March Review: Bookmarks, Bread and Classical Commercials…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Another month over, well, very nearly, but as there’s only one more day of March left after today, and I’m not close to finishing any other books apart from those I am about to mention as finished, I figured I might as well blog today and review March 2021 in terms of reading matter, and also the cross-stitched bookmarks I’ve made, and there have been a few, lol!

Sadly, news broke on 25th March that children’s author, Beverly Cleary, had passed away at the grand old age of 104. She joins Norton Juster, who we also lost from the world of children’s literature this month. May they both rest in peace.

We shall start with the bookmarks, as there has been a lot of activity on that front. Early in the month, I sorted out tassels for the bookmarks I had made in February – the cubes, Pac Man and the Shipping Forecast.

Freddie Mercury was the next bookmark to be started, and Freddie was joined by the Christmas stained glass window bookmark and the Plague Doctor bookmark. I also then made a bookmark featuring my name in Braille. All of those were given tassels, so there’s a lot of recently-stitched bookmarks to choose from for my books!

Seven books have been finished this month, taking the total for the year so far to 17, a really good start to 2021. As I have said, though, I was getting reading done while still in lockdown, but things are starting to ease off a bit more now, so I wanted to get a significant amount of reading done while there were few other distractions.

The above is the guidelines which came into effect here in England yesterday. Doesn’t really seem much point in the weddings as you can only have 6 people, lol, but there’s more chance to meet outdoors, the five mile limit has ended, and outdoor sports can resume, so there’s a gradual opening up. Also, it’s not too long now until 12th April which is when the non-essential shops are meant to be reopening, and people can have food and drink outdoors.

Right, so… What did I finish off in March? The Channel, by Charlie Connelly, was the first book to be polished off this month, but that was not surprising given that I was nearing the end of it in February anyway, lol! It is my third Charlie Connelly book this year, and I am pretty certain there will be more!

Next up, one I borrowed from our Ellie, but I have now got my own copy as I loved it so much… The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy. I especially loved the Mole’s advice… if at first you don’t succeed, have some cake! Very much words to live by, if you ask me! We also cleared up the mystery music on the inside covers of this book, as it is the “Soldiers’ March” by Robert Schumann, a piece of music that I’ve known since I was a kid as it’s in one of my recorder books, lol!

The Jay Rayner books are separated by the ebook about bread, lol, so there’s a trio of food-related books coming up. First up, My Dining Hell, by Jay Rayner, which has been added to the roll of honour for books that have made me laugh my arse off! Slow Rise, by Robert Penn, about his wheat-growing and bread-making adventures, was finished off after that, and I would like to thank BBC Radio 4 for that particular book recommendation as I really enjoyed it! It was back to Jay Rayner reviewing rubbish restaurants after that, lol, as Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights was the next book to be finished.

I then had the internet issues with iffy Wifi, which caused me to take some annual leave last week, and when I went to Asda, I purchased Kika & Me, by Dr Amit Patel, which was my next finish, and also the reason why I stitched a bookmark with Braille on it. Regular readers of my blogs will know that I do like to read books by people with medical conditions or disabilities, and also neurological differences, and feature them on here. I have yet to read one by someone with a lazy-arsed thyroid gland, like mine, but you never know! There might be someone out there with the same medical issue as me who sees fit to write a book on how they manage their life with a thyroid gland that can’t give a rat’s ass about doing its job!

I have read books about under-active thyroids, but those are more from a medical point of view, not by someone with a dodgy gland writing some sort of memoir or autobiography of life with the condition.

So, before we discuss the Ongoing Concerns and other matters, one final finish to report for now, and that is Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, by Simon Armitage, which was finished off earlier today and is my 17th finish for the year, my 7th during the course of March.

I have also been mentioning how Classic FM seemed to have jumped on the bread bandwagon to compliment my recent reads, by playing “Panis Angelicus”, and then the Largo from the “New World” Symphony, which for many of us in the UK is music associated with Hovis adverts! It made me wonder about composers and what if they knew about what their music was used for in more recent years?! Some would be happier than others about it.

While it’s true that Dvořak would have preferred us to think of the New World, in other words the USA, it’s hardly the end of the world to have one of your compositions being used to make people think about bread! A few pieces of well-known classical music here, and what they have been used to advertise on UK television. Overseas followers might know some of these for different products and services, but these are British commercials…

Largo from the New World Symphony – Dvořak – Hovis bread

O Fortuna from Carmina Burana – Orff – Old Spice aftershave

Flower Duet from Lakmé – Délibes – British Airways

Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffmann – Offenbach – Baileys Irish Cream

Air on the G String – Bach – Hamlet cigars

Night on Bare Mountain – Mussorgsky – Maxell audio cassettes

Dance of the Reed Flutes from The Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky – Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut (Everyone’s a Fruit & Nut case, lol!)

Symphony no 7, 2nd movement – Mahler – Castrol GTX engine oil.

Obviously, other classical stuff has been used for TV themes, used in films (especially Fantasia) or even used by sportspeople, the most famous example of which is probably Torvill & Dean skating to an abridged version of Ravel’s Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, when they won gold, but I am going to come on to a certain use for classical music which I doubt very much composers would be too chuffed about…

Imagine you’re Vivaldi… you’ve just composed the Four Seasons, and you’re pretty happy, you think that listeners will hear Spring, in particular, and be reminded of nature coming back to life, flowers blooming, lambs frolicking in meadows, that sort of stuff…

Except that, in this day and age, rather too many people hear Spring from the Four Seasons when they’re on the phone, and they’re on hold and being held in a queue, periodically being told the old lie “Your call is important to us”! Poor Vivaldi, eh?!

Mind you, he’s not the only composer to have had his music used as telephone hold music. Für Elise, by Beethoven, has been used frequently for this same nefarious purpose, and if you were to ring up my place of work and have the misfortune to be put on hold, you would be treated to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky!

Anyway, moving on to the Ongoing Concerns now, and we’ve clearly got a fair few off the list of late, so it’s a chance to have a look at what’s still on there and what can be added…

Of the ones that are left, there are three around the third of a way through stage, and those are the ones I really want to progress next. This trio comprises of Bread, by Scott Cutler Shershow at 36%, Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, by Martin Aston, at 34% and Bit of a Blur, by Alex James, at 32% – so I aim to focus on those to get them completed or near enough as we go into April.

After that, we’ve got stuff we really haven’t progressed much. We have One for the Books, by Joe Queenan, which is at 10%, Recipe for Life, by Mary Berry at only 7% and I haven’t done a percentage check of this yet, but I have added Diary of a Somebody, by Brian Bilston to the list. I’ve had that one a while and I love his poems, so I might as well read that one, as 50 Ways to Score a Goal isn’t out until late May, and I have read his other poetry books! This book I have started is like a diary style but with lots of poems in it, so I would say you could class it as an anthology.

I also plan to add The Phantom Tollbooth to the list, as it’s the 60th anniversary of that one being published this year, and I was having a look on the landing earlier and found one called The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown, that I got in a sale for £3 at Waterstone’s some time ago, so that might be one to consider.

There’s also a number of books that were started previously, particularly some that were started last year, and need to be resumed, so those need looking at. For instance, I could always resume Mr Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo. There’s also True, by Martin Kemp, as I was going to read that one, then It’s a Love Story, by Shirlie and Martin Kemp, and then read Wham! George & Me, by Andrew Ridgeley, as Shirley had been one of Wham’s backing singers back in the day!

So, I think that wraps things up for March, and I shall get this published and then the March list on List Challenges will also be published and you can see how many books you’ve read from those I’ve mentioned this month. I will prepare a list for April, too. Until the next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackesy
• My Dining Hell – Jay Rayner
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights – Jay Rayner
• Kika & Me – Dr Amit Patel
• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• Bread – Scott Cutler Shershow
• Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• One for the Books – Joe Queenan
• Recipe for Life – Mary Berry
• Diary of a Somebody – Brian Bilston
• 50 Ways to Score a Goal – Brian Bilston
• The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
• The Wild Robot – Peter Brown
• Mr Loverman – Bernardine Evaristo
• True – Martin Kemp
• It’s a Love Story – Shirlie & Martin Kemp
• Wham! George & Me – Andrew Ridgeley

Return of the Bookworm!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome back to the wonderful world of random waffle with a lot of books being mentioned! It’s been an odd few days, but that’s because we were having a bad case of Iffy Wifi, and ended up needing an engineer, who was here this morning. Must have been a local issue with other people in the area suffering from Broadband Behaving Badly as he had to go out to a telecommunications cabinet on Half Edge Lane to sort things out at one point. Also, when I rang up, I don’t think they seemed surprised at my postcode, so they may have had other calls from round this way.

