Rated Bog Standard on Trustpilot!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Trying to keep cool in hot weather, and watching Croatia v Italy on the telly. The other game is Albania v Spain. Was going to say that both games were 0-0 but Spain have now scored. Scotland were unfortunate last night. Should definitely have had a penalty but it wasn’t given. As we often sing, “Fergie’s right, the refs are shite!” – that ref definitely was yesterday!

However, some good news was received as Alan Hansen is on the mend. I brought you the news a couple of blogs ago that he’d been admitted to hospital. He was discharged at the weekend to continue his recovery at home.

It’s the day between birthdays here, Mum’s yesterday and Ellie’s tomorrow, so I’m blogging today. As well as it being Mum’s birthday, it was also Charlotte’s Anthem show, so we went over to the other side of town for that, and then had La Turka takeaway when we got back. Was a bit too tired and stuffed to blog. At least the postcode I Googled was right and was accepted by our satnav. No problems with getting lost and having to ask a cop like what happened in December when we were trying to find our way to the Christmas gig!

Something that has puzzled me for a while is Trustpilot. Well, more to the point, their ratings. We only ever hear companies boast on their adverts if they were rated “excellent” on Trustpilot, but what are the other ratings? The ones that companies aren’t too keen for us to know about? Is anyone ever rated “bog standard” or “bang average”? Could you imagine a firm being rated “a bit meh” on Trustpilot?!

The other thing that has puzzled me, and it’s pretty timely with the General Election coming up, is why are Party Political Broadcasts still on telly? Why were they ever on? Is there anyone who is NOT a MP or a member of an MP’s family who watches that boring shite?!

When I was a kid, and we only had three channels before Channel 4 came along in 1982, a Party Political Broadcast, for the same party, would be on all three channels at the same bloody time!

This would cause the vast majority of us, up and down the country, from John O’Groats to Land’s End, to either pop up to the loo, or nip in the kitchen and put the kettle on for a brew! There would be a huge spike in the National Grid with all the cuppas being made, lol!

Got my voting pack on Friday and completed my postal ballot yesterday, so it will be heading back to the civic centre so it can be counted when polling closes late at night on 4th July.

Before I get on to the actual book news, and I have a fair bit of that to bring you, I’ve been acquiring some more French crisps from Wandering Palate with unusal flavours. Not tried it yet, but that Tartiflette one sounds intriguing! I was wondering what on earth a tartiflette was, and my first thought was some sort of savoury tart, a bit like a quiche, but then I had the good sense to resort to our old mate, Google…

The illustration on the bag of crisps shows some cheese, a spud, an onion and some bacon bits, which is possibly why I thought it was a quiche, but it is actually a popular après-ski dish from the Savoy region of the French Alps! A creamy dish with potatoes, Reblochon cheese, onions and bacon bits (lardons) and some people also add white wine.

This is a tartiflette. Looks rather yummy, actually! Apparently, the Reblochon is not easy to come by outside France, but any semi-soft cheese like a brie or camembert, which melts easily, will work well as a replacement. Will let you know when I try the crisps.

It’s half-time in the footy. 0-0 between Croatia and Italy, and Spain are 1-0 up vs Albania.

It’s also about time I got on with the book news, and the big news is that I have now finished The Lost Rainforests of Britain, by Guy Shrubsole, which I would definitely recommend! Would also suggest looking up videos of the UK’s temperate rainforests on YouTube to get a really good look at them! I also mentioned Guy’s book to Robin Ince on Threads the other day as the writer was on a “save nature” march, so I applauded him for it and asked if he’d read the book about rainforests. Got a very nice reply to say no he hadn’t but needed to get around to taking it down from his shelf!

That takes me to 6 books for June, level with May so far with just under a week left to go, so you never know… there may be another finish by the time of Sunday’s monthly review blog! I certainly aim to get some reading done this week so that, even if I don’t finish any more this month, there will be books with a good chance of being polished off early in July.

One of my infamous playlists! The capybara is from the latest monthly themed box from Oops a Daisy and when it said Capy Says Relax, it just made me think of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, lol, so it inspired this playlist of 80s tunes, with an emphasis on summery vibes.

Anyway, Ongoing Concerns time, and Concretopia, by John Grindrod, is now 50% read, which I am chuffed about. Got a couple that are at least a third read. How Not to Fit In, by Jess Joy and Charlotte Mia, is 38% read. Those who follow my blog regularly will know that I often read books which are first-hand lived experiences of other people with various disabilities and/or neurological differences, and this comes into the brains on different operating systems category.

Not too far behind Jess and Charlotte is Toshikazu Kawaguchi with Tales From the Cafe, which is 33% read, the second book in the series which starts with Before the Coffee Gets Cold about the Tokyo cafe where time travel is possible.

Ooh, we might have a penalty for Croatia here… handball… yep. Ref has been over to look at the VAR screen and has come back and given Croatia a spot kick. Luka Modric to take… and it’s saved!!! Still 0-0!

Might not have scored from the spot, but Croatia HAVE got a goal now! Croatia 1 Italy 0. I always liked the red and white checkered shirts they had when they made their debut at Euro ‘96 here in England! Italy do have one of my favourite national anthem tunes, though!

Some absolute bangers in that top 10 from 40 years ago!

Ooh! Italy came close to an equaliser just now.

Right, before Croatia scored, I was going through the Ongoing Concerns and next up is A Poem for Every Summer Day, edited by Allie Esiri which is now 25% read as of today! Woo hoo! It will reach the 33% mark on 2nd July.

We then have three books at 10% read, but they are recent starts, and those are Believe Me, by Eddie Izzard, Dear Bill Bryson, by Ben Aitken and Do Not Pass Go, by Tim Moore.

Dear Bill Bryson is a retracing of Bryson’s footsteps from when he wrote Notes From a Small Island in 1994, and Ben Aitken is doing this 20 years later in 2014. Of course, I am now reading it in 2024 so the 30th anniversary year! When Bryson was going around my country, I was celebrating my 21st birthday, watching United do their first Double and graduating from university!

It should mean, though, that when Ben Aitken gets to Manchester, the Arndale Centre looks a damn sight more architecturally pleasant than it did for Bryson. It still had the lavatorial yellow tiles when poor ol’ Bill set foot in town as it was two years before the IRA bomb of June 1996 which forced a fair bit of urban renewal.

This is the Arndale, or part of it, as it looks these days. A huge contrast to how it looked as I was growing up. It was built and opened in the 70s and while it is a bloody good idea to have a covered shopping centre in a rainy city like ours, lol, there were some issues with it. It was hot and stuffy inside. You would be outside and it’d be cold and pissing down with rain, then you would go in the Arndale and it would be boiling! Specs would steam up sometimes! It was also quite dimly-lit in places, too, when I was growing up.

Don’t even start me on the exterior appearance and those bloody awful yellow tiles! It looked like a toilet block rather than a shopping centre!

I will be in town at the weekend, but that’s for Stationery Fest which is at the G Mex.

Do Not Pass Go, by Tim Moore, is a trip around London visiting the locations on the Monopoly board! It’s the fourth book of his that I’ve picked up, following French Revolutions, Nul Points and Spanish Steps. My copy of Do Not Pass Go is a charity shop bargain from some years ago, and only cost me £1. I think it was one of the British Heart Foundation shops, either in Eccles or Salford Precinct.

Well, I think that’s about all for now. Pretty sure I have covered nearly everything I noted down in my blog logs. Croatia are still 1-0 up vs Italy and Spain are still 1-0 up vs Albania. The games are now in Fergie Time.

Spain have beaten Albania and go through as group winners, Albania are home before the postcards, as the cliché goes. Albania losing also means that England are through to the knockout stages no matter what happens tomorrow evening.

Italy have equalised deep in Fergie Time! It finishes 1-1. Croatia have 2 points so they are not sure if they get one of the 3rd place spots or they go out. Sadly, I don’t think it’ll be enough for them.

I plan to be back on Sunday as that will be 30th June so it will be the monthly review and a look at the year so far on the book front as we reach the halfway point. Until that time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Lost Rainforests of Britain – Guy Shrubsole
• Concretopia – John Grindrod
• How Not to Fit In – Jess Joy & Charlotte Mia
• Tales From the Cafe – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• A Poem for Every Summer Day – Allie Esiri (Ed.)
• Believe Me – Eddie Izzard
• Dear Bill Bryson – Ben Aitken
• Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore
• Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
• French Rovolutions – Tim Moore
• Nul Points – Tim Moore
• Spanish Steps – Tim Moore

May Review 2024: Bergen, Books, Blood and a Cup!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

It’s 31st May, so that means it’s time for the monthly review blog, and a look back at a month which saw me finish six books, buy twelve, head off to Norway for a short break, go and see a show, see my mum awarded for giving a hundred armfuls, and celebrate some silverware for my beloved Reds!

