Anywhere and nowhere!

But like all generalisations it isn’t entirely true as I already have a piercing.

[The squeamish, or anyone who doesn’t want too much information, should skip the following paragraph and rejoin at the next set of square brackets.]

The piercing I have is a Prince Albert with a 5mm surgical steel ball-closure ring. It had been trickling round my kind for several years but suddenly became the right thing to do about 2½ years ago, just after I retired. No I don’t know why either, but it was a sort of rite of passage. And no it wasn’t especially painful — yes, it hurt for about 10 seconds — and it healed up well. Having it stretched (necessary with this piercing; but how and why would be just way too much information) to take a larger gauge ring was more painful than the initial piercing, but even that was only for a minute or so. The key to all this is a good piercer and excellent after-care and hygiene. (If anyone wants to know more, like if you’re thinking about having this done, contact me directly — this is a family show and I don’t want to unduly frighten the unprepared.)

[The squeamish can rejoin here.]

Once you’re had cold steel stuck through bits of your body, it loses it’s fear, although not the adrenaline buzz. In consequence I would have no problems with having almost anywhere pierced, although I don’t see the point of a lot of it.

So yes there are places I would never choose to have pierced — and maybe surprisingly that isn’t at all gender-based. I would have no problem with the more girlie things like ears, navel or nipples. But I’m no great fan of metal in eyebrows and I detest both nose rings and nose studs, on anyone — somehow they always look so naff.

However I think probably the only place I would never have pierced is my tongue. I can’t think of anything worse, or actually more painful, especially as it is one piercing that is known to heal badly and slowly. Yeuch!

Just a quick word for anyone thinking about getting a piercing. Pay attention to these 6 tips:

  1. Find a good piercer, with a good reputation, who you trust.
  2. Ensure you check out your piercer’s hygiene certification and (if appropriate for your area) their licensing.
  3. Ensure the piercer always uses all new equipment and jewellery from sealed packets (just as you would with medics or acupuncture).

    4. If you’re in doubt about any of the above three, go somewhere else.

  4. Follow the after-care & healing instructions diligently or better — extra after-care attention is unlikely to go amiss.
  5. Do not pull, twist, tweak or otherwise play with your piercing, at least until you know it is fully healed. (However the after-care instructions probably will ask you to turn it carefully every so often.)
  6. At the first sign of any problem, talk to your piercer before you do anything else; they’ve seen it before and are trained to know what to do (doctors generally don’t know).

The Association of Professional Piercers website has lots more good advice.

— o O o —
So there you are. Five more questions asked and answered. I’ll maybe do another set of questions in a few months time, probably after Christmas. Let me know if there is anything you would especially like me to answer.

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 46

Welcome to week 46 in my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful. Why is it that some weeks I really struggle to find anything much which has stood out from the crowd, and other weeks it seems everything has been special. I do try to keep a quick memory jogger of special things as the week goes along; some weeks I get to Friday and already have a list of 12 items; but in weeks like this one by Friday I have just one thing on the list. I guess it’s called “life”, which is probably why I don’t understand it! Anyway here’s some sort of list for this week.

  1. Apples. As befits this time of year this has been an apple week. I love apples when they are crisp and crunchy and juicy — but they have to be fresh and in season.
    First of all at the beginning of the week one of our friends brought us a big bag of Bramley cooking apples (below left) from a tree in one of his friends’ gardens. It seems that near us Bramleys are about the only apples that have produced any sort of crop this year; our tree has produced about half a dozen small scabby specimens due to the appalling weather in the Spring.
    Secondly our weekly Waitrose trip turned up some English apples varieties. We indulged in some Blenheim Orange (below right) — sharp, tart, almost cooking apples — and some large under-ripe Cox’s — juicy, sharp but slightly sweet, just as they should be; I can’t abide all this over-ripe pappy stuff!.