Anyhow, it is working again and up to speed, which it hadn’t been, so I was back in work this afternoon – well, working from the dining table, but I had taken some leave while the internet was under-performing. It was causing me problems with doing my job, especially on Tuesday morning, so that was the last straw, and why I rang up to report it.

While I was off, you’ll be pleased to learn that significant progress was made with a few of the Ongoing Concerns, with the bookmarks, and with a new book I bought at Asda yesterday. The photo at the top was taken so you can see the stitched dots at that angle. They are stitched with a cream-coloured floss, so they’re not easy to see. It is deliberate, as they are Braille letters – my name in Braille. When I get on to the new book from Asda it may make more sense why a sighted person has stitched a Braille bookmark.

All the bookmarks have been finished off now – I put tassels on them yesterday, so the end results are in the photo above, and it’s now time to turn our attention to the actual reading matter!

Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights, by Jay Rayner, was finished off the other night, my 15th finish of the year, my fifth during March. It was only a short book and I was pretty much halfway through it when I blogged on Monday, so it didn’t take long to polish off, especially as it was funny. I still think My Dining Hell was slightly better, but the sequel was still a good laugh.

Need to catch up on yesterday and today with The Wrong Kind of Snow, but then again, I could save it until the weekend and read a few days’ worth of weather entries. We will soon be in April. Hasn’t time flown?!

That means it’ll soon be Easter, with two lovely bank holidays, and then after that it will soon be Chief Bookworm’s birthday! And if Farcebook start on that birthday charity crap again, they can shove it right up their technological arse. Sideways! The whole point of giving to good causes is that you do it quietly and privately! Look how we only found out, after he had died, just how generous George Michael had been! That’s how it’s supposed to be done, you’re not supposed to brag about it!

Besides which, when they’re open, as they will be again soon, charity shops do well from me and other bookworms! That’s how many a reader helps good causes! They get money for their causes, and we get bargain books. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Progress has been made on a few other Ongoing Concerns. Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic is now 67% read, so two-thirds of the way through Simon Armitage’s poetry anthology now.

Bit of a Blur by Alex James is now at 32% read, so almost a third now, and Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache is now 34% read, so just over a third for that one, and we’re on for musicians coming out in the 70s now in that book. They are still close in the race to be read, but both have been read lately, so moved on a little bit.

Bread, by Scott Cutler Shershow, is now 21% read. That is the Object Lessons book and thus fairly short, so I may resume that soon, but I thought I would use some of my time off to have a read of some of the Ongoing Concerns that had been a bit neglected of late.

That’s all the existing OCs that I had made progress with, but I did get a couple of books at Asda in Swinton yesterday. One was my own copy of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy, and the other was Kika & Me, by Dr Amit Patel, which is already 52% read, so I am well on my way with that one.

Dr Patel was a medical doctor, but went blind due to burst blood vessels in his eyes, and this is his story of his eye trouble, the blindness and how he learned to manage without sight, most pertinently how he was paired up with a quite bonkers guide dog called Kika! This may explain why I have stitched a Braille bookmark. I did actually screenshot the Braille alphabet recently, even before getting this book, but buying and reading Kika & Me has caused me to do something with the alphabet – to stitch a bookmark with my name in Braille. It is currently being used in the book by Dr Patel.

He also gives the history of assistance animals and guide dogs around the world, and interestingly enough, this year marks the 90th anniversary of the UK charity, Guide Dogs for the Blind, as it was started in 1931. Dr Patel said that they became particularly well-known and supported since the 60s when the BBC children’s programme, Blue Peter, launched their first appeal in 1964 to raise money to train guide dogs. Quite a few guide dogs have been trained thanks to Blue Peter appeals over the years since then, and I certainly recall such appeals when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s.

When I was older in the late 80s and 90s, into my adult life, and had a number of penpals, I used to save stamps for the guide dogs to give to a blind guy called James at St Thomas’ Church in Pendleton, Salford, where my grandparents went, and since October 2020, I have been sponsoring a guide dog puppy, a golden retriever called Ginger, and I got my first Pupdate in February to let me know how she was getting on.

That’s Ginger in the photo above, going for a walk earlier this month, as part of her training. When you sponsor a puppy, you do so for 2 years, and get regular “Pupdates” and then when they’re an adult dog, you’ll get to hear about them being matched with a blind or visually-impaired person, and then I understand you are offered the chance to sponsor a new puppy. I’m quite early on in sponsoring Ginger, though, so that bit won’t happen until the autumn of 2022.

Kika & Me may well be my next book to be finished, which will be my 16th for the year. I have had to change my total on the Goodreads Challenge once again. It started at 10, was increased to 15, but now we have increased it to 20. I am increasing by 5 books at a time. While a lot of things are still shut here, there’s fewer distractions from reading, but as things reopen, I’m bearing in mind the possibility of the reading tailing off, or being at risk of this, so I might as well get a fair bit of reading done while most things are still closed.

Been listening to Classic FM again quite a bit lately, especially the last few days, and I wonder if they know about the bread books I’ve been reading lately? I say this because music they have played in the past day or so has had links to wheat-based comestibles! On Tuesday night, they played “Panis Angelicus” and panis is Latin for bread – panis angelicus would be bread of the angels, and last night they played the Largo from the “New World Symphony” by Dvořak, and many of us in the UK, of a certain age, will know that tune from commercials for Hovis bread!

They were also jumping on the shipping bandwagon last night and confusing me in the process… at around 22:15, they were playing “Sailing By”, the Ronald Binge composition which is used by BBC Radio 4 for the Shipping Forecast at 00:48h! So, I was almost wondering “Why the hell is Sailing By on at this time? It’s too early!” before remembering that I had Classic FM on, not Radio 4!

I’m middle-aged, lol, nearly 48! Confusing me is not a good idea!

Other things I have done, particularly in the past day or so – I got my clarinet out on Tuesday afternoon! I have had that instrument almost 32 years now – got it just before my 16th birthday in 1989, so that I had one of my own and could give the clarinet I was using back to the music centre as it was a Salford Schools’ Music Service instrument. I think I gave them the original tutorial book back as well. I have plenty of music though, particularly for the clarinet.

I had got the music service instrument and tutorial book at the end of 1986 – as I recall it was just before we finished school for the Christmas holidays, and I started having lessons in January 1987, so I was in the 3rd year at high school, year 9 as it is now, when I started learning the clarinet, aged 13 going on 14 years old. As I was about to sit my GCSEs in 1989 and leave high school, Mum & Dad bought me my clarinet just before my 16th birthday.

I had previously attempted the oboe, as I may have mentioned in past blogs over the years, so that was traded in at a shop called Woodwind, which I doubt is there anymore. It was in Cadishead and shared its car park with a Chinese restaurant called the Chef Peking, which I also suspect no longer exists. Back in the day, though, we went to both places on a number of occasions! Would have been back in the late 80s and early to mid 90s when I was in my late teens and early 20s.

While we’re on the subject of music, it’s time to wish Sir Elton John a very Happy Birthday! He’s 74 today. I read his autobiography, Me, a couple of years ago and loved it. Would definitely recommend. He’s also getting mentions in Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache now that I’m on for the 1970s in Martin Aston’s book about how music came out.

Slight update now – Kika & Me is 54% read. I suspect that will be finished pretty soon, quite likely before the month is out, and also Bread by Scott Cutler Shershow. I also feel Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic may be finished either this month or next. Early April might be a good reading time… Easter weekend so therefore bank holidays on Good Friday and Easter Monday.

If I can get a few off the current Ongoing Concerns list, I could cultivate a new set of Ongoing Concerns, lol! There are one or two that are bubbling under… some barely started and some books that could do with resuming and finishing off, such as Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and Face It, by Debbie Harry, for instance. Then there’s the likes of Sapiens and Gould’s Book of Fish… That one was one I did start last year after having had it for donkey’s years, but it kinda stalled.