It’s also Fishy Friday, of course, which means that, on a scale of 0 to “Ipswich Town At Old Trafford In 1995”, Chief Bookworm is definitely at the United 9 Ipswich 0 end of the “totally stuffed” scale, lol!

Mum and I popped over to Norway on 9th May for a short break in Bergen, which also included a full day Fjords tour. We even managed to have Fishy Friday in Bergen, although it’s not too surprising as the city is famous for its fish market and I ate a lot of seafood on that break.

While we were in Norway, the Eurovision Song Contest took place “next door” in Sweden, and it was won by Switzerland, so the 2025 contest will take place somewhere in the country in which I spent six months back in 1978 due to my dad’s job!

On 21st May, Mum, Ellie and I were at the Lowry Theatre on Salford Quays to enjoy a performance of the musical “Jesus Christ, Superstar” one of the old classic Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber ones from the 1970s. I had seen it before, although many moons ago, lol, and have also sung “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” in a concert when I was sixteen, also reprising the song last year when I chose it for my choir audition piece.

The following day, Mum and I were at the Sheridan Hotel in Manchester as Mum was receiving her awards for having made over 100 blood donations, hence the photo above! She has actually given 101 donations thus far, and I have given 53 armfuls and hope to visit the Vampires again soon.

There’s been a slight increase in my thyroxine, though, my doctor put the dose up in early April so we have to ensure I am well on the new amount before I can give some more of my O positive and have an empty arm again. I’d been on the same dose for years, most of my adult life, but I am in my early 50s now and heading for menopause, so it makes sense that I might now need a bit more to help me through this stage of my life.

Saturday 25th May was Towel Day in honour of the late great Douglas Adams, author of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which he said that a towel was one of the most useful items an intergalactic hitch hiker could have, and if he was “with it” enough to know where his towel was, he would be a “frood”!

25th May was also the FA Cup Final and like last year, it was a Manchester Derby at Wembley. However, this time, United won, beating City 2-1 with goals from Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, who are both only 19, first time both scorers on the winning side have been teenagers!

Once again, our youth policy helps us prove Alan Hansen wrong! You don’t win ‘owt with kids, eh?! Ha ha!

Actually, Kobbie’s hat and his arms folded pose on that photo made me think of “old skool” 1980s hip hop acts, like Run DMC, lol! OK, Kobbie wasn’t born until 2005, but if he grew up with that kinda music thanks to his parents, there’s a chance his pose was a deliberate emulation of artists from that genre when I was a kid.

Run DMC some time around 1986. The guy on the left… that hat, the folded arms… see what I mean about Kobbie’s FA Cup celebration?!

Anyway, time I got on to the books I have read, one was finished off before I went to Norway, but the others have been polished off in this last week.

First up was Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, the first book in his series about a cafe in Tokyo where customers can experience a form of time travel if they’re in the right seat and the coffee is still hot… I am now on for the second book, Tales From the Cafe, which is 10% read so it is one of the Ongoing Concerns, and I bought the 3rd and 4th books earlier this week when I went to the Trafford Centre and made my customary visit to Waterstone’s.

Actually, a fifth book is due out this autumn, in September.

From left to right, the reading order for the books. I now have all but the green one as that is not out until later this year.

On Sunday 26th May, as well as celebrating the 25th Anniversary of The Treble, St Ole’s Day, I was celebrating another book finish as I had polished off Unofficial Britain by Gareth E. Rees, the first of two books by this writer, and a very enjoyable and interesting read which led to me reading another by Mr Rees and also ordering a couple of books by another writer which actually go pretty well with Rees’s books as they kinda provide illustrations for those.

About Britain, by Tim Cole, was up next on the finished books front, giving me my third of the month, so at that point at least I was maintaining a consistent “three books a month” record for finishes. That one was on my Kindle and involved Mr Cole retracing the recommended routes from a series of guides meant for the Festival of Britain in 1951 but doing it seventy years on to see what had changed and if anything had stayed the same.

It was quite interesting, particularly in terms of motoring history such as drink-driving laws, driving tests, licenses and the invention of “cats’ eyes” to reflect light from headlights and keep motorists safer at nights.

Back to Gareth E. Rees again now and the second book down in this photo, Car Park Life, which was another really good read and got me thinking about all the car parks in my life. Even as a non-driver there has been a lot of significant time spent in car parks. I don’t think a monthly review is the time to expand on that, so maybe I will revisit the topic in one of my June blogs.

It also meant that I had improved on my previous months by having finished four books, but yesterday I polished off two more to take us to the dizzy heights of six books finished in May!

Book number five for the month was Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad. I may have been reading all these items of travel writing about my own country, but still managed to polish off a book about a Brit living and working in Japan. He had had an uncertain start when he applied to a programme to become an English teaching assistant at a Japanese high school, but ended up establishing himself and getting to mix with Japanese celebs, lol! Definitely worth a read, and it is now available in paperback.

You know when I said that the Gareth E. Rees books caused me to order some other books along similar lines? Well, one came yesterday and the other arrived today, hence Roundabouts of Great Britain, by Kevin Beresford, became my sixth finish for May, and Parking Mad, by the same guy, arrived this morning.

The car parks book might be my first read for June. Had a little look but not really a serious read yet. However, I definitely enjoyed the roundabouts one last night and if he ever thinks about doing a sequel with more roundabouts, he should come to Monton. I would advise that he should come in December as then he would see the tree on the roundabout with its Christmas lights on!

We actually have two roundabouts, the other being a short distance away near the canal and medical centre, but I was focusing on the main one at the top of Monton Road near the green. There is also a mini roundabout, but you would have to go in the other direction, towards Eccles, as that’s on Half Edge Lane.

Also, he should do a second volume to feature some of the roundabouts in Macclesfield, Cheshire, because I am convinced the Cheshire town is full of them, lol! It certainly felt that way in early 2019 after Dad died and we were going to Macc a few times before and after the funeral as well as the day itself.

In terms of the remaining books, there are four that are still Ongoing Concerns after my epic reading sessions got quite a few books finished and off the list. Was reading a bit of Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, earlier so that is currently 15% read. It’s about life in a Cornish fishing town.

The others are as you were, but with having got a fair few books read, I can have a look at progressing the remaining OCs and then starting a new one or two.

The journaling photo is from my general journal’s theme for June, but as I have said in my blogs this month, I am simplifying things and from July, book and general journals will be merged and my pink Oops a Daisy journal with the coffee cup motif will have both book and general stuff in it. The choir and travel journals will remain separate.

Still need to set up my choir journal for June and can do that at the weekend. Once I have chosen the song, there isn’t too much to do. Only need a few pages per month. There may not be a July theme, or there may be just a calendar, as there was talk of taking a break that month. We need a new conductor and some more members, we are a pretty small choir right now.

In the interests of balance, that is the title page from my June theme in my book journal. It is also to remind me to mention that I will be going to StationeryFest at the end of June! Yay! It’s at the GMex. Well, it’s Manchester Central, but many of us still know it as the GMex. Didn’t get to go last year as it was the same day as the Monton Village Festival and I was performing with the choir, so I’m chuffed that I can make it this year.

Well, that’s about it for now. I think I have brought you all the news and reviews for May, so until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Tales From the Cafe – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Unofficial Britain – Gareth E. Rees
• About Britain – Tim Cole
• Car Park Life – Gareth E. Rees
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Roundabouts of Great Britain – Kevin Beresford
• Parking Mad – Kevin Beresford
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash

Chief Bookworm’s Bank Holiday Book Blog!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

For those of you on my side of the Atlantic, Happy Bank Holiday Monday! I am back with another blog, the first one for May, and some book news. Progress on some of the Ongoing Concerns, someone I met by chance on Saturday, and some new reading matter, plus the usual sort of waffle and random nonsense that you have come to expect from this blog over the years, ha ha! I mean, this blog will be 14 years old in August and there has been plenty of randomness since the summer of 2010!

I was watching “Pointless” as I do… one of the few TV programmes I actually bother with, and came to think this blog is a bit like Pointless. OK, it’s not a quiz show and there are no prizes on offer, but the whole aim of that quiz is to find the most obscure correct answer. It has to be a correct answer, but one which the fewest people, or preferably no people, had thought of when the surveys were done.

While some of the books I have mentioned since 2010 have been popular ones, at least fairly well-known books, I like to think that I have also introduced my blog’s followers to some reading matter they might not otherwise have heard of. These books are like the pointless and low-scoring answers on the quiz, gems like Economics for Babies, by Jonathan Litton, or even Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, which is about the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.

Are there any knights from Monty Python here?!

Anyway, on Friday, when watching “Pointless”, the pair who reached the final ALMOST chose the “Belgian Jazz and Pop” category that has been doing the rounds for ages! One of the guys actually thought they should go for it. Unfortunately, his friend put him off! So, now we have to wait for it to come round again in a few shows’ time and see if anyone does choose it! So close, though!

So curious to find out what the questions would be for that one!