  2. Haircut. Remember how when you were a kid you hated having to go for a haircut? Well certainly all the young lads I’ve ever known have hated the barber. Earlier in the week I went for a (several weeks overdue) haircut. I quite enjoy seeing Mr Clive, my barber; he’s a cheerful sort, it is good to set the world to rights and you occasionally get interesting snippets of local gossip.
  3. £10 off at Waitrose. For some reason best known to themselves Waitrose have sent me a couple of vouchers for £10 off my shopping (as long as I spend £100; easy on a weekly shop). One for use now and another for later in October. I don’t mind if I do! Thank you!
  4. Mince Pies. ‘Tis the season of impending Christmas and there are now mince pies in the supermarkets. They seem to be cropping early this year. I will likely have eaten a regiment’s worth of them by the time we get to New Year!
  5. Chillies. My chillies continue. We’ve already had a good crop of the yellow “Hot Lemon” and the tiny red “Explosive Ember” (which I leave to dry and use as crushed chilli through the winter). And this week we have the first two ripe Scotch Bonnet type, a variety called “Yellow Mushroom” — stingingly hot in curry! And there are more of all yet to ripen, although the supply of flowers is drying up now it’s got a bit cooler. Next year I think I might grow just the “Hot Lemon”; they’re definitely the favourites; the Scotch Bonnets never do hugely well (they prefer more heat and light than even my study windowsill can provide) and I don’t need more small chillies as we have a goodly supply of dried chilli in the cupboard.
amusements, memes, personal, ramblings

I've Never Seen Star Wars

Tim over at Bringing up Charlie has started something new. It may even turn into a meme.

As a result of some new-fangled programme on the wireless, which seems to be called I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, Tim has come to realise that there are a collection of things he’s never done or which have somehow passed him by, but which everyone assumes everyone else actually has done. And guess what? The summit of his list is never having seen Star Wars.

Tim then goes on to challenge the rest of us to document the things we’ve never done but which might surprise our friends. Being as I like memes, and I’m insatiably curious about other people, it would be churlish of me not to join in. So here’s my list of a dozen (apparently common) things I’ve never done.

  1. Seen Star Wars or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Clockwork Orange or any of those other iconic films. (See, Tim, you aren’t the only one!)
  2. Eaten oysters or tripe
  3. Worn a dinner jacket or a cocktail dress
  4. Been skinny dipping

  5. Played strip poker or strip pool
  6. Taken recreational drugs
  7. Driven a car or ridden motorbike
  8. Watched Eastenders or (again like Tim) Friends or Downton Abbey
  9. Lusted after Jennifer Aniston or Pamela Anderson
  10. Been to the races (horses or dogs)
  11. Been on a package holiday
  12. Broken a bone

Interestingly only one thing on that list bothers me not to have done. Anyone care to guess which one?

So now I dare everyone else to tell, their darkest, secret, “I’ve never dones” — either in the comments here or on your own blog (with a link in the comments), so we can all have a good snigger. 🙂

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 45

Week 45 (just 15 to go) in my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful — and it’s been another strange week where I’ve totally lost all notion of what day it is. Anyway here’s my choice for the week.

  1. Eton. On Monday I had to go to a meeting at Eton College. I always enjoy going to Eton, it is such a civilised place even if one does feel somewhat out of one’s depth. The school itself rambles across a large area, which isn’t surprising as it has to house, teach and entertain over 1200 boys. It includes some wonderful architecture — the old College buildings; the early 16th century Lupton’s Tower and the 15th century chapel are just a delight. What’s also nice is that the town still has something approaching an old-fashioned high street of small shops (many in late Regency properties) although sadly they are now more tourist orientated than domestic. One thing I noticed on this visit was that the whole place was adorned with huge hanging baskets of red, white and blue flowers; the white was a petunia (actually blushed with mauve) which had a delightful scent of jasmine. Somehow Eton always seems so much more friendly and inviting than Harrow.

  2. Sunshine. Yes we actually saw the sun a few times this week! Yesterday (Saturday) was so glorious, even if not hugely warm, it was a shame not to be out in the garden.
  3. Beef Curry. Just for Sue I have to include something about food; and we’ve had so much good food this week. Should I mention Friday’s pan-fried lamb with whisky? Or yesterday’s most excellent sausages with linguine in a spicy tomato sauce? No I think I shall mention Tuesday’s beef curry. Yummy beef having been marinaded all day in curry spices, garlic, ginger, lemon juice and gin; cooked with spinach and served with Noreen’s very lemony rice.
  4. Orchids. My orchids just go on and on. The first ones in flower have now finished and the later ones are following on behind. But on Friday I succumbed to another: a pretty pale yellow slightly blushed with pink, very like the one on the right — a colour-way I’ve not seen before. And I have two (one mine; one my mother’s) which are already growing flowing spikes again. These plants are mad!
  5. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. We are especially enjoying Italian wines at the moment; the reds especially seem much richer and fuller than the French, and I think one is getting much better quality wine for the same money. We first had this Montepulciano at one of our local Italian restaurants and subsequently found it being sold by Majestic Wine. It is a lovely soft but full-bodied red, just right for accompanying those sausages and pasta. Indeed one could sit and drink it all evening.