July 2020, for some reason, was a good time for getting books resumed and finished off – quite a lot of books got read that month, anyway, and several of them were ones I’d started previously and I resumed them and finished them that month. The Eighties, by Dylan Jones, and All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, were two of the books I finished off that month.

Anyway, I think that’s probably about all for now. Even if I don’t blog before then, I will be due to do the monthly review next week as March comes to an end, so until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights – Jay Rayner
• My Dining Hell – Jay Rayner
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn
• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston
• Bread – Scott Cutler Shershow
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackesy
• Kika & Me – Dr Amit Patel
• Me – Sir Elton John
• Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
• Face It – Debbie Harry
• Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
• Gould’s Book of Fish – Richard Flanagan
• The Eighties – Dylan Jones
• All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque

Chief Bookworm’s Easter Masks!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Thought I would bring you the latest co-ordinated combo. You’ve seen me in some previous blogs with matching mask and top combos, but now we have matching mask and bag combo – Cadbury’s Creme Eggs! The mask arrived earlier, along with one with mini eggs on it, so I’ll put a photo on here later.

I have had the bag for a while now, it was from a Cadbury’s outlet shop – think it was the one at the Lowry Outlet Mall on Salford Quays. There is also a Cadbury’s shop at Cheshire Oaks, but I’m sure I got the bag closer to home. Now I have a matching mask, though, I will have to rock this combo down the road when I pop to Tesco, lol!

So, onto the book news, and Slow Rise by Robert Penn was finished off on Saturday, taking me to 14 books finished so far this year, and I will definitely have to increase my Goodreads Challenge target again soon, as there’s more Jay Rayner being read at the mo…

For those of you who may have taken me up on my recommendation of My Dining Hell, like my friend Liz, you may be interested to know that there is a “sequel” – if non-fiction books have such a thing! Well, it’s a follow-up anyway, with more of Rayner’s reviewed and rubbished restaurants, and it’s called Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights: A Journey Deeper into Dining Hell. I’m already almost halfway through it, and yes, it’s also very funny!

It’s also very likely to be my 15th finish of the year and I will have to increase the Goodreads Challenge target to 20. Just going 5 books at a time at the mo when I come to increase the target.

Made a bit more progress on Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic at the weekend as it was apparently World Poetry Day, so that is now at 59% and the next target for that will be 67%, the two-thirds mark.

Back to Slow Rise for a bit, especially as I particularly enjoyed this book and would like to thank Radio 4 for bringing it to my attention! Robert Penn also mentions Bread, by Scott Cutler Shershow, the Object Lessons book and lists it in his recommendations for further reading on the bread front. He also uses a quote, towards the end of Slow Rise, from Jeffrey Steingarten, whose book, The Man Who Ate Everything, I have owned for quite some time without having read it!

As promised, I thought I would show you my Easter masks, both my Creme Eggs one and the Mini Eggs one. Pretty chuffed, especially as I wasn’t actually expecting them to arrive until next week, so they’ve come early, in plenty of time for Easter. Cheers, Redbubble!

Books again, now, and you’ve already had an update on Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, which is at 59% at the moment, but here are a few of the others I have on the go… Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights by Jay Rayner is currently 47% read, but I expect that situation to change quite quickly as it’s a short book and it’s making me laugh my arse off! Bread, by Scott Cutler Shershow, is 13% read, and Recipe for Life, by Mary Berry is at 7% at the moment – technically, needs to get to 10% to be an Ongoing Concern, but I have started it.

Some people have a policy of reading a certain number of pages to see if they are going to progress with a book. To an extent, that works, but it’s not really an even way of judging, as reading 50 pages of a short book might be a third of the way through it, whereas reading 50 pages of an epic novel, especially something like War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, would be neither here nor there as there are over a thousand pages in that chunky monkey!

Thus I came up with my 10% policy. Get to 10% of a book’s total length before seeing if it grabs you and makes you want to continue.

Need to catch up on a few days of The Wrong Kind of Snow, and also make some more progress with Bit of a Blur, and Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache as those latter two Ongoing Concerns have been a bit forgotten of late. I have read over 25% of both of those books, but things seem to have stalled somewhat, so they need resuming. I forgot to include The Wrong Kind of Snow on my book list at the end of my previous blog, but I am still reading it.

Today is the 90th birthday of William Shatner – Captain Kirk from Star Trek is certainly living long and prospering!

* Sings * Star Trekkin’ across the universe! On the Starship Enterprise under Captain Kirk. Star Trekkin’ across the universe! Boldly going forward ‘cause we can’t find reverse!

Sorry, not sorry! Would you believe that was actually a UK number 1 single?! “Star Trekkin’” by The Firm was top of our singles charts for two weeks in the summer of 1987, just before “It’s a Sin” by the Pet Shop Boys, actually. Silly record, the one by The Firm not PSB, obviously, but I do have a soft spot for some 80s novelty records, including “Star Trekkin’”!

Other guilty pleasures include “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image, and “Living Doll” by Cliff Richard and the Young Ones – that version, which was recorded for Comic Relief, and was a number one in 1986, is still hilarious! Spitting Image were also number one in 1986, and it was one of my favourite TV shows back then, so I am a bit biased, lol!

Probably could fit in a couple more… anyone else recall “Snooker Loopy” by the Matchroom Mob with Chas & Dave from 1986? How about “John Kettley is a Weatherman” by A Tribe of Toffs from 1988? OK, that is definitely enough daft records from the late 80s to be getting on with, lol! I think I mentioned that last one earlier this year when I was doing all that weather and Shipping Forecast stuff.

Tomorrow will be one year since I started working from home! All being well, we may be able to return to the office in late June, but I would favour working from home some days and going into the office on others, maybe three days at home, two in the office, once we can go back. I think there are some things that are best done in person, like when people need training, but a lot of things can be done well from home. Plus, I don’t need to commute, and I can have music on when I’m not in meetings, so I watch Now 80s!

I think that’s about it for now. No further updates on the cross-stitch, the bookmarks still need tassels, so I’ll let you know when that’s been done. No doubt there’ll be more blogs before March is out, but until the next one, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• My Dining Hell – Jay Rayner
• Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights – Jay Rayner
• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• Bread – Scott Cutler Shershow
• The Man Who Ate Everything – Jeffrey Steingarten
• Recipe for Life – Mary Berry
• War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston

Flirting With Adequacy!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to yet another blog, and news of my 13th finish of the year. A book that has also been added to the list of books that have ever made me laugh my arse off while reading them, and probably the funniest thing I have read since Parsnips, Buttered, by Joe Lycett last year. I can recommend that one, the bit about Cluttons is particularly hilarious!

Joe is a comedian, though, so one might expect at least some mirth reading a book by a known funnyman. Jay Rayner isn’t a comedian, however. He is a food critic with a way with words, and if he dines at your place and either the gaff or the grub (or both) is not up to scratch, he has a way of telling readers about it! Hence My Dining Hell, which is a compilation of his restaurant reviews in newspapers for 20 dining establishments, most of them in London, where he has experienced culinary catastrophes and warned the general public about them via the press!

Tonight’s title comes courtesy of one of Jay’s reviews of a particularly expensive and terrible meal in our capital city. Jay was dining at Brian Turner Mayfair at the time, and had a ridiculously overpriced and underwhelming culinary experience of which he wrote “It is a lot of money for an experience that only flirted with adequacy.”

The sum of £110 had been wasted on this particular occasion, but if you think that is a rip-off, there were some meals in London where even more money went down the drain, wasted on terrible food, one of which cost a preposterous £175, which is taking the piss, quite frankly! I know my country’s capital city is notoriously expensive, but even by London rip-off standards, that is outright extortion!

I am bloody glad I live up here near Manchester! I think Jay should come and dine round here. Firstly, there’s some top nosh round these parts, it’s a great region for dining out, and even if he did have the occasional bad experience, I think it would be a lot cheaper and he wouldn’t have wasted so much dosh on bad food!

I have previously read one of Jay’s other short books, The Ten (Food) Commandments, my final finish of 2016. That is also well worth a read.

While we are still on the subject of food, let’s have an update on my bread-related ongoing concern, Slow Rise, by Robert Penn. We are now at the 72% stage, so almost three-quarters of this book has been read and I have now learned about barm.