Saturday was Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, and the Force was strong with Chief Bookworm, particularly at the bingo but I will come on to that in a bit. I went into town to take the blister packs in to Superdrug to be recycled, we’d amassed quite a lot of them so they needed taking in. I also went to Waterstone’s as I had a National Book Tokens gift card for my birthday last month and so it was time to see if there was any interesting reading matter to spend it on.

Turns out that I also had a tenner on my Waterstone’s card, so with that and the gift card I was able to get £25 off the total cost of my book purchases! Yay! I also had a chance meeting with Stephanie from the now-defunct book club that we used to go to at that Deansgate branch of Waterstone’s! Stephanie is the lady who would always quote Dorothy Parker if she didn’t like the book we’d been reading. “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force!”

So, what reading matter did I purchase at Waterstone’s? Five books in total and I will go through them now. First up, Food of the Cods, by Daniel Gray, a book about how fish & chips made Britain. Obviously, I love a chippy tea, and a good pun, so this book was an obvious choice!

Next up, Car Park Life, by Gareth E. Rees, so the same bloke responsible for one of my current Ongoing Concerns, Unofficial Britain. I will do the OC updates in a bit, but this book is by the same writer, so I have mentioned both books together. Probably a book that I will go onto once I have finished Unofficial Britain as it probably ties in nicely.

The Cabin in the Mountains, is by Robert Ferguson, and is about a couple who buy a cabin in the mountains in Norway. When I saw this book in Waterstone’s on Saturday, its cover reminded me of Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, which was one of last year’s reads, same style of design albeit with a red background rather than blue.

Signs of Life, by Stephen Fabes, is about his journey around the world and how he fetched up using his medical skills and knowledge along the way, as he’s a doctor. Wavewalker, by Suzanne Heywood, is her own memoir of being out on a boat with her parents and brother and how she missed school and friends and fought to return to education. It has been a Radio 4 Book of the Week.

Ignore the cans and glass behind the boxes, but these were my winnings at St Thomas’s Church on Saturday evening when Mum and I enjoyed an evening of bingo with a meal of sausages, mash and peas! Mum also had a win on the bingo and chose some Tunnock’s Teacakes. The Force was definitely strong on Star Wars Day, lol!

However, I should now get on with the Ongoing Concerns as there has been significant progress made on a few of them in the week just gone. Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, is now 51% read, so we have just passed the halfway line with that one!

About Britain, by Tim Cole, was already at the 25% read stage, but three books have joined my current ebook at the quarter-read point during the course of last week. Unofficial Britain, by Gareth E. Rees, was the first to do so, and while I got to that point, I read about the Grimsby Ghostbusters, lol! Don’t want to spoil it for you, though, as you may wish to read this book for yourselves!

T.V. by Peter Kay also reached the quarter-read mark and he is starting to get noticed and some short comedy sketches based on his observations about motorway service stations are getting filmed.

Finally on the 25% read front, we have Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, about being an English language assistant in Japanese schools for ten years. This book is now out in paperback and was actually on one of the promotional tables in the travel and travel writing section at Waterstone’s. Certainly very good and very interesting so far.

This just leaves us with two books still at 10% read, those being Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, and The Lost Rainforests of Britain, by Guy Shrubsole, so I will be looking to get them progressed as well as moving some of the others on further and getting at least one finished, that being Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

The above pictures are from my choir journal. I hadn’t set up May when I last blogged, but with having had no rehearsal on Thursday night, it gave me a chance to sort that out. The song is “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman, as we have been working on that a lot lately. Went a bit mad with the stars, lol!

Still need more tenors, by the way, also some more sopranos and altos wouldn’t go amiss. We are OK for basses, though, at the moment.

This is about all for now, I think, except to say that it’s the final of the Eurovision Song Contest this coming Saturday, 11th May. It’s being held in Sweden this year, in the city of Malmö, and the bookies’ favourites to win are Croatia, apparently. Somehow, I doubt we’ll be hearing “Royaume-Uni douze points” very much. We need Sam Ryder to come back and have another go as he came second when Ukraine won in 2022, our best showing in years.

Until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Economics for Babies – Jonathan Litton
• Dark Tide – Stephen Puleo
• Food of the Cods – Daniel Gray
• Car Park Life – Gareth E. Rees
• Unofficial Britain – Gareth E. Rees
• The Cabin in the Mountains – Robert Ferguson
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Signs of Life – Stephen Fabes
• Wavewalker – Suzanne Heywood
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• About Britain – Tim Cole
• T.V. – Peter Kay
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• The Lost Rainforests of Britain – Guy Shrubsole

Cheese Caves, Butter Mountains and Milk Lakes!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Back again with another helping of waffle, plus two finished books and a new Ongoing Concern to mention! Yay! Making headway on the reading front. That is a very cheesy bathroom, isn’t it?! I bet Wallace and Gromit would love that, lol! More about cheese and other dairy products later, but for now some stuff from earlier this month that really should have been mentioned in the previous blog.

On 6th April it was 50 years since Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden with “Waterloo” – they are definitely the act who have had the most success since winning Eurovision, by some distance, although there have been a few others who haven’t done too shabbily after their moment of continental glory.

I’m not talking about some stars who were already established UK chart stars before they competed in the ESC, but more about those who were turned into stars by winning it, the likes of Brotherhood of Man and Bucks Fizz for instance, both winning for the UK, le Royaume Uni, in 1976 and 1981 respectively, and having a decent chart history afterwards for a few years, including some number one singles.

Another thing from Saturday 6th April was that the Pet Shop Boys were on Rylan’s show on Radio 2 that afternoon. As I have said previously on here, when there was a Top 40 of Wham! and George Michael songs on Radio 2 a few years ago, it is a clear sign that I am now a Middle-Aged Old Fart because all the stuff I used to listen to on Radio 1 when I was a kid, the stuff I taped off the charts on a Sunday evening, has now migrated to Radio 2!

Makes it even more pertinent, though, when it’s your absolute favourites who are on Radio 2, the duo I have loved since some time back in 1987 when I was a mere 14 years old. At that time, Neil Tennant was 33 and Chris Lowe was 28. In the present day, though, I’m nearly 51, Neil will be 70 in July and Chris will be 65 in October!

They were on BBC1 last night, actually, an excellent documentary with Alan Yentob, Pet Shop Boys: Then and Now, looking at their entire career. How they met in 1981 looking at synthesizers, and how Neil made the most of his music journalist job with Smash Hits by meeting up with producer Bobby Orlando in 1983 and giving him a demo tape while he was in New York – he was actually over there to interview Sting!

That photo is from June 2017 in Blackpool, when I saw them at the Empress Ballroom on the Super Tour, and me and Sarah ended up at the front partway through the gig, so I was able to get that unimpeded view of Neil and Chris!

Fairtrade hamper, an Easter pressie from Mum! Should have been posted in a previous blog but I didn’t blog in March when it was Easter.

Anyway, I should mention some books, shouldn’t I? When I last blogged, on 9th April, I had just finished Heroes of the RNLI, by Martyn R. Beardsley, which was being read to mark the 200th anniversary of the Lifeboats, but I have since finished a second book this month, my 11th for the year so far, and that one was Rambling Man, by Sir Billy Connolly. I have now lent that one to Mum.

With those read, I need some new Ongoing Concerns, and I have one book, although I still need to start another. The book I have got is on my Kindle, and it’s About Britain, by Tim Cole. A journey of 70 years and 1,345 miles! It starts when Cole finds one of the short guides to the UK which were created for the Festival of Britain in 1951. He manages to complete the set via various second-hand and charity shops, and then has the idea of retracing the suggested routes from 1951 in 2021!

The aim of the 13 short guides in the early 50s had been to encourage people to go beyond just London, get out on the roads and discover more of the country. Tim Cole sets out to retrace the routes and see what has changed and also see if anything has remained the same. I am now 10% of the way through that book, so it has officially become an Ongoing Concern as of yesterday.

One of the existing OCs has had some progress made today, and that one is The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, which is about the Scandinavian countries. I had got to the halfway stage previously, and today’s reading has currently taken me to 59% read as I aim for the next milestone which will be 67% – two thirds of the book. In terms of countries, I’ve read the bits about Denmark, Iceland and Norway, am currently on for Finland and still have Sweden yet to come.

Still need to make more progress with Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, which is 33% read, and a trio of books all on 10% read, those being Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, Dark Salt Clear, by Lamorna Ash, and The Lost Rainforests of Britain, by Guy Shrubsole.

The aim is to get the Scandi one done, and also Before the Coffee Gets Cold, while still making progress with the others.

Classic FM currently playing the Largo from the New World Symphony by Dvořak, which I will always think of as the music from Hovis adverts! There was a spell, around 3 years ago, when Classic FM seemed to be playing this and Panis Angelicus quite a lot and I was reading books about bread at the time, so I suspected them of reading my blogs on the sly! They were also playing Sailing By quite a lot as well, and that’s the music played on Radio 4 before the late night Shipping Forecast, which was another subject matter about which I was reading several books on in the early months of 2021!