Barm is a yeasty foam, it forms on the top of fermenting beer and has been used throughout history to leaven bread – from the ancient Egyptians to the present day. Round here, in the north-west of England, a barm cake, or barm, is a term for a soft floury bread roll. Not sure if it’s still there, but there certainly used to be a sandwich shop in Swinton which was called Barmpots! Possibly the best shop name going, although I recall a hair salon in Little Hulton called Curl Up and Dye, which is also a witty one!

None of the other Ongoing Concerns have been read lately so nothing to update you on with those, the percentages remain the same, so we shall stick with bread books, and may soon revisit the Object Lessons series, which regular followers of my blog will know about as I started mentioning those in 2019. They are a series of small non-fiction books by Bloomsbury, each by a different writer, and about a different object, and one of the OL books I own is Bread, by Scott Cutler Shershow, so I think I might read that when I have finished Slow Rise.

It has occurred to me, over the past day or so, that I could do a special themed blog on books about food and drink, so I might do one of my specials sometime soon. Not only about non-fiction books on food and drink, but also the themes of eating and drinking in fiction.

Other recent food books downloaded on my Kindle include Hungry, the autobiography of Grace Dent, who, like Jay Rayner, is a food critic. I actually read one of her previous books, How to Leave Twitter, way back in 2011 when I was still working in Chorlton as a civil servant and I found the book at Barbakhan Deli when I was on my lunch one day. That is also how I came to end up with my first Kindle later that year! If you look in my archives at the blogs from 2011, you will be able to read all about that!

I did eventually leave Twitter myself, lol, but not until around 2015. It was still fairly good in 2011, it hadn’t yet gone toxic.

Cross-stitch update now, and my bookmarks still need tassels, but I have added to them by stitching the plague doctor one! Got ideas from Pinterest, although I worked out the plague doctor and the lamp myself. The triangular house from Madeira still hasn’t been added to on the stitchable book so nothing new to report there.

United are away to AC Milan. We either need to win or get a high scoring draw, like 2-2 or higher, in order to progress. No goals yet, though. It’s 0-0 at half time.

Sad news recently – Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth, passed away on 8th March. This year is 60 years since that book was first published. It is something I intend to read this year. When I was reading Bookworm, by Lucy Mangan, last year, she mentioned it as one of her childhood favourites.

I was wrong about the Grand Prix in my blog the other day – there wasn’t one on Sunday, the first one of the new Formula 1 season is on Sunday 28th March. I hope there will be a tribute to Murray Walker, though, when it takes place. Am sure there will be, he was widely loved and revered throughout the world of motorsport.

Currently listening to “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac, the end bit of which is used as the Formula 1 theme on TV over here and has the best bass riff ever! Essentially, the reason I have a bass – so I could learn to play that riff on it! Got it in 2015 for £30 from Cash Converters in Eccles. Great place for reasonably-priced second-hand musical instruments, actually.

How to remember the notes in the bass clef! Those are the ones on the lines. The notes in the spaces are ACEG, which I remember as All Cows Eat Grass. In the treble clef, the lines are EGBDF – Every Good Boy Deserves Favours (or Football), and the notes in the spaces spell out FACE. You don’t just get book mentions from me, you get music theory too, lol!

Ooh! There’s been a goal! An away goal for United! Yay!

AC Milan 0 Manchester United 1. Paul Pogba 48 minutes. 🙂

Yessss! Get in! Nice one, Pog! Must have come off the bench, as he was listed as one of our subs. Indeed, he came on as a sub for Marcus Rashford MBE at the start of the second half. We are leading 2-1 on aggregate, the first leg at Old Trafford last week was a 1-1 draw.

Barometer is currently at 1,026 hPa, but has been as high as 1,033 within the last 24 hours. Weather has been nice. A bit cold, but dry and fair. I tend to do a few days at a time with The Wrong Kind of Snow. I don’t put a percentage on that, it’s just a matter of reading the entries for each date.

Some literary news just in, well, sort of… just discovered, via a book group on Facebook, that there is a Funko Pop of Jane Austen! Wonder if there are any other famous authors as Funkos? Regular readers of my blog will know that, long before Colin Firth starred as Mr Darcy, I studied Pride and Prejudice back at high school for my GCSEs. As for high school, also thanks to FB, I am in touch with a former teacher from those days. Phil Hollins. He was our RE (Religious Education) teacher and also involved with the school music department.

When I was working at Marks & Spencer’s in 2016, I was actually a colleague of one of my school’s former teachers, Neil Pritchett, although he never actually taught me as I had a different teacher, Miss Brough, for history. He did come on the history field trip to Hadrian’s Wall, though. At M&S, he was working on the tills in the food hall. He might still work at M&S, especially as the food halls will still be open, even at the moment, as food is classed as essential items.

The final whistle has just been blown in the San Siro and United are through. AC Milan 0 Manchester United 1 is a final score so we win 2-1 on aggregate and are in the draw for the next round. Excellent! 🙂

We actually have a good record when I blog, lol! I think we have had one draw and one defeat, but there’s a pretty good chance that United will win if I am blogging during a match!

I think that’s about it, anyway. Can’t think of anything else to report, so I will be back again soon enough with another blog, but until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Parsnips, Buttered – Joe Lycett
• My Dining Hell – Jay Rayner
• The Ten (Food) Commandments – Jay Rayner
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• Bread – Scott Cutler Shershow
• Hungry – Grace Dent
• How to Leave Twitter – Grace Dent
• The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
• Bookworm – Lucy Mangan
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Pi in the Sky!

Hello, fellow Bookworms!

Happy Pi Day! Well, it’s pi if you put the month first, which is the American way round, 3.14, whereas we put the day before the month here, but never mind, it’s still Pi Day. Not that I could eat any pies, lol, as I am stuffed! As stuffed as Ipswich Town in 1995 or Southampton in February this year!

It’s Mother’s Day here in the UK, and so Ellie and I got Mum a joint pressie as well as individual ones – an afternoon tea for two from a company my sister knows – she’s ordered food from them before. As I have said on here previously about afternoon teas, they are very deceptive… you think they’re small, that there’s not much, but there is and it’s VERY filling!

Anyway, as it’s Pi Day, I guess I should mention Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, particularly as it’s the one Booker Prize winner that I have read and enjoyed!

And if we add an e to pi and get pie, I could also mention a poem called “Pies” by John Cooper Clarke, from his anthology The Luckiest Guy Alive. John has always been a performance poet, and you can actually find a clip of him on YouTube reading “Pies” on the TV quiz show “Countdown” – well worth looking up! I also have his autobiography, I Wanna Be Yours, which came out last year, but I’ve not got around to reading that yet.

Been catching up with The Wrong Kind of Snow to get up to where we are now… 14th March. Some notable entries include 11th March when the town of Seathwaite gets a mention – apparently, in February 1932, it didn’t rain there all month, which is amazing given that it is usually the wettest place in Britain!

You may recall Seathwaite being mentioned on here before, not too long ago. In fact it was the blog in early February on the same night that United went goal crazy and stuffed Southampton 9-0! In between goal alerts, I somehow managed to get some blogging in and mentioned Bring Me Sunshine by Charlie Connelly, and the discovery of graphite in soggy Seathwaite, which is the reason that Cumbria is famous for pencils and there is a pencil museum in Keswick, which I want to visit once things reopen and we can go places again.

On 12th March in 1957, temperatures reached a very toasty 23 degrees Celsius up in Cape Wrath in the Highlands of Scotland. This was due to a föhn, a warm mountain wind. Anyone who listens to the 00:48h Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 will know of Cape Wrath, as it gets mentioned on the inshore waters forecast.

Today’s entry for 14th March is about the birth of modern mountain rescue in the Peak District, but going ahead a little to 15th March, we’re back to the seas again, a recurring theme on here this year, and the invention of the first purpose-built lifeboat in South Shields near Newcastle, back in 1789, after a local ship, the Adventure, is battered by a violent storm on the north-east coast. The lifeboat was built in 1789 and launched in 1790.

Barometer was back on the way up and had gone up to 1,011 earlier but it’s fallen to 1,009 since. Just in case anyone wanted an update on it.

However, Slow Rise has risen to 43% read, so that has risen like its title! Heading for the halfway mark with that particular Ongoing Concern. Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic is still at 50% so the bread-related book may well catch up with the poetry.

Me with my mum – that photo was from when we were in Mauritius in 2019, in the Thai restaurant at the Shandrani Beachcomber resort where we stayed. As it’s Mother’s Day, you get to see Chief Bookworm with her mum! I should put some pictures on here as to the reason why I am as stuffed as Southampton or Ipswich right now, ha ha! They’re on my phone, so I need to put them on FB, then I might put one or two on here.

Some Farcebook stuff… and it is book-related. The other day, someone posted a picture of Ralph’s Party, by Lisa Jewell. I am sure I have that book, or at least have had it in the past but haven’t got round to reading it. I may still have it somewhere, or it might have gone to a charity shop in a previous clearout.

I will need to do that again once charity shops can reopen, which will be 12th April all being well. Need to see what I am not likely to get round to, or some that I have read and am probably not going to re-read, and give them to local charity shops, along with the two Duplicate Books, which are Mad Girl and When All is Said.

Could someone please remind me nearer the time that those two books are in my wardrobe unit? I will need to remember where I put them when the time comes for Boris to give the thumbs up and say the non-essential shops can reopen! Otherwise, I would end up having a sort-out of other books to take to the charity shops and completely forget about those two books!

Also on Farcebook, on a group for my fellow Petheads, someone posted a YouTube video for “Your Funny Uncle” which is one of my favourite b-sides, along with “Shameless”. The lyrics for both of those songs are included in One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, by Neil Tennant. I have been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys since I was 14, back in 1987, so it’s 34 years this year, which is actually 71% of my life!

And that is the reason why I am stuffed right now! I did say I would put at least one picture up from the afternoon tea, so you can evidence why Chief Bookworm doesn’t need any more to eat right now, lol! May need a drink, but still very full.

Some recent downloads now, couple of books acquired on my Kindle… the first of these is One For the Books, by Joe Queenan, who is an American guy writing about books. Books he likes, books he avoids, the random sort of books he’s into. I’ve read 10% of it so far so it’s now an Ongoing Concern, ha ha! No, I won’t be making a book list for that one on List Challenges, as it took me long enough to go through Dear Reader again to put all the books from that book on a list!

The other recent download I will mention is Man About Tarn, by Pete May, which is about how a Londoner learned to love the Lake District. Not started that one yet, but I love the Lake District too, which is not too far away for us as we live in Greater Manchester, and I want to have another short break there when we’re able to do so. If lockdown is eased as planned, people in England should be able to stay over again at places from 17th May, so I hope we can have a short break in the summer, with a hot tub again like we had in October. I love hot tubs!

I still have The Beach Book in my suitcase for when we can travel anywhere again, although I have no idea where I was up to. For anyone who has only recently started to follow my blog, The Beach Book is a book of beach-themed short stories by various authors and it is completely waterproof!

Not even sure how I chanced upon it in the first place, or when I got it, exactly, but it must have been 2011 at the very latest, as I tested how waterproof it was when I was on holiday in Turkey that year! Went on the beach in Gümbet and sat in the sea reading the book and, yes, it was true – the book is 100% waterproof! The above photo, also from that holiday in Turkey, is still one of the funniest things I have seen on my jollies, lol!

That book may never get finished. I say this because how the hell do I know where I was up to from the previous holiday? I need a waterproof bookmark for my waterproof book, ha ha! I do, though. Or it will never be finished properly. Not that it would matter if I did finish it, as I would just start again, and it’s been so long since I read the first stories in it that it would be like starting from scratch.

Line-up for our game at home to West Ham. Yay! Rashy is back!

Other news… I’ve got my clarinet out. Been playing it earlier. For some reason, the “Tetris” theme. Found sheet music on the internet, the joy of Google, lol!

On the cross-stitch front, Freddie still needs a tassel, as does my latest bookmark, which is actually a Christmas one with a stained glass window and holly. If things are OK again by later this year, we may be able to have church fairs again, which is why I was looking up suitable Christmas stuff to stitch as bookmarks even though we are heading towards Easter! That’s just so you know I haven’t lost the plot and got the wrong festival, ha ha! I do know it’s getting near Easter, but I have got at least one thing ready for Christmas!

In the middle is the stitchable journal, and, as you can see, I have stitched a triangular house on it. Don’t know what else to add to it, but that is what I have stitched so far. I know the kit came with a couple of charts, but I decided to do my own thing, hence the house like the ones Mum and I saw in the town of Santana when we went to Madeira.

I have also prepped some more aida and also some hessian to be used as bookmarks. They might be Christmas ones or they may end up with other themes. Quite keen to do some more nerdy ones with video game characters and stuff like that! I’m also on the look-out for good patterns to stitch.

Sadly, we lost two greats from the world of sport this weekend, first was legendary motor racing commentator Murray Walker at the age of 97, and then former boxing champion “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler who was only 66. I imagine tributes have been paid to Murray at the F1 Grand Prix today. May they both rest in peace.

I think that’s about all my news for now. Happy Mother’s Day to any of my followers who are mums in the UK and Ireland and any other countries where it may be Mother’s Day today (I know some countries have theirs in May), and Happy Pi Day! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Life of Pi – Yann Martel
• The Luckiest Guy Alive – John Cooper Clarke
• I Wanna Be Yours – John Cooper Clarke
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn
• Bring Me Sunshine – Charlie Connelly
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• Ralph’s Party – Lisa Jewell
• Mad Girl – Bryony Gordon
• When All is Said – Anne Griffin
• One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem – Neil Tennant
• One For the Books – Joe Queenan
• Dear Reader – Cathy Rentzenbrink
• Man About Tarn – Pete May
• The Beach Book – Various Authors

Whoa, We’re Halfway There!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

* singing * Whoa, we’re halfway there… wooah… livin’ on a prayer! Oops! Sorry for goin’ all Bon Jovi there, but I am halfway there with one of my Ongoing Concerns! Yes, folks, Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, by Simon Armitage, is at the 50% read stage! Woo hoo! The poetry anthology by the current UK Poet Laureate is in the lead when it comes to the books I’ve got on the go at the moment, although some of the others could do with focusing on them.

I say UK Poet Laureate because it seems we’re not the only country to have this position for one of their poets, whereas I had previously thought we were. As I have said in previous blogs, I have met our previous Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, back when I was at uni in the early to mid 90s, she came in to meet our “Recent British Poetry” module class and read to us from The Other Country, including the brilliant “Poet For Our Times” about a headline writer for a tabloid newspaper! If you’re into poetry at all, that one is well worth checking out.

She also signed our copies of The Other Country when she came to uni to read to our group.

Anyway, enough poetry for now, back onto other books, and Slow Rise is heading towards the one-third-read stage, as that is currently at 30% on my Kindle. That’s the one for which I hold BBC Radio 4 responsible, lol!

I need to get on with Bit of a Blur, and Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, really, but I think the bread-related book on my Kindle will be finished off before I get on with those.

Talking of finishing things off, Freddie just needs a tassel now, put the border on last night. I have also started on a stitchable book – it’s a journal kit with a perforated front on the book, got it from a British Heart Foundation charity shop a while back. It does have a couple of chart ideas, but I have decided to stitch my own design on it, which you will see some time soon. The hard bit, though, is fastening off at the end, when I thread the needle and thread through some existing stitches at the back. Because it’s a cardboard front, it’s actually quite stiff and it’s hard to get the needle through, unlike when I’m stitching on some form of fabric such as aida, evenweave or other such material.

Having recently read The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, I have handed it to Mum to have a read before we give it back to Ellie.

Have had some Book Mail in recent days, still having to get reading matter online at the moment. Book shops are due to re-open here, all being well, on 12th April. Supermarkets do have a small selection of reading matter for adults and kids, but I’m having to resort to t’internet, lol!

My purchases were We Ride Upon Sticks, by Quan Barry, and How to Buy a Planet, by D. A. Holdsworth, which is supposed to be science fiction comedy set a few years from now. There were a couple of other books acquired, too, but you will find out about those in due course as they are for other people in my life.

Just having a look at what I’ve got on my Kindle, besides Slow Rise. As I mentioned it the other day, I may as well let you know that I did decide to download Fall, by John Preston, which is the book about Robert Maxwell that Radio Four had been serialisng the week before Slow Rise.