Anyway, you’re probably still wondering about the title of this blog, aren’t you? It came about due to a post I saw on Threads last week. I joined the platform towards the end of last year, it’s a sort-of side quest of Instagram. Anyway, I was fannying around on Threads, and chanced upon this post about a cave in Missouri that is full of cheese!

It seemed that there was an excess of the curdy comestible at one point, so some government bods decided to store the surplus cheese in a big cave! The mention of an excess of cheese then took me back to my 80s childhood as it reminded me of similar excesses of dairy produce on our continent, when there was the European Butter Mountain and also a Milk Lake!

Not sure what became of the cow juice overflow, but the powers that be decided they would resolve the spare butter issue by giving it away to senior citizens, so those in receipt of retirement pension enjoyed this perk for a while. My grandma and grandad got some free butter from the European Butter Mountain!

I think there was a European Wine Lake, too. That would go nicely with all that cheese in Missouri, lol! Just need an absolute job lot of Hovis digestives and Jacobs’ crackers, and we’d have a lovely snack, ha ha!

This evening, after work, I was all set to do a bit of postal voting. We have local council elections and a Manchester mayoral election coming up on 2nd May, and Mum and I have had a postal ballot for some years now, certainly since some time during the noughties. We got something in the post the other day and I thought they were ballot packs, so I put them to one side and thought I will sort those out later…

So, I decide to sort them out today after work. And I open the envelopes, ready to put an X next to the name of the person I least hate the sound of, lol, but imagine my disappointment… they were just booklets about the elections and the candidates, NOT the ballot papers! Those are still to come!

I’m not a fan of politicians, and you’ll probably have gathered this if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time. I don’t particularly like any of them. Most politicians are knobheads and some are even bigger knobheads than others, so when elections come along, it’s a case of deciding who is the least knob-like from the selection presented to me! I geared myself up for voting… only to find that the envelopes didn’t have the ballot papers in them! Gonna have to do this all over again when the ballot packs actually do plop through our letterbox!

You only have to see some footage on the news of them arguing in the House of Commons to realise what a bunch of overgrown children they all are! My nephew is 7 and he has more maturity and better manners than they do! MPs just make me want to yell “OH JUST BLOODY GROW UP, FFS!” at the telly. This is why I avoid news and current affairs as much as possible. Politicians are not good for your mental health or your blood pressure!

What was it that Sir Billy Connolly said about them? Along the lines of “the desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one” or words to that effect! Spot on, Big Yin!

That has been tonight’s snack of choice while blogging. Got them from Wandering Palate yesterday along with some of my favourite Iberian ham crisps. For the benefit of those whose French doesn’t extend much beyond “Pour aller à la bibliothèque, s’il vous plaît?” and other stuff you learned at school donkey’s years ago, the flavour of these crisps is goat’s cheese and Espelette pepper. They’re not mega spicy, so won’t set your gob on fire even though those peppers on the illustration look as though they would be quite fiery chillies. Any heat from the peppers is balanced out by the cheese, anyway. Would recommend.

Anyway, that is about it for now, so until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Heroes of the RNLI – Martyn R. Beardsley
• Rambling Man – Sir Billy Connolly
• About Britain – Tim Cole
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• The Lost Rainforests of Britain – Guy Shrubsole

That Was 2023 Part 2: May to August. From Charlie’s Coronation to the Chester Trip.

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to part two of the review of the year, and I can’t believe how near to Christmas we are now. Next Sunday is Christmas Eve! The following Sunday will be New Year’s Eve, but I will do my last blog of the year before then. Anyway, I have done the pressie wrapping today, and it was Mince Pie Sunday for Mum – she has made 78 mince pies.

So sit back, relax after your festive preparations and enjoy a look back at the second helping of annual review. This time we’re looking at May to August and the books I read in those months, plus stuff that happened during that part of the year.

As with last week’s blog, I will not be listing the books at the end of the blog as there are too many to mention, so I will just highlight titles and authors as I go along. Let’s get in the time machine and head back to May when the bunting was up for the Coronation…

Right then, May started off with yours truly on unclebiotics due to an infection, so I couldn’t have any booze while celebrating the Coronation on 6th May as Charles and Camilla were crowned at Westminster Abbey and we got an extra bank holiday on 8th May.

Four books were finished in May, first to be polished off was Not Cool, by Jules Brown, which was about him travelling through Europe during a heatwave, lol! Next up was a book that was published the year I was born, that book being Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I had it in my mind to do this, read at least one book this year that was turning 50 as I was, and I have done it.

I became an Admin of A Cup of Tea Solves Everything on Farcebook in May so I was finally able to do what I’d wanted to do for years – boot all the spammers out of that group and make it purely about tea again! It had been plagued with spammers for years, posting any old crap and it was annoying the hell out of those of us who wanted it to be for its proper purpose, but it is definitely tea only now! I put the kettle on and had a brew to celebrate!

Not For Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, was finished in this month, as was Ticket to Ride, my second Tom Chesshyre book of the year and the first of his about trains, but not the last, lol!

Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, and it was won by Sweden whose singer Loreen won the contest for her second time, thus putting her up there with Mr Eurovision, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland back in the 80s. Pulp had a post-box topper made of them, and the band later met their yarn-based lookalikes, but there was sad news from the world of music as we lost the legendary Tina Turner, who passed away at the age of 83.

A tennis-themed postbox topper in June to mark the start of Wimbledon, and post-box toppers were very much making headlines in this month as there was even a programme, “Yarnbombers” on the BBC about groups of avid knitters and crocheters who make postbox toppers and other yarn-based decorations in their local areas. It followed in particular a group of yarnbombers in Wales who were making their creations for the Coronation in May.

Early June saw me in town but my iron level was a bit too low to give a pint of O positive to the Vampires on that occasion. I did, however, read Marcus Rashford, by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, while I was pootling around W H Smith’s so that was the first of five books I read in June. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, was my next finish and the first of several books about the Lake District that I have read this year.

Following on from reading my first Jules Brown ebook the previous month, I read Don’t Eat the Puffin on my Kindle during June. I then read Ticket To the World, by Martin Kemp, and the fifth book for this month was This is Not Your Stone, by Brett J. Cole, which I read via Facebook, so I am classing it as an ebook.

I was also very happy to discover, in June, that catarrh pastilles were back in Boots again! Yay! Regular followers will no doubt know that I have my ENT issues, and was not a happy bunny for a while when I couldn’t get hold of any catarrh pastilles, either Boots or Potter’s Pastilles. I did get some Olbas ones which put me on, but then the Potter’s ones were available again online and then, to my delight, the own brand ones were back on the shelves in Boots! Yay!

We got a new doorbell in June as the old one, which had sounded a bit drunk at times when the battery ran down, conked out completely. I enjoyed Glastonbury on the telly, particularly the Arctic Monkeys, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Sir Elton John, but we lost former footballer, Gordon McQueen in this month, aged 70.

Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, my ongoing reading for the year, reached the halfway stage towards the end of June, 50% read.

Right, July now, and hold on to your hats, we’ve got a lot of reading matter to get through as I read ten books that month! I was also participating in the Monton Festival as a member of the Mancunian Singers, my first gig as a member of the choir! My niece, Charlotte, was also performing at the festival, as part of the Anthem Music School set.

While I’m on the subject of singing, before I get on to the books, I’d just like to put it out there that the Mancunian Singers are looking for new members of all singing voices, soprano, alto, tenor or bass, and we will be resuming for the new year on Thursday 4th January 2024. We meet in the church hall of Monton Unitarian Church, on Monton Green, from 8:15pm to 10pm on Thursday evenings so if you live in or near Monton and fancy a good sing on a Thursday night, please feel free to come along in January!

Right, enough advertising, time to get on with the books and first up for July was Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, which I finished on 1st July – appropriately enough as it meant I had finished a book about Canada on Canada Day! Sea Fever, by Meg and Chris Clothier, was next up, then Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson was polished off after I found it in the book chest.

After that came The Perfect Golden Circle, by Benjamin Myers, one of my rare fiction reads, but a good ‘un – it is set in the summer of 1989 and is about the crop circles that were making headlines that summer in the year Chief Bookworm was sitting her GCSEs and leaving high school, and never needing to use the formula A = pi r squared ever again, ha ha! I have no idea why my brain still retains that information as I’ve not needed it since I last had to do any maths! In 2024, that will be 35 years ago!

Another photo from the Monton Festival, this was my niece singing with Anthem Music School. They were performing before our choir.

Back to the books, and next up was Slow Trains Around Spain, by Tom Chesshyre, the first of two train-related books by this writer that I read in July. Then it was a spot of poetry, Gold From the Stone, by Lemn Sissay, then the joint autobiography of Pepsi & Shirlie, It’s All in Black and White.