I’ve still got A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, by James de Mille on there, and it’s at 21% read, so I could always resume that one. No idea how I came to find out about that, not offhand anyway, but as I mentioned the book in my blogs last year, some of my blogs from last summer or autumn might remind me how I chanced upon that particular ebook! One of those weird little literary discoveries, lol!

Night Music, by Jojo Moyes is on there – think that was a recent Kindle deal for 99p or something, as was Going Green, by Nick Spalding, if my memory serves me well, lol!

Got some non-fiction too, rather obviously, and there’s a couple of science ones here about physics… Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, by Carlo Rovelli, and Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life, by Helen Czerski. I also have a few other Charlie Connelly ebooks I could read, and probably will, including Stamping Grounds and Last Train to Hilversum.

I quite like the popular science stuff, and really enjoyed Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil deGrasse Tyson when I read that one last year. That’s a physical book, though, not an ebook, and I also have a few other popular science titles, including both Bonk and Grunt by Mary Roach. I read Gulp and Stiff last year, and enjoyed those books.

I also have quite a few books in the Object Lessons series that I’ve yet to read, so I could always return to reading those. The possibilities are endless, especially given the amount of reading matter on my gigantic TBR list, ha ha!

Names for the Sea, by Sarah Moss, is another possibility – something I acquired from Waterstone’s before this most recent lockdown, if I’m not mistaken. It’s about a family’s move to Iceland in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, and as it’s Iceland, there’s volcanoes, plenty of ‘em, in fact, and the infamous Ash Cloud of 2010, lol!

Actually, Mum and I went to Iceland in March 2010. I will categorically state, however, that the ash cloud was NOT our fault! We did not stand on any volcanoes over there! We stayed in Reykjavik and went to see a geyser, but didn’t go standing on the slopes of any of our lava-spurting chums, lol! I know people have their suspicions about our role in Mount Etna’s big eruption of 2001, as we did stand on her slopes a fortnight beforehand, but we take no responsibility whatsoever for the Icelandic ash cloud 9 years later!

Talking of Etna, she’s still erupting, by the way, in case you needed an update. Still spewing out lava and ash over north-east Sicily.

I think that’s probably it, though, now we’ve had an update on the volcano front, lol, and I will be back again soon with more random waffle about books, cross-stitch, volcanoes and other mad stuff! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• The Other Country – Carol Ann Duffy
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackesy
• We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry
• How to Buy a Planet – D. A. Holdsworth
• Fall – John Preston
• A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder – James de Mille
• Night Music – Jojo Moyes
• Going Green – Nick Spalding
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Carlo Rovelli
• Storm in a Teacup – Helen Czerski
• Stamping Grounds – Charlie Connelly
• Last Train to Hilversum – Charlie Connelly
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Bonk – Mary Roach
• Grunt – Mary Roach
• Gulp – Mary Roach
• Stiff – Mary Roach
• Names for the Sea – Sarah Moss

Rising Slowly: Barometers, Bread and Books…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

And it certainly IS a good evening! * sings * Hark now hear United sing! City ran away! And we will fight for ever more because of Derby Day!

Yep, United have won the Manchester Derby this evening, 2-0 away, across town, so you have a very happy Chief Bookworm right now! A Bruno Fernandes penalty put us a goal up after only two minutes, and then Luke Shaw doubled our lead five minutes into the second half after a lovely one-two with Marcus Rashford MBE. Will definitely enjoy watching “Match of the Day 2” tonight!

Anyway, onto matters of a more literary nature now, as we get back to the usual book-related waffle, although weather and shipping forecasts do kinda enter into it in a long-running theme!

Barometer is currently at 1,024 hPa, which is in the high pressure zone, but has been higher of late. Still listening to the Shipping Forecast at night, and it’s the item before it during the week that has now added BBC Radio 4 to the list of culprits who extend my notorious TBR list by giving me book recommendations!

I already have friends, family, workmates, various social media apps, etc, who tell me about books that I might fancy reading, and thus they are enablers who increase that infamous list, but I have discovered that, during the week, before “Sailing By” and the Shipping Forecast, Radio 4 likes to bring us an abridged serialisation of a recent book, and the Book of the Week for this week just gone was so interesting that I ended up downloading it on my Kindle and I have read 17% of it already!

The book in question is Slow Rise: A Bread-Making Adventure, by Robert Penn, and, in case you think the name is familiar on here, it is… he’s the co-writer of The Wrong Kind of Snow, along with Antony Woodward! There will be more about that book later in this blog. Back to the bread, though…

Robert Penn’s book is a history of wheat and of bread, and all the cultural significance of bread throughout history and around the world, as well as his own efforts to grow and harvest his own wheat and make bread from it. It also seemed apt that a book called Slow Rise was on the radio just before a forecast where barometers may also be rising slowly!

The previous books weren’t without their moments, though, and I may still download Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, by John Preston, which was serialised the previous week in that same time slot before the Shipping Forecast. Seems he had a very interesting life prior to becoming a media tycoon, although I only really remember him as that, and for his disappearance from his yacht in November 1991, 30 years ago this coming autumn, when I was 18 and a fresher at university.

Yep, I think I might also download that one. Should be a good read.

Right, so, I went on my Kindle and downloaded Slow Rise, as you can tell, and my Kindle, as it does, gives other book recommendations based on what I have downloaded (yet another guilty party when it comes to increasing Chief Bookworm’s TBR pile, lol!) – and what did my lovely little Kindle Paperwhite suggest to me, based on my purchase of Slow Rise? Amongst its recommendations were two books by Charlie Connelly, including Attention All Shipping!

Sure sign I’m middle-aged and heading rapidly towards 50… I am getting book ideas from late-night programmes on Radio Four, lol!

I think I may have mentioned this in a previous blog, probably at the end of last year, some time between Christmas and New Year, as I was mentioning books that members of my family received for Christmas, and one of these was a book my sister received from one of her friends, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy. Well, I have just borrowed that one from our Ellie and have read it, so it is my 12th book of the year.

I would definitely recommend it, and I really love the mole! At one point, the boy asks the mole if he has a favourite saying, and the mole replies that he does, and that it is…

“If at first you don’t succeed, have some cake.”

Now, THAT is exactly the sort of advice Chief Bookworm can live by! The book had actually been recommended to me by someone at work in the November when I did some online wellbeing thing, and then my sister was given a copy for Christmas by a friend of hers, and when she mentioned it so that I could include it in my blog, I said that it had been mentioned at work. I remembered to mention it the other day as I was sorting something out with her so I messaged her and she lent me the book. I may get a copy of my own, though. It really is a lovely book.

Also, for the music nerds amongst us, there is some illustrated music on the inside front and back covers – same piece of music. Musical direction is “lively and in strict time” and it’s obviously for piano as it has both treble and bass clefs, but I recognise the melody as it was in one of my music books from when I was a kid, and it’s the “Soldiers’ March” by Robert Schumann.

It is actually the last piece of music in The School Recorder Book 1, by E. Priestley & F. Fowler! I also have The School Recorder Book 2, by the same two guys. Have had them for absolutely donkey’s years, as you can imagine! My recorders are up in the loft, I think, but I have used the books for my uke, as the pitch range is suitable for a ukulele as well as a descant recorder.

I did say I was going to return to The Wrong Kind of Snow, especially as one of the writers of that book is the author of Slow Rise! So, we are now into March and the entries for this month are still quite snowy at times.

2nd March saw a mention of the winter of 1963, and said that while some parts of the country were starting to thaw out by then, it wasn’t the case up north, and Halifax Town FC had, by this point, given up on the prospect of playing football on their pitch and opened it up as an ice rink instead, lol!

Today’s entry, for 7th March, shows that the 80s could be just as snowy at this time of year, and we’re talking down south, here, as the entry is an extract from the brilliant Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby, and on this day, back in 1987, he was at a snowy Stamford Bridge, watching his beloved Arsenal lose 1-0 away to Chelsea. Perhaps I should have a re-read of Fever Pitch? Not read it for years, but absolutely loved it when I did read it, way back in 1994.

Laughed my arse off at parts of it, in fact! So much I could relate to, as a match-going fan, even though Hornby and I support different teams. We both know what it’s like to see our team win the league after a very long wait for the title, plus there’s all the daft things we fans do if we think they will bring our team luck.

The other Ongoing Concerns are still ongoing, by the way. Now I’ve finished The Channel, and also read The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, I might get back to some of the OCs. Still need to put a border on the Freddie Mercury bookmark, so that is where I am up to with that.

By the way, in the previous blog, I did mention that I was quite a way into The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø before distraction or book slump stopped me, and I can now let you know that this book is 44% read, so, yes, I was some way into it before that happened! Guess I should really resume that one and get it finished off?

This is NOT to be confused with The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs, which is the illustrated children’s book that was made into the animated film that is shown every Christmas on Channel 4 since the channel first started back in 1982! I have definitely read that book in its entirety, along with Father Christmas, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday, and I think I have read Fungus the Bogeyman, too. Probably borrowed it from the library as a kid.

Well, I think that’s probably about all for now, I can’t think of any other news to bring you, so until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn
• Fall – John Preston
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackesy
• The School Recorder Book 1 – E. Priestley & F. Fowler
• The School Recorder Book 2 – E. Priestley & F. Fowler
• Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby
• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• The Snowman – Jo Nesbø
• The Snowman – Raymond Briggs
• Father Christmas – Raymond Briggs
• Father Christmas Goes on Holiday – Raymond Briggs
• Fungus the Bogeyman – Raymond Briggs

The Weird and Wonderful World of Chief Bookworm…

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Happy Weird Pride Day! Apparently, today is the day for any of us who have ever been told we’re weird. Weirder than Weird Al Yankovich, that kind of weird, lol! Being random counts as weird, doesn’t it?! It’s certainly a branch of weirdness, I would have thought. Anyway, for all my fellow “odd ducks”, this is our day, so I hope you enjoy the blog, and I will return to the themes of difference, weirdness and randomness during my witterings today, along with tales of masking tape, cross-stitched bookmarks, lava, and an eleventh finish for the year…

Plus any other random blatherings, lol!

Well, as you can see from the photo, I have replenished my stock of low-tack masking tape for my cross-stitch projects! To say I was getting down on it was an understatement. I had mentioned in a previous blog that it was running out. When I was still on annual leave, on Monday, I looked in supermarkets for it, but to no avail.

However, when Mum was out shopping the other day, while I was working from home, she had a thought – The Range is an essential shop, so is allowed to open, and they have craft and DIY stuff, so we went after I had finished work the other night, and, unlike poor ol’ Bono, I found what I was looking for, lol! It was among the DIY stuff rather than the arts and crafts, but those sections are near each other. I stocked up by buying three rolls of it, might as well, and got some other crafting items as well while I was there! Epic Win!

As I had this new masking tape, I was now sorted for my stitching projects, and the above photo is a clue to my latest bookmark! It’s a lot further on than that now, in fact just needs a border and tassel.

Talking of borders and tassel, I have been sorting those out, and the bookmarks that were nearly finished in previous blogs have now been finished!

So, now you can see the Cubes, Pac Man and ghosts, and the Shipping Forecast bookmarks – they are done and ready to be put into service in my reading matter! Not sure which books they will be used in yet, though.

Talking of books… as expected, The Channel, by Charlie Connelly, was finished the other night, so I have now read 11 books so far this year. As with the two previous books of his, I really enjoyed it and there is overlap between that one and both Bring Me Sunshine and Attention All Shipping.

Going back to the Weird Pride thing again, for a moment, this is it with me and books… I think a lot of other readers would find my tastes to be weird. They’re certainly very different.

We have previously been over why I won’t even attempt horror novels – I don’t like having the living crap scared out of me, so those are a non-starter. OK, people might understand that, but I am pretty sure that they would find me weird for not bothering with either romantic fiction or crime fiction much. I don’t rule those genres out completely, but they’re certainly not ones I gravitate towards in general. Other readers are racing through the latest thrillers, and there’s me, reading books about the weather and the shipping forecast, lol!

Cosy crime might not be too bad, and I enjoyed The Red House Mystery, by A. A. Milne, a few years ago for the book club we used to have at Waterstone’s on Deansgate, and I have recently purchased The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman, as that does sound pretty good, but I don’t really fancy anything too grisly for the same reason that I avoid horror stories!

Having said that, I do own The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø, which is rather dark Scandinavian crime fiction, and did start reading it some years ago, getting some way into it before another book must have distracted me or I went into a reading slump. I reckon I am a good way into it should I wish to resume it. I also have a copy of Sirens, by Joseph Knox, which is a crime novel set here in Manchester, so I guess the local interest would be the thing for me with that one – recognising any places he mentions in the plot.

Random moment here, lol, and I guess it’s sort-of crime-related, as I am pretty sure that false advertising is a crime! If you play any games on tablets or phones, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen what I am about to mention… those mini games that get advertised when you watch a video in order to get some extra points or coins in whatever game you’re playing… I’m talking about the lava, water and treasure games…

See example above. I think this sums up what I’m wiffling on about… these games… pull the rods in the right order or you fail. These things are not part of the actual games if you download and play them, which, quite frankly, is false advertising, as I said, and shouldn’t really be allowed! However, what really grabbed my attention, possibly because Mount Etna is erupting again at the moment, is the lava in these games!

Anyone else other than me think the lava is completely illogical?! Where has it come from? I see no volcanoes in the background, active or otherwise! Even if there was a volcano, how has a small portion of lava made its way to that chute? Most puzzling of all, though, is the question of why everything in the game isn’t on fire! You cannot contain lava! It is liquid fire, essentially, and burns up everything in its path!

Look, I know a fair bit about volcanoes! I have done since I was about 7 or 8, back in the early 80s, when my dad let me come down to watch a programme with him late one night, an Open University one, probably, and I was fascinated! I have since stood on one or two volcanoes while on my holidays (vacations), including Mount Etna, so I know about lava, and the damage volcanoes do when they erupt, thus these silly games bring out my inner Mr Spock and make me want to exclaim “That is illogical, Captain!” when I see one of these things and the lava hasn’t set the building alight!

Couple of books about volcanoes, real life ones, lol, that I read some years ago, and would recommend… Volcano in Paradise, by Phil Davison, about the eruption in Montserrat in the mid 1990s, and Surviving the Volcano, by Stanley Williams, about his survival of the eruption of Galeras in Colombia in 1993.

I can also recommend Violent Volcanoes, by Anita Ganeri, from the Horrible Geography series – that’s a bit like the Horrible Histories books, it’s in that style, and really good – not just for kids, although you will find it in children’s non-fiction.

I also have a copy of Krakatoa, by Simon Winchester, but I’ve not got around to reading that one yet.

On a geological bent, while we have been discussing volcanoes, their activity is caused, of course, by tectonic plate movement, which kinda brings me on to footy, as watching tectonic plates move would be more interesting than the tedious 0-0 draws my team has served up of late, lol! They need to find their shooting boots! 26 years ago today, it was the 9-0 demolition of Ipswich Town, but I would have settled for just a 1-0 win last night instead of yet another 0-0 snore draw!

Back to the cross-stitch now, and the photo of Freddie… as you can see, I have added to this now, and also put my initials and the year at the bottom, under Mr Mercury, although I hadn’t added those when I took that photo. I now just need to finish it off with a border and tassel. Not entirely sure what theme I will have for my next bookmark, lol, but certainly in a stitchy mood of late. Once again, though, it highlights the random nature of the things that interest me or inspire me to make bookmarks! Patterns, retro video games, the Shipping Forecast and music… all celebrated in bookmarks!

I have a book on one of my piles called Is This the Real Life? The Untold Story of Queen, so I can always start that and use my Freddie bookmark when it’s finished! The book is by Mark Blake.

Going back to the whole weirdness and randomness topic, I’ve always been different, I guess. Difference was selected for me, really, given that my thyroid decided, when I was born, that it couldn’t be arsed doing the job it’s meant to do for my body. So, I may as well be different in other things, too! How can you expect conventional from anyone whose body isn’t completely conventional?! You have to accept at least a bit of difference!

However, I do like some things that are popular, the football club I support, for example, and the music I like is not unpopular, so it’s not always about niche or cult things. I would love to know, from anyone who knows about those kind of things, why people have the different tastes and interests they have. That would be interesting!