Hands of Time, by Rebecca Struthers, was next, and I really enjoyed this one, which was one of those books I have bought and enjoyed because it had previously been a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and I’d listened to an abridged reading of it before “Sailing By” and the Shipping Forecast. She is a watch maker and repairer and her book is a fascinating history of timekeeping and of watches in particular.

My other train-related book by Tom Chesshyre was next to be finished, and that was Slow Trains to Venice, before I reached double figures for July with Bizarre England, by David Long.

Postbox topper to mark the 75th anniversary of the National Health Service. July also brought with it some free wine – yay! One bottle was from choir and the other was from La Turka, and it was the church summer fair at the end of July and Mum and I did well on our stall. I would particularly like to thank Siobhan who bought an absolute LOAD of crime thrillers!

Performance poet, Dr John Cooper Clarke was given the Freedom of the City of Salford in July, but it was a month in which we lost news reporter, George Alagiah, and two from the world of football on the same day, former player and manager, Trevor Francis, and former player Chris Bart-Williams, aged only 49. He had played under Trevor Francis in the 90s when they were together at Sheffield Wednesday.

And so to August, in which five books were finished off, I was on more unclebiotics early in the month, so I had to stick to mocktails when Mum and I went on our short break to the Lake District, the now-annual visit to Bowness on Windermere during which I stocked up on fudge and Kendal Mint Cake to the surprise of absolutely no-one, lol! We even went to Kendal for the day and visited the gift shop at the Romney’s factory where the mint cake is made!

Safety in Numbers, an anthology of poetry by Roger McGough, was the first book finished in August, followed by Treasure Islands, by Alec Crawford – this should not be confused with the classic novel, as this book is non-fiction and is about diving for valuable bits from shipwrecks off the coasts of islands, and does not involve any pirates, parrots or treasure chests, lol!

Kendal History Tour, by Billy F. K. Howorth, was next up, a result of our recent trip to the Lakes and the home of the mint cake, lol! After that, I read Itchy Feet & Bucket Lists, by Emma Scattergood, who was on a world tour with her husband during 2019-2020. They are Aussies, and they had managed most of their tour before the pandemic, and after they had been here in the UK, they were sailing back home to Oz by way of a cruise and they did manage to get back home before Australia locked down due to coronavirus but the cruise itinerary had to change a little as parts of the Far East had already shut down so they couldn’t stop off there on their way back down under.

Fifth book finish for August was Wham! George & Me, by Andrew Ridgeley, a really good read and it brought to an end a chain of autobiographies linking Spandau Ballet, Pepsi & Shirlie and Wham!

Mum and I went to Chester towards the end of August for another short break. Thankfully, I wasn’t on any unclebiotics this time so I could have a drink, lol! We had afternoon tea at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel and the above photo is only half of the epic fish butty that was part of my deluxe gentleman’s afternoon tea! This particular sandwich was a crispy fish fillet in a bloomer with mushy peas and tartare sauce. It was HUGE!

The trip to Chester also meant that my travel journal was full! I have prepped my orange Oops a Daisy “Into the Wild” journal to be my next travel journal for future jollies and short breaks. I also decided, in August, to start up a choir journal to keep a record of what songs we have sung at rehearsals.

August is of course this blog’s anniversary month, 14th August marked my 13th year of typing and publishing this waffle, ha ha, but over the years, as my blog has become a teenager, albeit without the zits, it has managed to attract a loyal following, so thank you to all 173 of you for reading this vaguely book-related nonsense around four times a month on average!

Oh and, before we leave August and return to the present day, there’s the matter of two of my former colleagues from my civil service days, Colin and Steve, winning the jackpot on Pointless! Apologies that the photo is a tad blurred, but I had to pause my Sky+ box and take a photo on my iPad. These two guys were amongst my workmates during my ten years of working in town at Albert Bridge House. Not only did they win the jackpot, they won a bonus for getting three pointless answers in the final!

Days Like These reached the 67% read stage right at the end of August.

Right, so that now brings us neatly back to 17th December and so we only have September to December to go, so what will happen is that I will fit in September to November before Christmas, and then do December in a blog after the 25th so that if there are any books as pressies, I can mention those and I can bring you up to date on this month.

So, the next part of the review will include three months of events and books, and there might even be a quiz! I came up with something a month or so ago, a quiz about music and events from 1973, so I might include that so you can see how much you know about half a century ago when Chief Bookworm was born, lol! It is traditional to have a quiz at Christmas, after all! So, until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

No book list as it would be way too long, lol!

June Review and 2023 So Far. Whoa, We’re Halfway There!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to the monthly review blog for June, so, obviously, also a look at 2023 so far as we reach the halfway stage of this year. As you can see from my journal spread, a lot of books have been read already, 32 of them, so I am not going through all those, just the five I’ve polished off in June. I might mention one or two previous finishes but I don’t tend to go through them all again until December rolls around and I do the annual review in a few parts.

I will also do the Ongoing Concerns, as usual, so you see where they are up to, especially as my year-long read, Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, reached 50% read on Tuesday! Yay!

The next milestone for that particular book will be 67% read, two-thirds completed, and that will come right at the end of August! However, it was good to be able to colour in another square on my OC Progress chart for Days Like These.

Days Like These now showing as half-read. This is my progress spread from way back in my January setup, with my theme of “Now is the Winter of our Discount Tents!” because I couldn’t resist using that pun, lol!

Back at the start of the year, when that was my theme, I gave my 50th armful to the Vampires, we let in the Chinese New Year, which was the Year of the Rabbit, and, sadly, lost author Fay Weldon, former footballer Gianluca Vialli, and musician Jeff Beck.

I passed my audition for the choir and became a proper member of the Mancunian Singers. My chosen audition piece was “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, so I acquired the sheet music for the show so that I had that for my audition.

I had one of my rants about spammers, lol, and this very blog changed from being hosted by Word Press to being hosted by Jet Pack

Halfway through the year and Clocky’s “Time to Read” tracker is showing my month by month reading wheels.

February saw my best total of book finishes so far this year, despite being the shortest month and the fact that I was off on my jollies right at the end! Eight books polished off in February, and it was also good news for my friend Liz in Bashaw, as their local library retained their Read for 15 trophy – most readerly community yet again!

It was also the month where my remaining Ongoing Concerns from 2022 came off the list, the last of those to be polished off was Charles: Heart of a King, by Catherine Mayer on 25th February. The following day, United won the Carabao Cup, beating Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley with goals by Casemiro and Marcus Rashford. Mum and I then headed off for sunny Tenerife…

Book bingo cards in both book journals. The original one, coloured in with purple brush pen, is filling up nicely!

As mentioned above, I was on my jollies at the start of March, so I didn’t actually get around to blogging until the middle of the month. Polished off four books, including Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, which you might recall as the book about the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.

We lost Dick Fosbury in March, who introduced the world to the Fosbury Flop high jump technique at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Fulham completely lost the plot when they came to Old Trafford for an FA Cup tie, ending up with nine men and no manager after they imploded partway through the second half. United made the most of Fulham’s disciplinary meltdown to come from behind and win.

March was also when RHS Bridgewater announced that their scheme of offering free Tuesdays for Salford residents was to be extended to May 2024.

Onto April, and that meant my Big 50 this spring! Chief Bookworm hit her half century and her journal themes were the 70s in her general journal and 80s in her book journal! Six books were finished off in April, including Park Life, by Tom Chesshyre, and Beyond the Wand, by Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.

Prior to my birthday, though, it was Easter, and the Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown over the Easter weekend, which provided us with a surprise, as “The Lark Ascending” by Ralph Vaughan-Williams had descended and was no longer number one after holding the top spot for the previous four years! Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 had taken over as the new number one.

We lost Dame Edna Everage in this month, and a local bus driver lost his way and the roof of his vehicle when he tried to drive his bus under the Barton Road bridge – the problem was that this is a pretty low bridge and he was driving a double decker bus! Oops!

Our doorbell sounded a bit worse for wear in this month… batteries must have been running down as someone rang our bell and it sounded slurred, as though it had been out on the piss, ha ha, hence my mention of a drunken doorbell in one of my April blogs!

May started, unfortunately, with a mouth infection, so I was back on the unclebiotics for the second time this year, having had an ear infection in April not long before my birthday. While I had finished those in time to drink alcohol on my Big 50, unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the Coronation on 6th May, and I had to mark Charles III being crowned King without any booze.

Still not used to having a king, though! Especially not in terms of the lyrics of the national anthem. I still keep thinking it’s God Save the Queen, lol!

Four books were finished off in May, including Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, which meant that one of the books read in the year I have turned fifty is a book that also celebrates its half century this year! I had planned, in my mind, that I would read at least one book in 2023 that was first published in 1973, so that got done! Yay!

The annual continental festival of dodgy songs, mad costumes and biased voting, otherwise known as the Eurovision Song Contest, took place in May and was held in Liverpool, but on behalf of Ukraine. It was won for Sweden by Loreen with a song called “Tattoo”, and as she previously won in 2012, she became only the second act to win Eurovision twice, the first being Mr Eurovision himself, Johnny Logan, who won for Ireland in 1980 and 1987.

May also saw Chief Bookworm run out of space in her journals and have to start new ones, lol! Both the book journal and general journal have had a bit of an overhaul as I started new journals for June, to see if I could fit more months in, which I hope I will be able to do. For instance, combining the calendar and title spreads into one, having the blog logs as a separate section, and putting the Ongoing Concerns onto the weekly spreads instead of having two pages just for those.

This is what I mean about the blog logs now… I have four of these spreads, each with 6 columns, headed by lightbulbs, and I make my notes, my reminders of things to blog about, and then when I come to do my blog, tick or block them out, put the date of the published blog in the lightbulb, and then put some yellow rays around the bulb to make it look as though it is lit up.

I might not always do lightbulbs. In my next book journal, the Blog Log section might have a different theme, but it will be set out like this. It could be floral with a big flower at the top of each column, or space themed with planets above the columns. But I think you get the idea…

Thus we have moved onto the Scribble & Dot “Dachshund” journal for the books, and a yellow Oops a Daisy journal for the general journal, and June has seen me finish five books, so the total so far this year is 32 books read, and 18 books have been bought from January to June.

Review page in my June setup – theme is “Easel Does It!”

When I went to town but was unable to give blood, I read Marcus Rashford, by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, so that got June’s finished books up and running. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, was next to be polished off, followed by Don’t Eat the Puffin, by Jules Brown. Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, was next to reach its conclusion, and then it was This is Not Your Stone, by Brett J. Cole, which I read courtesy of a Facebook page, so I am classing it as an ebook.

Before I come on to the other Ongoing Concerns (besides Days Like These, which was mentioned earlier), there has been more news about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library – it recently celebrated another milestone as 200 million books have now been given out, worldwide, free of charge, to children from 0 to 5 years old!

Oh, and it looks like some digital extraction has occured in the transfer market and United agreed a fee with Chelsea yesterday to sign England midfielder, Mason Mount. Just wish the current owners would do one and bugger off for good, the sooner the better.

Anyway, ongoing books, not ongoing transfer or takeover sagas… I have left Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, and Sea Fever, blank for now in terms of percentage, in case I get any more of either read before tonight is over. Beauty Tips is 90% read at the moment, and Sea Fever is 67% read so I want to get the Will Ferguson book finished over the weekend as the first finish for July, and get Sea Fever closer to completion too.

Days Like These is currently 51% read, and the next date for your diary for that one will be 31st August when it will reach the 67% read stage. Prince Philip’s Century is 50% read, so progress needs to be made on that in the coming month.

The Perfect Golden Circle, by Benjamin Myers, is currently 33% read and it is one I intend to get on with and get read during the coming weeks as it is clearly a summer read! Then we have Slow Trains Around Spain, by Tom Chesshyre, my current ebook, at 25% read, and It’s All in Black and White, by Pepsi & Shirlie, at 14% read, and that brings you up to date with the Ongoing Concerns.

I know I mentioned the previous, and “drunken” doorbell earlier in this blog, so I can conclude that saga as well, as the doorbell eventually conked out completely and we had to get a new one the other week! As I said in the previous blog on Sunday, the new bell has a good selection of different rings, including one for the festive season come December!

I think that is probably about all for now. You are now up to date, and I have shown you some pages from my book journals so you can see the progress made during the first half of 2023. The above photos are of some happy mail that came for me today from Under the Rowan Trees. Just to give your eyes a rest after a few paragraphs of writing. I like the pandas in this box, and had a thought that a panda theme could be a possibility in the future for one of my monthly journal themes.

Tomorrow is 1st July, so advanced greetings to my Canadian followers for a Happy Canada Day! As I probably might not blog until after the 4th, I will also wish my American followers a Happy Independence Day in advance for Tuesday! My niece has her piano exam on that day, actually, her Grade 2.

Happy Birthday for tomorrow to Ruud van Nistelrooy, while we’re at it! United’s former Dutch centre-forward will be 47. Gary Pallister’s birthday today, though, another United legend! Pally is 58 today.

Right, that’s definitely enough to be getting on with for now, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Jesus Christ Superstar – Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice
• Charles: Heart of a King – Catherine Mayer
• Dark Tide – Stephen Puleo
• Park Life – Tom Chesshyre
• Beyond the Wand – Tom Felton
• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• Marcus Rashford – Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Don’t Eat the Puffin – Jules Brown
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• This is Not Your Stone – Brett J. Cole
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• The Perfect Golden Circle – Benjamin Myers
• Slow Trains Around Spain – Tom Chesshyre
• It’s All in Black and White – Pepsi & Shirlie

May Review: Journals, Coronation, Eurovision and a Spam-Free Tea Group!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Time once again for a look back over the month that is just coming to an end, plus an update on the current state of play with the Ongoing Concerns as we head into June and I head into new journals! The yellow one and the dachshund one, which have been warming up on the touchline, so to speak, are now ready to come off the subs’ bench and get on the pitch, lol!

The yellow one is my general journal and replaces the black Twenty 23 journal, and the dachshund one is the book journal so it replaces the purple Penny Doodles journal.

I will still need to go back into the old ones and complete some parts during the year, particularly when more books have been read, but I didn’t have enough space for more monthly setups after May, so when I turn my calendar over in a matter of hours, and we’re on for 1st June, I will be on new journals, with my Hoppy Days frog theme in the general journal and Easel Does It art theme in my book journal.

A photo I took a while ago now, but that was my subs’ bench at the time – you can see the dachshund journal and bright yellow journal, both of which are about to be put into active service. The orange one at the top, Into the Wild, is a future travel journal, as I may have mentioned before, but I still have room in my current turquoise blue Kenji journal for at least another short break and a holiday, so not quite needing to bring Into the Wild off the bench just now.

As my current ones come to the end of regular daily use, I have polished off 27 books so far this year, and purchased 11 books. My final theme in my book journal has been Tea and Biscuits, and in my general journal it has been Corgis and Crowns, which brings me neatly back to the start of this month and the Coronation of HM King Charles III!

Four books were finished in May, the first of which was Not Cool, by Jules Brown, in which he was visiting 9 cities in 9 days by train through Europe during a heatwave! What was not cool for me was that I started this month with a dental infection and was on the unclebiotics, having already needed some of those the previous month for an ear infection!

Charles and Camilla were crowned on 6th May, and in the week that followed, benefitting from the additional bank holiday we were given for the Coronation, I polished off both Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, and Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley.

Ticket to Ride, by Tom Chesshyre, which was another ebook about train travel, was my fourth finish for the month, so that’s all the completed books covered. Will come on to the Ongoing Concerns in a bit.

It has also been the month in which Christine from my choir, the Mancunian Singers, discovered my blog! She said she was doing a search for any online mentions of the choir, and I had mentioned it on here in January when I had my audition and became a proper member, and I’d got the sheet music for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar because I was singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” as my audition song.

Being May, it was the month of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was being hosted here in the UK, in Liverpool, but on behalf of Ukraine. It was won by Loreen for Sweden with a song called “Tattoo” and in winning, she became only the second person to win the Eurovision twice, having won previously with “Euphoria” in 2012. The only other person to win the ESC more than once is Mr Eurovision himself, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland in the 80s – “What’s Another Year?” in 1980 and “Hold Me Now” in 1987.

Still the FA Cup Final to come for my lads at the weekend, but the Premier League season is now over and I’m pretty chuffed that we managed to finish 3rd in our first season with Erik ten Hag as manager, as well as having won the League Cup back in February when we beat Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley. There’s still work to be done, improvements to be made, but I feel we are going in the right direction.

Our women are also going in the right direction and finished runners-up in the Women’s Super League which is brilliant considering that United only reintroduced having a women’s team around five years ago! In coming 2nd it also means our ladies have qualified for the Women’s Champions League for the first time, so both our men and women are in the top European competitions next season!

Also, both our senior goalies are safe pairs of hands! Both David de Gea and Mary Earps won the Golden Glove awards for the Premier League and WSL respectively for keeping the most clean sheets!

That’s Mary Earps with her Golden Glove award.

I shall just go and get some refreshments, and then I will get on with the Ongoing Concerns…

Right, then… the legendary OCs! Biggest news is that Prince Philip’s Century has now reached its half-century in percentage terms! Robert Jobson’s book about the late Duke of Edinburgh is 50% read. Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is 42% read and will reach its halfway stage at the end of June, so that’s not far off now!

After that, we have a right cluster of books around the 1/3 read mark! Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, is marginally ahead on 34% read, but I have three books all on 33% read! Those are Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, and Sea Fever, by Meg and Chris Clothier. That just leaves one more book…

That final Ongoing Concern is an ebook, Don’t Eat the Puffin, by Jules Brown, the guy who wrote Not Cool about his train travels through Europe during a heatwave, but this a memoir really, as it’s about his life as a travel writer, so it’s both travel writing and an autobiography and I have already read 10% of it, so it is an official OC!

Just briefly back to my journaling, I thought I’d show you some of my experimenting in a practice journal of mine with the distress inks and dabbers I’ve recently acquired. They’re great with stencils, as you can see, and the ink just runs off the stencils when you run them under the tap, so the stencils are clean again and can just be patted dry.

Anyway, I need to mention a pleasant surprise from yesterday, and you will know, if you’re a regular on here, that I have a very low opinion of spammers. Those of you who know me on Facebook will know that one of the first groups I ever joined when I first joined FB way back in 2007 was a group called A Cup of Tea Solves Everything…

Well, that group had been plagued with spammers for quite some time and I’d been asking if there were any actual admins around so that something could be done about it, as I think the spammers saw the group as a soft target, which it was… until yesterday evening…

I got a notification from FB that I was now invited to be admin of that tea group as it was in need of an active admin! Needless to say that I was on it like a bonnet, lol, and a hell of a lot of spammers will have found themselves permanently banned from the group last night! It took a while as there were well over 100 of these miscreants to deal with! I still don’t understand why people spam. This is probably due to me having something vaguely resembling a life and also having more than two brain cells to rub together!

Rules have been introduced, as has a joining question, and any posts or comments need to be submitted for my approval so that I can check if the person is a genuine tea lover or just a spammy loser! Hopefully, it will mean that, over time, the dickheads will take the hint and realise that the group is no longer a soft touch and then go and take their spam elsewhere on Farcebook. Personally, I think they should take a long walk off a short cliff and never plague FB ever again, but as that is sadly unlikely, I will settle for them buggering off and not targeting any group I am involved with!

I think most things have been covered now… the finished books, the Ongoing concerns, plus the Coronation, Eurovision Song Contest and the end of the 2022-23 Premier League season, plus some journaling news and yesterday’s good news on Farcebook giving me the power to rid that group of its plague of spammers!

I am due to give an armful to the Vampires on Saturday, so when I start June’s blogs, I’m pretty sure you’ll hear about that. As I will be in town, I can also check out that book exchange vending machine in the Corn Exchange! Until next time, though, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Not Cool – Jules Brown
• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• Jesus Christ Superstar – Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd-Webber
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier
• Don’t Eat the Puffin – Jules Brown

Eurovision Chocolate, Book Progress and Hut-Hitting…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Chief Bookworm is back with yet another blog, and congratulations to Sweden on winning last night’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool! Loreen’s win means she’s only the second person to win the contest twice, having previously won in 2012. She shares the record with Mr Eurovision, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland with “What’s Another Year?” in 1980 and then “Hold Me Now” in 1987.

As you can see, there has been Eurovision chocolate! That’s actually Mum’s bar of Eurovision Dairy Milk, but I have one as well. The UK didn’t do so great last night. Need to get back to having the sort of acts representing us that we had last year in Sam Ryder. In fact, I think maybe he should give it another go in a year or two. Especially if we do want to go back to hearing the magic words “Royaume Uni douze points!”

On the book front, however, it has been a good weekend, very productive, and TWO of the Ongoing Concerns have now been finished, meaning that I have read three books so far in May and 26 so far this year. The Goodreads Challenge target has now been increased from 25 books to 30 books.

You can see some of my book journal pages above. The first of the book bingo cards is filling up nicely, especially with two finishes in the last three days, and you can see I’ve filled another OC Progress spread. As I will have to start two new books in the coming week, that will fill my OC Progress list up for April’s setup and I can then start on May next time I finish a book and need a replacement.

The finished books are Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, which I finished on Friday, and then Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, which was finished earlier today.

With finishing Breakfast of Champions, it means that I have read a book first published in the year I was born, that novel turns 50 this year as I did last month. Towards the end of it, there was a character called Eddie Key, and he was supposedly a descendent of Francis Scott Key, the guy who wrote the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner.

Funnily enough, when I was still reading The Secret Library, by Oliver Tearle, he mentioned that the full name of the author F. Scott Fitzgerald was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, so he had been named after the lyricist of the USA’s national anthem!

The melody is actually an old English tune, “To Anacreon in Heaven” but Key put the words to that tune for the US anthem. For anyone nerdy enough to want more facts about national anthems, check out Republic or Death! by Alex Marshall, in which he goes around the world in search of interesting stories behind various countries’ national anthems. Some of you, who have been following this blog for a number of years, will remember that I read this book back in 2020.

Isn’t that a fab postbox topper?! Apparently, inside the lighthouse, there is a plastic bottle with fairy lights in it. Very clever!

Before I get on to the books I have in mind to start now that I’ve got another couple off the OC list, we need to look at the remaining Ongoing Concerns and give a progress report. Ticket to Ride, by Tom Chesshyre, which is my current ebook on my Kindle, is 50% read, so I am aiming to have that finished by the end of May at the latest.

Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is currently 38% read. As I said in a previous blog, it should be around 42% read by the end of May and should reach the magic 50% milestone on 27th June, so not too long to go until that gets to the halfway stage.

Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson, is 25% and that has now been joined at that particular milestone by Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, which I have been reading this afternoon. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, is 12% read, so that’s all the OCs done for now.

Before I go any further, I said in the last blog that I needed to show you my July setup in my book journal, as I’d shown you the circus theme in the general journal but not done the corresponding month in the book one, so here goes… get your buckets and spades, lol!

There you go! Hit the Hut is the theme for July in my book journal! A seaside theme with beach huts and a quote from My Sand Life, My Pebble Life, by Ian McMillan which was one of my Ongoing Concerns earlier this year!

From the sands of time to Hands of Time, by Rebecca Struthers, watchmaker and doctor of horology, which has recently been serialised on BBC Radio 4 as their Book of the Week, and it’s yet another book that has been given this honour by Radio 4 that I fancy reading. Given that I have some gift cards which I got for my Big 50 last month, it is likely that this is one of the books I will purchase from either Waterstone’s or W H Smith’s.

So, what have I chosen to start for my next books? There are two vacancies on the OC list, and they will be filled by Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, which is about his travels around Canada, and, closer to home, Sea Fever, by siblings Meg and Chris Clothier, which is a “seaside companion” book set here in the UK.

And there you have it! I have updated you on pretty much everything I made a note to tell you about, and will be back soon enough with yet more book-related waffle to bring you, plus the usual random nonsense, lol! In the meantime, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• The Secret Library – Oliver Tearle
• Republic or Death! – Alex Marshall
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• My Sand Life, My Pebble Life – Ian McMillan
• Hands of Time – Rebecca Struthers
• Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw – Will Ferguson
• Sea Fever – Meg and Chris Clothier

Coronation Comestibles, Meh in May, and Summer Themes…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to the first blog for May and I’m tapping away here on my iPad on the evening of the extra bank holiday we have had because of the Coronation of King Charles III on Saturday! I’ve been at a cream tea at St Thomas’s this afternoon and I also have a gingerbread crown somewhere, while we’re on Coronation comestibles!

What has happened in the last week and a bit since I blogged at the end of April? Well, Chief Bookworm is on unclebiotics again, this time due to a mouth infection which kinda started last Monday, also a bank holiday. I was due a dental appointment anyway on 2nd May, thankfully, so they were able to have a look and give me the medication, but things got a bit worse before they started to get better, so I needed Wednesday off as well as Tuesday! My face was considerably puffed-out so there was definitely something Pete Tong!

A slight swelling remains at the back of my upper lip, but I am pretty much back to normal. I still also got some reading done despite the obvious medical issues and the tiredness that had come from disrupted sleep when I was at my worst with it.

The photo at the top is of the post box on Parrin Lane, in case you were wondering – our most local yarn-bomber had been busy making a Coronation topper! There have been a lot of good ‘uns, and I might put a few more on, plus one to celebrate the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest!

That’s the Eurovision one for the forthcoming contest, which is being held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine, hence the blue and yellow base of that topper. I think I mentioned, in a previous blog, that the Ukrainian city of Odessa is twinned with Liverpool, hence the Scousers hosting the event. I think that post box is somewhere down south, though, according to the FB group, not on Merseyside.

Anyway, enough wiffling about post box toppers for the time being as I need to get on with the book news, and Not Cool, by Jules Brown, was finished at the weekend, giving me my first finish for May and my 24th finish so far in 2023! I have got another of his on my Kindle to read, but I have returned to Tom Chesshyre for my next ebook, and Ticket To Ride is already 10% read so it has become an Ongoing Concern! It’s still about trains, though. Around the world in 49 train journeys.

I also needed to start a physical book as I had finished The Secret Library, by Oliver Tearle, at the end of April, but with the mouth infection, I spent the first few days of May feeling a bit meh and what reading I did feel up to was finishing Not Cool on my Kindle.

Towards the end of last week, though, in fact during Coronation Weekend, I decided to start Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, and that is 12% read, so you’ve got two of the OCs there, at the less-read end of the scale!

Moving up the pecking order, after those two recently-started books, we have Ticket to the World, by Martin Kemp, at 15% read and then a bit of a jump up to Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson, at 25% read. Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, is currently 36% read, and will reach the halfway stage in late June, but I worked out that it will be 42% by the end of May.

So, to the front runners, and in second place at the moment, on 50% read, we have Not for Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, and just slightly ahead, on 53%, we have Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr! So, that brings you up to date with the Ongoing Concerns for now!

One more book finish takes me to 25 books for the year, and it’s likely to be one of the two front runners, or my ebook as I seem to get those on my Kindle read fairly quickly. Then I would have to change my Goodreads Challenge target again, increasing it from 25 to 30.

I’m also in the final month of my current journals, both for reading and my general one, but the next ones are ready to go, and I have got June and July set up in both journals. Yesterday, I finished off my circus-themed July setup in the general journal, so I can show you that…

So, that is my Oh, What a Circus! theme for July. I have just had a look at recent blogs and I’ve not yet shown you my theme in my book journal for July, so I have made a note to show you that in my next blog. I will say that it has a definite seaside feel to it, but no more spoilers than that!

The circus theme was due to April’s Rowan Berry “After Dark” box from Under the Rowan Trees, so the washi tapes (other than the plain red and pink ones) and the stickers were from that box. The plain washis were from Kenji if I am not mistaken. Stencils from Oops a Daisy.

We shall see how many months I get in these next journals. You may have noticed that I have combined the title and calendar onto one spread and the You Tube viewing trackers are now part of weekly spreads, as are the Ongoing Concerns charts in my forthcoming book journal, the one with the dachshund on it. The yellow one is the general journal, and I am hoping that, by trimming down each monthly setup, I get more than five months in them. Kinda hoping for seven so that it completes the year, but we shall see!

In the current journals, we have Tea and Biscuits in the book journal for May, and Corgis and Crowns in the general journal for obvious Coronation reasons!

Well, I think that’s about it for now! Can’t think of anything I’ve not covered, other than that I need to show you another journaling theme next time I blog! Until that time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Not Cool – Jules Brown
• Ticket to Ride – Tom Chesshyre
• The Secret Library – Oliver Tearle
• Lakeland – Hunter Davies
• Ticket to the World – Martin Kemp
• Prince Philip’s Century – Robert Jobson
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• Not for Me, Clive – Clive Tyldesley
• Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Bashaw, Burt Bacharach and Bags of Books…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

It certainly is a good evening for me given that my lads enjoyed a 2-0 win away to Leeds this afternoon – yay – and also a lot of progress has been made on the book front this week just gone as you can probably tell from the above photo from my book journal! Don’t worry about deciphering my handwriting as I will go through some of those books as I go along.

Four books have been polished off this week, three of my Ongoing Concerns, plus a book of sheet music, so this blog will focus on that and what on earth I am going to read next as I have a few vacancies on the Ongoing Concerns list given all the progress made.

This time last week, my February total was 2 books meaning that I’d read 7 thus far in 2023, but as of today, my monthly total is now 6 books read, meaning that my total for the year is 11 and I have already had to increase my Goodreads Challenge total from 10 books to 15 books!

Before I get on to my finished books, though, we have the long-awaited news that Bashaw is the most readerly community in Alberta for the 4th year in a row! They have retained the trophy pictured above awarded in the annual Read for 15 event, so well done to Liz Craig and all her fellow bookworms in Bashaw!

Let’s now have a shufty at what I’ve been reading, and the first finish this week was The Man Who Tasted Words, by Professor Guy Leschziner, a really interesting read that was on my Kindle. Finished it earlier than expected… was at the 75% stage and was reading a bit more, thinking that there’s still a fair bit left to read on my Kindle in midweek, but when I got to 78% it came up with the “you have finished this book” bit! The remaining 22% was basically acknowledgements, footnotes, glossary and the index! So, I would have to find something else to read on the way home from Old Trafford…

Next finish was My Sand Life, My Pebble Life, a rather lovely little book by Ian McMillan, which I really enjoyed. Quite amusing at times, too. A book I might possibly reread in the future, I may certainly dip into it at times and possibly quote from it.

On Thursday, the music world mourned the loss of the legendary Burt Bacharach who passed away at the age of 94 after 7 decades in the music business. Watching the tributes to him, I noticed that one of the many songs he’d written (or co-written) was “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” most famously recorded and performed by the late great Dusty Springfield, so that is why The Very Best of Dusty Springfield ended up on my books read list! Sheet music doesn’t go on the OC list, but I do include it on Goodreads and my own lists of books read.

After that musical interlude, it was back to the notorious OCs, lol, and I can now report that Dead Wake, by Erik Larson, about the sinking of the Lusitania, is now a finished book! I’d originally started it in 2015, it was a book club book for the Waterstone’s Deansgate book club, although I was in a reading slump at the time so hardly any of it got read in the 100th anniversary year of the liner being torpedoed.

I picked it up again five years later, July 2020, and at least got it over the line as far as becoming an Ongoing Concern goes, in fact I got it to 15% that summer, but then the next time I resumed it was November 2022 and took it from 15% to 25% before putting the OCs to bed for their winter nap at the end of that month! However, I did start back on it on 7th January and finished it yesterday, 11th February, so it really picked up and I enjoyed it. Would certainly consider reading some of Erik Larson’s other books.

Another shufty at my book journal, although that is now a bit out of date, as Proust and the Squid is now 72% read! That means the yellow square for the 67% read phase is now coloured in and we are not far off the 75% mark! I hope to get that book finished in the coming week, that is one of my aims for 13th to 19th February.

Will be having one of those busy spells at the end of this month and start of March, so this might explain why I am quite keen to get a fair bit of reading done now! Charles: Heart of a King is now 36% read so that has hit the one-third-read milestone, and Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, about the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, is now 25% read. Days Like These is currently 12% read but that is a year-long project, as you know – a poem a day for the year, so that will not hit 25% until the end of March.

Actually, when I was reading what I have read of Dark Tide so far, the gigantic tanker in which the molasses were stored, was built in 1915, the year the Lusitania was sunk, and it makes reference to the events featured in Dead Wake as it was thought, at the time, that the sinking would cause the USA to enter the First World War, but it didn’t. They didn’t join until 1917. A significant percentage of molasses were used to make industrial alcohol and a lot of that was used in munitions and sent to the Allies for the war effort.

So, yet again, there is some crossover in Chief Bookworm’s books!

It wouldn’t be one of my blogs without a post box topper these days, lol, so here we have a soup kitchen topper from Ealing, London. I love how there is even knitted steam coming from the bowl of soup and mug of tea!

We need to have a look at what is likely to become an Ongoing Concern in the coming week as I have a few vacancies! The ebook will be The Secret Life of Books, by Tom Mole, which I actually started on my Kindle on Wednesday night coming home from our 2-2 comeback draw against Leeds United at Old Trafford – yes, we have just played the same team home and away in the league in back to back matches!

The home game should have been played in September, but it was not long after the Queen died, so all police resources were in London for the state funeral and the game was postponed, and the Premier League managed to fit it in on 8th February, four days before the return fixture at Elland Road, which took place this afternoon and which Manchester United won 2-0 with late goals from Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho.

The ebook is 4% read, but a book becomes an Ongoing Concern when it gets to 10% read, so it will get to that and join the list in the coming week. I have two more vacancies, and I have decided that one of them will be Beyond the Wand, the autobiography of Tom Felton who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.

(As I have finished 6 books in February already, I have coloured in this month’s segment in my monthly wheel. I just need to write in the total later this month.)

The other will be Spanish Steps, by Tim Moore – I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of his books previously, namely Nul Points, in which he meets all those who failed to receive a single vote at the Eurovision Song Contest, and French Revolutions, in which he gets on a bike and attempts to cycle round the route of the Tour de France, albeit at a rather more leisurely pace than the world’s top cyclists!

In Spanish Steps, Tim acquires a donkey and is attempting the Camino, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which you may recall me mentioning some time in 2021 as Daniel, the vicar at St Thomas’ in Pendleton, did the Camino. Not with a donkey, though, in his case! So, given that I know someone who’s done the Camino, and I’ve enjoyed Tim Moore’s books already, it made sense to give this one a whirl!

That pretty much brings me to the end of tonight’s blog, as I will be settling down to watch Match of the Day in a bit, so until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Man Who Tasted Words – Prof. Guy Leschziner
• My Sand Life, My Pebble Life – Ian McMillan
• Dusty: The Very Best of… – Dusty Springfield (sheet music)
• Dead Wake – Erik Larson
• Proust and the Squid – Maryanne Wolf
• Charles: Heart of a King – Catherine Mayer
• Dark Tide – Stephen Puleo
• Days Like These – Brian Bilston
• The Secret Life of Books – Tom Mole
• Beyond the Wand – Tom Felton
• Spanish Steps – Tim Moore
• Nul Points – Tim Moore
• French Revolutions – Tim Moore