I kinda understand hobbies and activities, as those are often based on our ability, or lack thereof, in certain activities. That explains why I shy away from physical recreation, but will gravitate towards choirs or other musical ensembles! But, what makes people like what they like when it comes to things like genres of music, or films, or TV shows? Or even YouTube videos?! Why do some people binge-watch a mini series on Netflix while I watch music quiz videos or wood-turning videos on YouTube?

What’s around at the time, especially when you’re young, often influences music, but there’s still a lot to choose from. For instance, I grew up in the 1980s, I was a teenager in the latter half of that fantastic decade for music, but what made those around at the time go for different kinds of music? What made some go for soft rock or “hair metal” bands? What made some go for house music or hip hop and rap? What made me, and others like me, go for synthesizer groups? What was it in me that saw me end up as a fan of the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure during the course of 1987?

If there’s anyone out there whose specialist subjects include why humans develop their different tastes in music and telly and other matters, please could they get in touch and let me know the hows, whys and wherefores? Ta very much!

Talking of asking for help… if anyone has any suggestions for which of my Chunky Monkeys I should attempt, please get in touch! Please comment on the blog. If you’ve read any Hugh Jass chunky books that you would recommend, especially the five I have mentioned, please say so! Or even if you didn’t enjoy them, I would still appreciate your views on the matter. We had The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts, The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, and The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon.

Those were my shortlisted books. However, if you have any better suggestions, please mention them and I will give them some thought. I have a few other chunky monkeys, so I might have something in already if you recommend it.

That’s probably about all for now, but I like to think it was nice and random and thoroughly in keeping with Weird Pride Day! I will be back with more similarly random nonsense soon enough, but for now, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• Bring Me Sunshine – Charlie Connelly
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• The Red House Mystery – A. A. Milne
• The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
• The Snowman – Jo Nesbø
• Sirens – Joseph Knox
• Volcano in Paradise – Phil Davison
• Surviving the Volcano – Stanley Williams
• Violent Volcanoes – Anita Ganeri
• Krakatoa – Simon Winchester
• Is This the Real Life? – Mark Blake
• The Crimson Petal and the White – Michel Faber
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke
• Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
• The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
• The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

Bookmarks and Anthem Quizzes…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

If I have any Welsh followers, I hope you’ve had a very Happy St David’s Day today! We are now in March, I have Victor Lindelöf on my United calendar for this month, and let’s get on with some book stuff and other random waffle, shall we?! News on the bookmarks coming up as I have the Shipping Forecast one nearly done now. Essentially, that and the cubes one now just need some sort of tassel, and I’m still deciding on the Pac Man and ghosts one as to whether it needs a border or not. It will probably also have a tassel.

Been on annual leave today, and went to Swinton with Mum this afternoon. Couldn’t find any low-tack masking tape in the supermarkets, though, so I may have to look online. I put it around the edges of my aida or other cross-stitch fabric to stop it fraying, but I really am running out now – my current roll of the stuff is all but depleted.

The most likely book to be the first finish of March is The Channel by Charlie Connelly, which is now 80% read, so not too much further to go on that one. I expect to have it finished fairly soon.

Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, by Simon Armitage, the current Poet Laureate, is 42% read, so we are nearing the halfway mark with that one and it has a decent chance of being finished this month. Yes, it is named after one of the coastal stations which are mentioned on the late-night and early morning Shipping Forecasts on BBC Radio 4, in case you were wondering. I think it’s out in the Channel somewhere.

The nearest coastal station on the list, given where I am, would be Liverpool Crosby, I think. I always compare my barometer readings to what they say for that one, and they’re usually fairly similar. The barometer went right up to 1,039 the other day, just a shame it didn’t quite manage 1,040! Currently it’s at 1,030 hPa as I type this.

The photo above is where I was at with the bookmark last night, but some additions have been made as you will see later in this blog. I was just getting the boat and water on it, plus a border. It still felt a bit lacking, though.

So, how have I passed the time while I have been off? Obviously, I went shopping earlier. Got more snacks, if not any masking tape, lol, and have also done some cross-stitch and some reading, and I have been watching videos on You Tube, music quizzes mostly. Guess the national anthems and stuff like that, because I am very random, lol! You won’t be all that surprised, though, especially if you remember that one of last year’s finished books was Republic or Death! by Alex Marshall, which was about travels in search of the stories behind how some of the world’s national anthems came about!

So, which ones would I recognise straight off? If you played me a national anthem or two, which countries would I know instantly without umming and aahing? Obviously my own, for the UK, which also happens to have the same tune as Liechtenstein, or they have the same tune as us, whichever way round you want it, ha ha! All I know is that the melody is the same, which made it very funny back in the noughties when Wembley was being rebuilt so the England team were playing their home games at stadia around the country, and quite a few games were at Old Trafford…

One of these England games at my “second home” was England v Liechtenstein, a qualifier for either the World Cup or the European Championships, I can’t remember offhand, but what I do remember is the novelty of both countries having the exact same tune for their national anthems! You can guess what happened, can’t you? Yep, we just sang “God Save the Queen” twice, lol! Game was a bit crap, lol, but England did eventually get a grip in the second half and won 2-0 as I recall.

Anyway, other than UK and Liechtenstein, lol, which other countries’ tunes do I know without dithering? In no particular order… France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Greece (and I think Cyprus has the same anthem), Russia (same tune the old USSR used to have back in the day), China, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Israel, Brazil.

With others, I can hear them and think they might be one country, and then that turns out to be hopelessly wrong and the correct country isn’t even on the same continent as my guess! This is despite the fact that I am the proud owner of a book of sheet music entitled Nationalhymnen, edited and arranged for piano by Jakob Seibert, which has the music for 50 of the world’s national anthems!

Regular followers of my blog will know that anything goes on here – if it has an ISBN it’s a book and therefore it counts, so sheet music books and recipe books get mentioned on my blogs and are included on List Challenges lists as much as hardbacks, paperbacks, ebooks and, on the odd occasion, audiobooks. Also, any age range counts, from board books for babies, such as Economics for Babies, right up to books meant only for those of us aged 18 or over, such as erotica. Venus in Furs, for example.

A book is a book, and if it’s a book, there’s every chance it will get mentioned on here. I’ve got a fair few books of sheet music around here, actually, including Greatest, by Duran Duran, and Best of Bowie, which is, rather obviously, David Bowie’s greatest hits in notation form. I have some books of orchestral scores, too, such as The Nutcracker, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, so those also count.

Anyway, as I told you earlier, I didn’t feel the Shipping Forecast bookmark was complete the way it was last night, so I have added to it now and I feel it looks good with the row of pennants and the seagulls, lol!

We have already mentioned the two Ongoing Concerns that are the furthest on, but we also need to add Bit of a Blur, by Alex James, which is at 27% and Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, by Martin Aston, which is at 28%, but that’s quite a big book, so I think the autobiography of Blur’s bass player will be finished first out of those two.

The Wrong Kind of Snow is an ongoing venture tbroughout the year, and I can now start on the entry for 1st March!

By the way, I am still looking for assistance in choosing one of my Chunky Monkeys to read. There is a choice of five, a shortlist, which is mentioned on my “Reaper Cushions!” blog from 26th February. I don’t mind if you comment on that particular blog or you have a shufty and come back to this one to cast your vote, but I am not kidding – I would love it if you helped me to decide which one to read!

Ooh, just remembered. Can’t miss this out, as it’s news about the eldest Junior Bookworm – Charlotte has got in at the high school of choice. My sister got the good news this morning and let us know. I think it might be next month when they find out about Reuben’s primary school place.

I have a mug that I frequently use, it was a Christmas pressie years ago and has photos of my niece, and some of me with my niece, when she was a baby. I can’t believe how time has flown and that she will be moving up from primary school to high school this year! I’m sure she’ll enjoy high school, especially the music and drama departments!

Well, I think that is probably all for now. More waffle when there is anything to report, lol, but until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
• Republic or Death! – Alex Marshall
• Nationalhymnen – Jakob Seibert (ed.)
• Economics for Babies – Jonathan Litton
• Venus in Furs – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
• Greatest – Duran Duran
• Best of Bowie – David Bowie
• The Nutcracker – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn