April Review 2024: Emails, Books, BBC2, Pet Shop Boys, and New OCs…

Good evening fellow Bookworms!

Back again with another blog, and it’s 30th April today so it’s time for a monthly review. Books I’ve read, books I am in the process of reading, and the other usual randomness and nonsense that you’ve come to expect from this blog, lol!

I would just like to give a big thumbs up to Francisco who works in the IT section of John Lewis at the Trafford Centre, as he has been a massive help to Mum today and sorted out her emails on her iPad!

Onto books now, and I have finished three books this month, so that has been three per month so far this year, 12 in total. Not as many as I would have liked to have read and behind compared to the last three years, although I’m fairly sure I am up compared to this time in 2020.

I didn’t buy any this month, but I expect May will see some purchases of reading matter, particularly as I got a National Book Tokens gift card from my friend Sarah for my birthday last week!

I’m including this post box topper photo again because the first book I finished in April was Heroes of the RNLI, by Martyn R. Beardsley, which I was reading to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Lifeboats this year – the actual anniversary was back in March. As I have said on a number of occasions on here, my paternal grandparents were big supporters of the RNLI and Nana often bought and sent out notecards and Christmas cards from them. They lived in Malahide, so they were on the coast, over in Ireland.

Next up on the finished books front was Rambling Man, by Sir Billy Connolly, which is my choice for favourite of the month, but I might be a bit biased as I’ve been a fan of the Big Yin for absolutely donkey’s years! I was only little when I first heard his parody version of “D.I.V.O.R.C.E “ – the song was a UK number 1 in 1975 so it did better than the original version, the country song by Tammy Wynette. Sorry, Tammy!

I would have to say he’s my all-time favourite comedian, my second favourite funny man will be coming up later in this blog as his current book is one of my recent additions to the Ongoing Concerns.

Not quite finished the finished books yet, though, if you know what I mean, lol! The third and final finish for April was The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, which looked at the Scandinavian countries and also included mentions for the Pet Shop Boys and Zlatan Ibrahimovic!

Talking of the Pet Shop Boys, this month has been a good month for a Pethead like me! They were on Rylan’s show on Radio 2 on 6th April, and then there was a PSB Night on BBC Four on 19th April. The following night, they were also featured on the 60 songs at 60 celebration of BBC2’s six decades on air! Then, on Friday just gone, the new album, Nonetheless, was released, so I downloaded it onto this very iPad on which I am blogging right now!

X marked the spot in April… eventually. We have local elections this coming Thursday, 2nd May, but for those of us who have a postal ballot, we have already made our choices and posted them back to be counted later this week. Thing was, I had geared myself up to vote only to find that the first envelopes just contained leaflets about the elections, but the actual ballot papers did come a few days later, so I was able to put my X next to the name of the person I least hated the sound of, ha ha, and then followed the instructions and sent my vote back to be counted on Thursday night or into the wee small hours of Friday morning at the civic centre.

In my previous blog, on my birthday last week, I included my theme from my book journal for May, the I Need Space theme, so this one is my theme for my general journal – Up Up and Away featuring balloons and hot air balloons plus a playlist on an “up and down” theme.

Obviously, with having finished some books, there were vacancies on the Ongoing Concerns list, and those have now been filled for now. There is the ebook, About Britain, by Tim Cole, on my Kindle, which is about the series of 13 “About Britain” guides that were created for the 1951 Festival of Britain, and Mr Cole found these books in charity shops and second-hand book shops, managing to collect the series, and decided to spend 2021 revisiting the suggested itineraries and seeing what had changed and what had not in 70 years.

This particular Ongoing Concern is now 25% read and even just a quarter of the way through the book, it gives an interesting history of the rules of the road in this country and when different laws came in which affected motorists. The Motor Car Act was passed by Parliament in 1903 and licences were also introduced that year, although it wasn’t until the 1930s that any prospective car driver or motorbike rider had to pass a test in order to earn a licence!

Test centres didn’t exist though, so drivers or riders just agreed to meet up with their examiner in a central location, such as a railway station, for their half-hour test.

Excuse the photo but I wanted something with cars on it while I waffle on about Tim Cole’s book. He said that the guides to the Festival of Britain were sponsored by a brewery, who were hoping motorists would stop at one of the many inns on the route, which brought him onto the issue of alcohol laws, which were nowhere near as strict in 1951 as they are now. There were some rules though…

It had been an offence since the 1930s to be “unfit through drink” when driving, and the Motorway Code warned of the effects of alcohol and drugs on a person’s judgement, with even small amounts of either having an adverse effect. At the time of the 1951 event, however, the UK was still some years away from stricter alcohol laws. A maximum alcohol limit for motorists was passed into law in 1967 along with the introduction of breathalysers to test how much someone had had to drink.

The other safety issue mentioned so far in Cole’s book, which was in place by the late 1940s, so in time for the Festival, was the invention of reflective road studs, better known as cats’ eyes. They were invented by Percy Shaw in 1934 and he set up a factory to manufacture them in 1935. They were mandatory road markings by the late 1940s, although they don’t last all that long and need replacing every 2 to 3 years.

So, there you are! A bit of a history of our driving rules, or some of them anyway! Apart from seatbelts. He’s not mentioned those so far in his book, but I did a bit of looking up as I know those didn’t become compulsory until my lifetime. Wearing a seatbelt became compulsory in the UK on 31st January 1983. I was 9 going on 10 by the time we all had to buckle up in cars.

Anyway, I’ve got another two newly-started books to the 10% stage the other day, so I will introduce my most recent Ongoing Concerns. They are T.V. by Peter Kay, and Unofficial Britain, by Gareth E. Rees.

As you can imagine with Peter Kay’s book, this is all about the small screen… from his viewing habits and favourite programmes as a kid, to trying to get on telly in his working life before making it as a comedian and starring in various TV shows, including “Phoenix Nights” and “Car Share”.

Unofficial Britain is a book I bought back in January 2022 after it caught my eye in Waterstone’s while I was in town one afternoon. I’d had a quick shufty and found the page where he said it was 1979 and he was 6 years old, so that made him the same age as me. I am 10% of the way in and already read about electricity pylons. To my imagination, as a kid, passing loads of them while in the car, on motorways, wires stretched between pylons, they reminded me a bit of music manuscript paper, and if birds were perched on them, you could imagine them being the dots of music notes. Electricity hums, so music is rather apt.

Birds on power lines – and there are five lines in that particular image, so it definitely bears some resemblance to sheet music! I will be reading more of Unofficial Britain later, after this blog, and I’m on for the part about ring roads and roundabouts, the latter of which remind me of Macclesfield, lol!

There are loads of roundabouts in Macclesfield, it certainly seemed that way in the early months of 2019, anyway, after Dad died and we made several visits to the Cheshire town where he had been living since the mid noughties. He worked there prior to his retirement in 2010.

Anyway, we’re about to head into May. No choir this week as not enough people are able to make it, so I can do my May theme in my choir journal. On Friday, I’m off out for a meal with my fellow minute-takers from work, we’re off to Deurali, a Nepalese restaurant not far from our HQ, and it’s a long weekend as there is a bank holiday on Monday! Yay!

However, that is about all from this blog for now, so until next time, 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
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• About Britain – Tim Cole
• T.V. – Peter Kay
• Unofficial Britain – Gareth E. Rees

Birthday Blog!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Happy World Book Day! Estimated birthday of William Shakespeare, birthday of composer Sergei Prokofiev (of Peter and the Wolf fame) and The Big O, Roy Orbison amongst others. I say estimated birthday of Shakespeare as they went off the fact Will was baptised on 26th April and that babies were generally baptised 2 or 3 days after birth back then due to infant mortality rates in those days. He sadly died on 23rd April, as did poet William Wordsworth.

Also Chief Bookworm’s birthday – yep, 51 today! Went out earlier today with Mum and had a lovely brunch at Blossom by La Turka.

You may remember, in my previous blog, that I was having a rant because I had geared myself up to vote, but the envelopes only contained leaflets about the local elections, not the actual ballot papers. Well, those did come last week, so X really did mark the spot eventually, lol, and I made my choices, as did Mum on her papers, and they have been put in the post!

BBC2 celebrated its 60th birthday this Saturday just gone, 20th April, although I understand it had some technical difficulties when it first came on air in 1964 and they weren’t actually able to show any programmes that evening – their first programme was the children’s programme Play School the following day!

I may be old, but I am not old enough to remember Beeb 2 starting. I do, however, remember Channel 4 starting on 2nd November 1982 as I was 9 and a half when that channel first came on air. I watched that happen at Grandma and Grandad’s. They had some issue on their first night but just one that meant there were no adverts – they were able to broadcast some programmes, and the first one was the quiz show “Countdown” which is still going, although we lost the original presenter, Richard Whiteley, some years ago.

BBC2 marked its 60th birthday with an evening of 60 songs taken from various shows on Beeb 2 over the years, including a performance of West End Girls, by the Pet Shop Boys, who had been celebrated on Friday night on BBC Four! Obviously, I was watching PSB Night on Friday, but I do have all of those shows on my Sky+ box so didn’t have to record any.

The new album comes out this Friday, 26th April, and you will not be the slightest bit surprised to learn that it has a one word title! The new album is called Nonetheless. I don’t think they set out to do it deliberately at first, but it was pointed out to them when either Actually or Introspective was released, and they stuck with the one word titles ever since! Song titles have been a mix of lengths, though, and there have been some notably long ones, such as “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing”, “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk” and “I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More”!

Actually, I was on You Tube the other night, and having a go at some classical music quizzes, and one of the tunes on one quiz was an excerpt from The Rite of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky, and this just reminded me of the Pet Shop Boys because this composition is mentioned in one of their songs!

“I feel like taking all my clothes off, dancing to the Rite of Spring, and I wouldn’t normally do this kind of thing!”

Of course, it’s quite normal for Neil and Chris! After all, Claude Debussy gets namechecked in “Left To My Own Devices” and has also fetched up as a blog title on here – Che Guevara and Debussy to a Disco Beat!

I need to mention at least some books now, lol, but even my most advanced Ongoing Concern, The Almost Nearly Perfect People, mentions the Pet Shop Boys! In the part about Finland, Michael Booth starts off one section by mentioning the lyrics from “West End Girls” which are about Lenin being smuggled back from exile – “from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station”.

I am currently 84% read so hoping to get that finished soon! On for the final section, about Sweden, and there is a mention for our former player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic! So, a very interesting book about the Scandinavian countries, with bonus points going to the writer for mentioning the Pet Shop Boys and Zlatan!

Need to sort out May in my general journal, but in my book journal, I have gone with “I Need Space” as there is Star Wars Day in May, and also Towel Day, in honour of the late great Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the other books in the series.

Apart from the book about Scandinavia, I’ve not made progress on the other Ongoing Concerns, although I may get a bit more of About Britain read depending on what the traffic is like after tomorrow’s match at home to Sheffield United. It’s a rearranged fixture that was originally due to be played last month but United were busy knocking Liverpool out of the FA Cup on that day so the Blades have had to wait a few weeks to visit Old Trafford.

I also need to choose a new Ongoing Concern, as I currently only have six on the go and one of those is nearing the end. Haven’t decided on a new book yet, got plenty to choose from!

I think that is about all for now. I know there aren’t all that many books mentioned tonight but I have been focusing mainly one just one book, so there was little point in mentioning the others where no progress has been made since the previous blog. So, until the next time, which will probably be the monthly review this time next week, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
• About Britain – Tim Cole

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

February Review: Lanzarote, Steve Wright, Dodgy Battery Saga, and Books…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Time for the monthly review blog for February. I know tomorrow is the 29th, the extra day, but that’s a Thursday and my choir night, so you’ve got me tonight instead, ha ha!

You may have noticed, you may not, but this is only my third blog for this month. Although I set up my blog logs for four entries per month, that doesn’t mean there will be that amount of blogs. Some other months, I might need more blogs. I’ve been away at the start of this month anyway, was on my jollies, hence I didn’t blog until the weekend that we let in the Year of the Dragon. Let’s have a look back at February…

As I said, I was getting some winter sun at the start of this month, and my first finish for February was a book I had bought in Lanzarote, and that was Discover La Geria With Nico, by Ismael Lozano Latorre, which is a kids’ book really, but it is an introduction to the unusual vineyards in Lanzarote! Did a fair bit of wine-tasting on my jollies, as you may have guessed, lol!

Sadly, though, another part of my childhood, a big part of my teenage years, was lost on 13th February when the news broke that legendary DJ, Steve Wright, had died at the age of only 69. I’d already been saddened last month by the loss of Annie Nightingale, but at least she was 83 so she’d had a good innings, however this was a massive blow. Steve Wright in the Afternoon on Radio 1 gave me a good laugh after school and college in my teenage years during the late 80s and early 90s, although I’m not sure how I got any homework done when his mad characters were on the air – guess I got it done when the music was on, or the news and travel.

On the happier side, though, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of Torvill and Dean winning gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, and Jayne and Chris announced they were going on one last tour in 2025 before they hang their ice boots up.

Actually bought quite a few books this month, twelve in fact, although I can’t go into details on all of them as some are for a certain purpose later this year, and all will become more clear in a few months.

I can say, however, that I have managed to get a couple of Charlie Connelly books in paperback. Prior to this, the only physical book of his that I owned was Attention All Shipping, because I brought that one home from Mexico in 2013, but the others were on my Kindle. Well, I now have paperback editions of And Did Those Feet, and also The Channel, so when I want re-reads of those books, I have a choice of format.

As we’re blogging a good couple of weeks after this was dispatched, I can show you the cute monthly box from Oops a Daisy – this is Draw the Line, and I feel very inclined to use it for another stationery-based monthly theme. I can show you some themes, though, for March as those are set up and ready to go in my book journal and general journal. Those will be coming up in a bit so prepare for ducks and sloths and some bad puns…

Had a bit of a saga the other week when the remote control for Mum’s telly died. The batteries had died so she needed to change them in the doofy for her TV set in her room, except one of the batteries would not bloody come out of the doofy! Eventually, after a hell of a lot of fannying about with my tailor’s scissors and also a mini screwdriver, I managed to get the bastard thing out, but it took a lot of doing! It had become rather stuck.

So, we put new batteries in the doofy, but they didn’t make a difference. I think the dodgy battery, the one that had been a pain in the arse to remove, had swollen and possibly leaked, corroding the inside of the compartment and rendering the doofy useless. However, managed to look up the model of TV set on the back of it and I went on Amazon and ordered a replacement doofy that came a day or two quicker than I’d been informed, so we didn’t have to wait too long to have a working remote, and this one has a much better battery compartment in terms of getting them in and out.

As promised before, the first of the two themes for March. This one is in my book journal and is called “What the Duck?!” so be prepared for some groan-worthy puns!

I finished three books this month and have only told you about one so far, the kids’ book about wine that I got from Lanzarote. However, I also finished two more, even though I’ve got an issue with Goodreads regarding the first one, The Official Charts’ Music Quiz Book, by Lee Thompson, as it’s not on there and I’ve had to put in a request to get it added.

We interrupt this blog to bring you a goalflash from the 5th round of the FA Cup at the City Ground…

Nottingham Forest 0 Manchester United 1. Casemiro 89 minutes! 🙂

There was a VAR check, but thankfully it stands. Typical United though, make it hard for themselves. Guess we’re heading into Fergie Time now. Will probably be a bit of it due to the VAR check.

Right, where were we before Casemiro scored? Ah, yes, books read this month, and the third of the trio was Hey Hi Hello, by Annie Nightingale, bringing back fond memories of when I listened to her request show on a Sunday night after the charts when I was a teenager.

Well, you’ve had one theme, now it’s the turn of my general journal and this is “Sweet Dreams” with some sleepy sloths!

Full-time at the City Ground, and United hung on to the lead Casemiro gave us in the 89th minute to progress to the FA Cup quarter-finals where we will be at home to arch-rivals Liverpool by the looks of things.

A couple of the Ongoing Concerns have seen some progress made. Rambling Man, by Sir Billy Connolly, is now 26% read, and The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, is now 13% read, although I may well continue with a bit more when this blog is done.

I also managed to get a sunflower lanyard at last this month! Yay! You will know I have mentioned invisible disabilities from time to time on this blog, particularly when I’ve been reading a book by a disabled writer giving their first-hand account of living with their condition, and I have finally got my hands on a sunflower lanyard which I got from the guest services desk at the Trafford Centre.

That’s about it for now, I think, but I shall leave you with Bagpuss, who turned 50 this month – half a century since the first episode was shown on telly on 12th February 1974! Only 13 episodes were ever made but they were repeated fairly frequently while I was little. Not bad for a saggy old cloth cat. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams. But Emily loved him.

So, until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Discover La Geria With Nico – Ismael Lozano Latorre
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly
• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• The Official Charts’ Music Quiz Book – Lee Thompson
• Hey Hi Hello – Annie Nightingale
• Rambling Man – Sir Billy Connolly
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth

Steve Wright Tributes, Torvill & Dean and the Usual Valentine’s Day Blog Stuff!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

I had thought I had this all sorted… Valentine’s Day Blog, bit of a tradition on here. Tell my followers that I blog on 14th February to say that I am in a long-term loving and committed relationship with books? Check. Find the “Voldemort” ecard? Check. Celebrate the fact that Valentine’s Day is also the anniversary of Torvill & Dean winning gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo? Check. Do the usual book stuff like any finished books and updates for the Ongoing Concerns? Check.

Yeah, the usual stuff prepped for… and then yesterday afternoon I got the bombshell that another chunk of my teenage years had gone. Disc jockey, Steve Wright, had died suddenly at the age of only 69.

It was only a month ago, two blogs into the new year, that I was mourning the loss of Annie Nightingale! Recalling the time, somewhere around either 1987 or 1988, when I accidentally discovered her request show on a Sunday night after the Top 40 as I had left the radio on after the charts and she’d started that night’s show with the Pet Shop Boys! It was the Disco Mix of “It’s a Sin”, the 12” version of the song, so I ended up listening to the entire show and Annie had a new listener!

At least Annie had had a decent innings, she was 83. Steve Wright was only 69. That’s no age, is it? I will return to this in a bit with my own personal memories of Steve Wright in the Afternoon on Radio 1 in the late 80s and early 90s as I went from my teens into the early years of my adult life, but I need to mention some other stuff, including one book read and another book that’s at least half-read.

Before we get onto the books, though… today, Wednesday 14th February 2024, is the 40th anniversary of Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean winning gold for Great Britain at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, skating to Ravel’s Bolero. Still my favourite sporting moment from the Winter Olympics, and I was 10 going on 11 when Mum and I watched the ice dance final on telly four decades ago! My final year of primary school.

The reason they start on their knees was that the abridged version of Bolero was still a little bit too long to skate to by about 18 seconds. Christopher Dean looked at the rule book and it said the routine could be 4 minutes 10 seconds. Their music was 4 minutes 28 seconds long, but Chris noticed that the “skating” didn’t start until blades were on the ice! So he told Jayne and they came up with the swaying start to kill a bit of time!

I do have a biography, Torvill & Dean, by John Hennessy, which I have had since I was a kid, so I may have a long-overdue reread of that this year. But I DO have a finished book for this month… one of those souvenirs from my wine-tasting in Lanzarote…

Discover La Geria With Nico, by Ismael Lozano Latorre, is now finished! It wasn’t an Ongoing Concern as the book is too short for that, but it is my first February finish and my fourth overall for this year.

The only other book that has seen progress has been Hey Hi Hello! by Annie Nightingale on my Kindle. That has passed the halfway mark and is currently 60% read, so the next milestone will be 67% – two-thirds read, which won’t be too long off. Not made any progress with the other OCs so they are as you were.

So, as promised, back to Chief Bookworm’s radio days… we’re going back to the late 80s and early 90s here and yours truly was a teenager. As a younger kid, I’d watched the children’s programmes on telly when I got home from school, but when you’re a teenager, most shows are a bit too young for you, you need something a bit more grown up, but still a bit daft and very funny… and that’s where Steve Wright in the Afternoon came into it! Steve interspersed his chat and the latest chart hits with a huge cast of silly characters! Mick & Keef, Mr Angry, Sid the Manager, Mr Mad, Dr Fish-Filleter, Diamond Geezer and Linda Lust…

Back in the late 80s, in the UK, there were a lot of premium rate phone lines, i.e. expensive to ring, and while some of these were for other stuff like football gossip and transfer rumours, quite a lot of these phone numbers, which all started 0898, were… how shall I put this? Adult Content would be the best way to describe it. X-rated stuff.

So, Steve Wright and his team created this character called Linda Lust, to take the piss out of these phone lines by reading out a load of nonsense in a suggestive tone of voice with made up 0898 phone numbers! Linda Lust’s Lusty Lines! Bloody hilarious!

He was mostly on radio, Radio 1 when I was younger, before migrating to Radio 2 later, but when he was a Radio 1 DJ he was on the rota to present Top of the Pops every so often. He was even on TOTP as a performer in 1991! With the film “Terminator 2” on at the cinema that year, Arnie Schwarzenegger was hugely popular, and Steve and friends came up with a novelty song “I’ll Be Back” under the name of Arnee and the Terminaters! It actually got to number 5 in the charts!

I was reminded of it last night when looking for tributes to Steve on YouTube and remembered just how brilliant it was. “It’s not that I’m ill-mannered, or a psychopathic hater. I just like to be treated right like any Terminator! If I thought I’d get results, I’d act a whole lot sweeter, but people always respect an Uzi nine milimetre!” That’s just a sample of the lyrics!

I think I’ve mentioned Radio 1 Roadshows in past blogs, even if it was a year or so ago now, possibly around 2020 or 2021 I think? Anyway, those used to go around the country in the summer, July and August, and I went to a couple of them in the 90s, the second of which was hosted by Steve Wright! It was at the Floral Hall Gardens in Southport.

I’ve chosen some more videos to “watch later” which are tributes to Steve – his passing has hit a lot of people in broadcasting hard, there have been loads of tributes, even from disc jockeys on other stations – in the early hours of the morning, Bill Overton paid tribute to Steve Wright on his show on Classic FM and said that Steve would give a mention to DJs on rival stations! Rest in Peace, Steve, you will be greatly missed! Thanks for the memories and giving me a good laugh when I was a teenager!

On a more happy note, there have been a couple of Big 50s this week, with the 50th anniversary of the first episode of “Bagpuss” and then the 50th birthday of Robbie Williams yesterday! Only 13 episodes of Bagpuss were ever made by Oliver Postgate and his animation company. Peter Firmin’s daughter was the Emily in the show, who owned the shop which didn’t sell anything. She found oddities and nick-nacks, often in need of repair, and brought them in for Bagpuss and his friends to sort out!

Bagpuss was, of course, a saggy old cloth cat. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams. But Emily loved him.

I know I have already mentioned that this year is 200 years of the RNLI, and I am pretty sure the anniversary is not far off, some time in March. However, I have also discovered that another national institution started in 1824 and is therefore also 200 years old this year… Cadbury’s chocolate! Yay! I have stuffed my face with plenty of that in my 50 going on 51 years on Earth, lol!

I know I’ve not mentioned that many books in this blog, but it is only a few days after the previous one. I will probably leave it a bit longer before the next blog so I can get my arse in gear on the reading front and have a bit more to tell you about the Ongoing Concerns. For now, though, that is about it for now, so until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Torvill & Dean – John Hennessy
• Discover La Geria With Nico – Ismael Lozano Latorre
• Hey Hi Hello! – Annie Nightingale

Lanzarote, Superb Owl Sunday and Dragons!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Wishing all my followers happiness, prosperity and plenty of good books in the Year of the Dragon! Chief Bookworm has returned, and she has been on her jollies, getting some winter sun, so prepare for a bit of waffle about that, lol!

Also, I believe it’s Superb Owl Sunday today, or something like that… oh, hang on… Super Bowl Sunday! Ah, right! Anyway, those are some superb owls on that meme, ha ha!

For those of you who are into it, enjoy the game! My Dad used to enjoy the Super Bowl. When I was a kid and Channel 4 started at the end of 1982, they started showing American Football and Dad got into it, so he would stay up each year for the Super Bowl, often taking the Monday off work as the time difference could be huge sometimes due to the venue of the event and how far away that was from the UK.

I think the Super Bowl is on one of the Sky Sports channels tonight, they’ve been responsible for some years now for bringing British fans action from across the Atlantic, but Channel 4 were the originals here.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I’ve been away, which is why last month’s review was done a few days early and why this first blog of February is coming to you 11 days into the month. Following last year’s holiday in Tenerife in late February to early March 2023, Mum and I decided we liked this going away early in the year malarkey and we booked a holiday for late January into early February and jetted off to the Canary Islands again, but this time to Lanzarote.

These little fat round cacti were everywhere! Sure, they still had the taller ones, but there were a lot of these short prickly balls around!

Just before we jetted off, though, I got And Did Those Feet, by Charlie Connelly, finished, so I read three books in January and that brings last month up to date. No finishes yet this month, but I will go through the Ongoing Concerns in a bit. Total number of books bought in January was 9, including one bought at W H Smith’s in the departure lounge at Manchester Airport on 30th January!

That book was Me vs Brain, by Hayley Morris, and it sounded very funny, especially for those of us whose brains frequently have far too many tabs open! I know my brain is like that on a regular basis, especially late at night when I really could do with getting some zeds! Always wanting me to think about stuff, causing me to want to ask “Seriously, Brain… I’ve got work to get up for in the morning! Would you mind letting me get some kip?!”

Mum and I stayed a week at the Hotel Beatriz Playa and Spa in Matagorda, Puerto del Carmen, in Lanzarote. Saw this bookshelf while we were there but most of the books were in other languages, there weren’t many in English, and at one point, the only English book I saw on there was Rambling Man, by Sir Billy Connolly, but that was the book I’d brought with me on my jollies anyway, lol!

I started Billy’s book while I was away, and it is 10% read. I also started Hey Hi Hello! by Annie Nightingale on my Kindle while I was away. That got up to 25% while I was on my jollies and has since reached the 33% milestone. In fact, it is currently 40% read so I am hoping to get it to the halfway stage this evening after I finish this blog.

I had got up to the chapter, earlier this evening, where she writes about the request show, and there was a lot I didn’t know. For instance, that Dave Lee Travis originally hosted a request show on BBC Radio 1 before Annie. However, DLT was then given a different slot on the airwaves, and Annie was asked if she’d like to host a request show on a Sunday evening at 7pm after the charts. Originally, it was only going to be temporary, for three months, but it ended up running for years!

So, I didn’t actually discover any books at the hotel to read or even bring home, but I did end up buying a couple of books on one of our two excursions! They were Discover La Geria With Nico, by Ismael Lozano Latorre, and Lanzarote & Wine, by Rubén Acosta and Mario Ferrer. I think I will be reading the first of those in the coming week. It will be a short book and I’ll be able to get a book read for February.

On the wine book for more grown-up readers, lol, you can see a lot of round holes. This is how the vines are grown in Lanzarote due to the winds on the island. There is also a small wall part-way around each hole. Appropriately given the volcanoes on the island, each of these holes is like a crater. They have to dig down to reach fertile soil, but the ash, the lapillus, covers it up so that, along with the sun, it can retain night time humidity and turn into moisture, as Lanzarote hardly gets much rain each year.

The crescent-shaped stone walls around part of each crater protect the vine leaves from the strong winds. This gives Lanzarote a very unusual, probably unique, way of growing grapes and producing wines! Having been wine tasting when Mum and I went to Gran Canaria in 2022, those vineyards were much more like you would see in mainland Europe, rows and rows of much taller vines.

As far as I’m concerned, they’re doing it right! That looks like a super bowl to me, lol! Could probably do with some squirty cream, sauces, and chopped nuts, though, and maybe a wafer or two, but that looks like an epic sundae!

Anyway, need to do a recap of the books that didn’t come to Lanzarote with me, but are Ongoing Concerns. We had Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, at 33% read, which has now been overtaken by the Annie Nightingale book, but all the others are at 10% and they are The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, and The Lost Rainforests of Britain, by Guy Shrubsole. Billy Connolly is also at 10%, but I started that book on my jollies.

Mum read T.V. by Peter Kay while we were in Lanzarote and said it was very funny, so I’ve got that one to look forward to!

I will also need to get on with setting up March in my journals. I had to do a pretty quick setup for February in my choir journal after I got home, but I can take a bit more time with March and I have made a start on it in my book journal. There will be ducks in that one and sloths in the general journal. That is all the spoilers I am prepared to give!

Well, that’s about it for now. This coming Wednesday will be Valentine’s Day and also the 40th anniversary of one of my favourite sporting moments from when I was a kid, so there may well be a blog, even though it will only be a few days since this one!

That’s about everything for now, but I’ll be back again soon enough with more waffle. Until then, take care, and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly
• Me vs Brain – Hayley Morris
• Rambling Man – Sir Billy Connolly
• Hey Hi Hello! – Annie Nightingale
• Discover La Geria With Nico – Ismael Lozano Latorre
• Lanzarote & Wine – Rubén Acosta & Mario Ferrer
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• The Lost Rainforests of Britain – Guy Shrubsole
• T.V. – Peter Kay

January Review: Pigs in Blankets, Windy Weather, Canary Islands and Radio Memories…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms! Welcome to the first monthly review of 2024, and it is coming a few days early, but as I said in my previous blog, things are getting busy chez Chief Bookworm, so the January review is here now and we might be a way into February before next month’s first blog.

I am hoping to get And Did Those Feet, by Charlie Connelly, finished before the month is out. It is currently 85% read so there’s a good chance even though things are set to get busy, and it will be my third finish for the month and the year. I will shortly be going over the two books I have already read this month as my book journal got up and running and there are some coloured-in books on the virtual shelves.

Those crisps (potato chips for my Transatlantic followers) were from the hamper our Ellie made up for Mum and I at Christmas and they’re Pigs in Blankets flavour crisps, or rather they were as I have now polished them off, lol! They were very yummy and definitely tasted of sausage and bacon.

So, what have we had this month? Seventy years of televised weather forecasts here in the UK, for one thing, so I was celebrating that anniversary, and saying that I missed the old days, when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and weather forecasters used to stick magnetic weather symbols, mostly rainclouds, ha ha, on a map of Britain! Especially when some of the symbols had lost a bit of their magnetism and fell off the map, lol!

Makes me think of Sir Billy Connolly. In “An Audience With…” he said that weather forecasters talk to you like you’re about six years old.

“And here is the weather… This is the country where you live! And this is a wee cloud!”

My first finish for the year wasn’t about the weather, well not about British climate anyway, as the book was Canary Island Dreaming, by Ron Weatherby, which was a good, if short, read on my Kindle about the four main Canary Islands, although mostly Fuerteventura really. That was the first one Mum and I went to, back in 2009, so that was a while ago.

Then came Lanzarote in 2012, then a bit of a gap before Gran Canaria in 2022 and Tenerife last year, although we were of course due to go to Gran Canaria in 2020 originally, but coronavirus happened so loads of stuff got postponed by two years. It was worth the wait, though – the hotel was amazing, the Cordiál Mogán Playa, particularly the bowling alley and Los Guayres, the Michelin-starred restaurant.

Last year’s holiday in Tenerife included the butter machine, though! Can’t forget that!

Some of the Canaries can be a bit windy, although there’s been plenty of wind right here of late with a couple of winter storms. Due to this, there are now a lot of wheelie bins needing to attend speed awareness courses, lol! Talking of wheelie bins, it seems that it must have been a local new year’s resolution to take bins in, or something, because I only had to navigate the wheelie bin slalom once on the way to choir and I’ve been back since 4th January!

I did have the lurgy one week, but as too many others were also ill, choir got cancelled on 11th January and I didn’t miss anything.

My second book finish of the month and year was Terrifying Tudors, by Terry Deary, a book from the Horrible Histories series, which I enjoy and they are books I will read every now and then. They’re a quick read and they’re pretty funny.

I also gave a pint of my O positive to the Vampires this month, my 53rd donation, and that blood has since been given to St James’ Hospital in Leeds. I love the fact that they let you know where your pint went to. Usually they send a text, but they emailed me this time.

Took my niece to her singing lesson on Tuesday, first time this year actually. I like this arrangement. I walk with Charlotte to her lesson and when she goes in, I go next door to Wandering Palate and have a coffee and a read for half an hour, then collect Charlotte and we walk back home. I also got some bags of my favourite ham-flavoured crisps while I was at Wandering Palate. Means I have to catch up with the last bit of Pointless later, but that’s not a problem.

We’ve already lost some notable people, though… Glynis Johns, who played Mrs Banks in “Mary Poppins”, actor and singer David Soul, best known for starring in “Starsky and Hutch”, German football legend Franz Beckenbauer (Der Kaiser), and disc jockey and presenter Annie Nightingale (photo above) who was a big part of my teenage years back in the late 80s and early 90s when I would listen to her request show on Sunday nights after the Top 40 on Radio 1.

Due to this, I am thinking that when I finish And Did Those Feet, I will read her autobiography, Hey Hi Hello, which is on my Kindle, and there are at least a couple more Charlie Connelly books I want to re-read, those being Last Train to Hilversum, which is about the history of radio, and one of my big favourites – Attention All Shipping, which is a journey around the Shipping Forecast. That one is actually a paperback, which I brought home from Mexico in 2013!

I did say I would show you some of my journaling, didn’t I? Pretty sure I mentioned in the last blog that I had started February’s theme in my general journal. Well, I have now finished “Enter the Dragon” so you can see pictures (above) of the theme – it will be Chinese New Year on 10th February, the Year of the Dragon, hence the oriental designs! Stencils from Oops a Daisy as usual, but a lot of the stickers and some washi was from Hubman and Chubgirl, and there’s also a bit from Under the Rowan Trees.

Had some happy mail the other day from Lellybean Studios, which included a sheet of baking puns stickers – muffin compares to you, have a loafly day, etc… I think quite a few of us who are into stationery also seem to appreciate puns and wordplay! Some of you may even recall that I read a book the other year called The Pun Also Rises, by John Pollack, about puns and wordplay and their impact on human history.

I have still not started any of the autobiographies I mentioned in the previous blog, and none of the Ongoing Concerns have been progressed other than And Did Those Feet, so the others are at the percentages they were on Monday. There may be some change, though, when I blog next month, but I think that’s all for now. Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly
• Canary Island Dreaming – Ron Weatherby
• Terrifying Tudors – Terry Deary
• Hey Hi Hello – Annie Nightingale
• Last Train to Hilversum – Charlie Connelly
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• The Pun Also Rises – John Pollack

It’s a Small World, But I Wouldn’t Like to Have to Paint It!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to another blog entry, and more stationery, lol! The above photo is of the order that arrived on Saturday, and is currently being put in use in my general journal for my February theme. It’s not quite finished yet, just a little bit more to work on but I will probably be able to show you in the next blog. As you can tell, there is an oriental feel… that is all the clue I am giving you…

I’m not saying it’s been windy overnight, but I’ll just say that there are several wheelie bins that need to take a speed awareness course! At least it’s not too cold. This time last week it just felt absolutely freezing and I lost count of how often I needed the loo! It was absolutely brass monkeys out there!

It was also, apparently, Blue Monday last Monday, so I listened to the New Order song of that name, because that just had to be done! Then we went from a Blue Monday to a White Tuesday, as we had snow here! Thankfully, it didn’t last too long!

Topsy and Tim books! Found this picture on Facebook last week and it took me back! Pretty sure I must have read one or two of those when I was a kid. The series is by Jean and Gareth Anderson, and I notice the top one is Topsy and Tim Go Hill-Walking, so I wonder which hills they were walking in? Were they in the Lake District? If so, how many Wainwrights did they bag?! I think we ought to be told, lol!

Actually, mention of the Lake District brings me on to a news item I chanced upon this Thursday just gone, after I’d got home from choir. It was on our north-west regional news and was about the fact that we have temperate rainforests in the Lake District! They talked to Guy Shrubsole, who actually writes about them in his book, The Lost Rainforests of Britain, which I actually bought during the course of last year, and so I have made a start on it. The book is 10% read, so it is an Ongoing Concern.

My late Dad often used to say “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t like to have to paint it”, which gives us our blog title for tonight, and I thought about this saying on Thursday, as we had some new members at choir, and one of them, Claire, a fellow alto, happens to be a teacher at the primary school my nephew goes to! She taught our Reuben when he was in reception, and a bit further back, she taught Charlotte when she was in the juniors, and she is also the choir conductor for the juniors – Charlotte was in the choir when she was at primary school and performed at a couple of the Young Voices concerts at the Manchester Arena!

By now, I’m sure you’re used to completely random subject matters being brought up on here, so for your entertainment, we give you the latest random subject matter that I noticed elsewhere on social media in the last day or two… antimacassars! It just cropped up on a thread, and I was able to confirm that I knew what they were and what their use is!

They date back to Victorian times and they are the covers that go on the headrest, and sometimes the arms, of sofas and armchairs, and they came about because of a gentleman’s grooming product from back in the day, Macassar hair oil, which originated from the port of Makassar in what were then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, well-to-do fellas put this oil on their hair back in Victorian times.

This was then starting to cause oily, greasy stains on furniture, which the ladies were none too chuffed about, so they created these covers, antimacassars, to go over headrests so the men’s hair oil would go on those and not the armchairs, and the covers could be taken off and washed, and fresh ones put on the furniture!

They are actually most commonly seen these days on headrests of public transport, particularly trains and planes, with rail network or airline logos on them.

Before we get on to the books, just thought I would let you know that I had an email last week from the Vampires to inform me that my most recent pint of O positive has been given to St James’ Hospital in Leeds.

Talking of donations, I had an absolute load of books given to me last week for the stall at the church fair! They belonged to my mum’s friend, Joyce, who passed away in 2019, and she had a call during the week from Joyce’s husband, Paul, asking if he could come round and bring a load of books. So, he and daughter Amanda, came round and brought about three large bags of books, mostly by Wilbur Smith plus a few others!

We really should get onto the books now, shouldn’t we? I have mentioned one of the Ongoing Concerns already, but we need to let you know of a finished book and how the others are doing. Also, I need to start another new one this week.

We have a second finish for the month and year. Terrifying Tudors, by Terry Deary, was polished off last week. And Did Those Feet, by Charlie Connelly, which is a reread of one of my Kindle books, is currently 52% read, so just over halfway. I am aiming to get at least that one finished before January is over, so that there are at least three finished books, if not more. I will probably be reading more of it after I finish blogging.

By the way, the next blog will be the monthly review and will come before 31st January, probably 28th or 29th at the latest, as in late January and early February, Chief Bookworm will be otherwise occupied and won’t be blogging. That’s your advanced warning.

Next up on the Ongoing Concerns is Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi on 33% read, and then we have four books at 10% read. The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, and, as mentioned earlier, The Lost Rainforests of Britain, by Guy Shrubsole.

The rainforests here in the UK, are to be found in the west of these shores, some in Cornwall, some in Wales, some in the Lake District, as I mentioned earlier, and some up in Scotland. It is our “rainforest zone”. I bought the book last year, but chancing on that news item last week really left me gobsmacked that there are rainforests right here in my own neck of the woods. Like many other people, I suspect, I thought rainforests were all in other far-flung corners of the globe, such as Brazil and Indonesia, but no, we actually have some small examples of rainforest right here in Britain!

The Lake District. It also has rainforests!

Anyway, as I finished a book last week, I have room for a new book to join the Ongoing Concerns! I did think perhaps Heroes of the RNLI, by Martyn R. Beardsley, but the 200th anniversary of the RNLI is in March, I think, so I might start that book in February after my busy spell. It definitely should be read to mark the occasion.

However, I was thinking of leaning towards an autobiography, and I have a few physical ones to choose from, and if I finish the Charlie Connelly book this week, which is possible, I have at least one on my Kindle. In fact, it’s the autobiography of the late Annie Nightingale, who sadly passed away recently, Hey Hi Hello.

In terms of the physical autobiographies that I can see nearby, we have At My Mother’s Knee and Other Low Joints, by Paul O’Grady, Making It So, by Sir Patrick Stewart, Karma, by Boy George, T.V, by Peter Kay, and Rambling Man, by Sir Billy Connolly, so there’s quite a choice! I’ll let you know what I end up reading when I do my next blog!

For now, though, that is pretty much everything covered, so until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Topsy and Tim Go Hill-Walking – Jean and Gareth Anderson
• The Lost Rainforests of Britain – Guy Shrubsole
• Terrifying Tudors – Terry Deary
• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• Heroes of the RNLI – Martyn R. Beardsley
• Hey Hi Hello – Annie Nightingale
• At My Mother’s Knee and Other Low Joints – Paul O’Grady
• Making It So – Sir Patrick Stewart
• Karma – Boy George
• T.V. – Peter Kay
• Rambling Man – Sir Billy Connolly

Badger’s Arse, Assembly Songs, Annie Nightingale and Glue Dot Rollers…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to another blog and some news of a finished book and another Ongoing Concern nearing completion coming up later, but how are you all? Unfortunately, the Badger’s Arse struck on Thursday and I needed a couple of days off work, but I am a lot better now and will be OK to return to normal tomorrow.

On some of my FB groups, there’s been a lot of reminiscing about the hymns sung in assemblies during our schooldays, and even the comedian Jason Manford got some “assembly bangers” going during one of his stand-up shows! I have to say, though, that I have some concerns about the lyrics in some of these things we were singing back in the day in school halls, as some of them seem a bit irresponsible to me…

Take “If I Had a Hammer” for instance… If I had a hammer, the songwriter opines, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening… Imagine being one of his neighbours! Especially if you lived in a block of flats near Salford Precinct or something? He’s hammering in the morning and evening and it’s costing you a fortune in painkillers due to all the headaches he’s giving you! You’d be phoning the council or the housing association, wouldn’t you?! Put in a complaint, get the Anti-Social Behaviour Officer to come round and have a word with the incessant hammerer!

At this point, it’s worth mentioning Anti-Social, by Nick Pettigrew, which I read a couple of years ago and absolutely loved! He was an ASB Officer, so he’d have had to deal with noise nuisances such as the person in our school assembly hymn! So, let’s say that one of Mr Pettigrew’s colleagues has had a word with the hammerer, reminded him of his tenancy conditions and asked him to warn his neighbours before any further DIY is done…

So, he’s stopped hammering… but now he’s got a bell! And, guess what? Yep, that’s right… he rings it in the morning, he rings it in the evening… and his poor neighbours in the block of flats are getting more headaches and ringing the council again! “Hello, is that the housing department? I’d like to speak to the ASB officer again about our neighbour. The one who had the hammer, yes, that’s right. Well, now he’s got a bell and he’s just as much a nuisance with that as he was with that bloody hammer!”

So, yeah, I don’t really think they thought things through terribly well at times when hymns were chosen for primary school assemblies. There’s also “When I Needed a Neighbour” which has some dubious lyrics in it, too. I was cold, I was naked, were you there, were you there? You’re expecting primary school kids to handle lyrics about being starkers with a level of maturity?! Really? When I was at primary school, kids had to be reminded not to shout the third “Oh come let us adore Him” bit in the chorus of “O Come All Ye Faithful” in the run-up to Christmas every year, lol!

Anyway, I’d better get on with some book news, especially as Canary Island Dreaming, by Ron Weatherby, is my first finish of 2024! Yay! Terrifying Tudors, by Terry Deary, a Horrible Histories book, is currently 75% read, so that one is looking a good bet for my second book of the year! I do love the Horrible Histories books and will read one every now and then, as regular followers of my blog will know.

Having finished the Canary Islands one, that also meant that my 24 in 2024 travel reading challenge is up and running and I have got a travel book on that list as well as my main virtual bookshelves in my journal.

Before we get on with the remaining Ongoing Concerns, need to bring a bit of sad news from this week, as the football world mourned the loss of the legendary German, the “Kaiser”, Franz Beckenbauer, who passed away on Monday aged 78, and then on Friday came the sad news that the legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ, Annie Nightingale, had died, aged 83. Part of my teenage years gone.

Anyone who has followed my blog for a few years at least might remember when I was blogging a lot on the topic of radio, summer of 2021 if I’m not mistaken, and I was reading the likes of Last Train to Hilversum, by Charlie Connelly and Radio Waves, a poetry anthology edited by Seán Street. During this blogging period, I was also wiffling on about my own radio listening from being a little girl up to the present day.

In fact, the vast majority of my childhood, apart from the six months in Switzerland in 1978, I listened to Radio 1, and would always have the charts on, the UK Top 40 singles charts, on a Sunday afternoon, and tape songs I liked from it, as most of us from my generation did, ha ha! Anyway, we get to my teenage years in the latter half of the 1980s and I think this would have been some time around 1987 or 1988 so I would have been 14 or 15 at the time…

The Top 40 had been on and had finished, that week’s number one had been revealed and played, but I’d left the radio on, possibly getting myself something to drink, and the next show started… first song on was the Disco Mix (12” version) of “It’s a Sin” by the Pet Shop Boys, so I was well-chuffed at this excellent choice of tune and carried on listening to the show. That show was the Annie Nightingale Request Show and I was now a fan!

That photo above was posted on FB not long ago by a friend of mine, but it’s in keeping with the radio theme and includes the Charlie Connelly book I mentioned. I have that book on my Kindle, but I need to get hold of that other book in the photo, Radio Broadcasting, by Gordon Bathgate, as it sounds like it would be of interest to me.

Back to Annie Nightingale’s Request Show, though, for a moment, as that became part of my teenage life and Radio 1 would stay on after the charts from that point onwards to hear the weird and wonderful songs people had asked Annie to play, including the really quirky stuff like “The Laughing Gnome” by David Bowie, and a song I completely associate with Annie’s request show… “Fish Heads” by Barnes & Barnes!

So, Rest in Peace, Annie, and thank you so much for all the entertainment you brought me during my teenage years! Even though I never wrote in for a request myself, I have many fond memories of tuning in during the late 80s and early 90s!

Before we get on to the weather and another recent TV anniversary, let’s do the remaining Ongoing Concerns! We’ve mentioned the finished book and the book at 75% read, but next up is Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, which is 33% read. Then we have four books at 10% read making up the remaining OCs…

The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, and And Did Those Feet, by Charlie Connelly are all at the same stage and ready to be progressed further. Having finished the Canary Islands book, which was on my Kindle, I started the re-read of Charlie Connelly’s book because I had thought I would be going to the match today.

However, that thought was before I came down with the lurgy on Thursday and thus there was a change of plan because being outside in the cold for a few hours in January is NOT conducive to getting rid of the Badger’s Arse!

The weather photo, from back in the 70s when weather symbol magnets were stuck on the map of the UK, is to celebrate 70 years of weather forecasting on BBC television, the anniversary of which was earlier this week. I used to want to stick those clouds and suns on the map when I was a kid! Never got to do it, though, sadly. Then forecasting became more advanced, which was a good thing, but it did mean losing the charm of those old forecasts where the weatherman or weatherwoman would put the clouds on the map, only for one of them to fall off occasionally, lol!

Perhaps we need a song to celebrate the anniversary? How about “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls, or “John Kettley is a Weatherman” by A Tribe of Toffs?!

* sings * John Kettley is a weatherman, a weatherman, a weatherman. John Kettley is a weatherman and so is Michael Fish!

I’ve started seeing these on Facebook. Bert’s Books is a book shop in Swindon, Wiltshire, which is a bit far away from my neck of the woods, but if I ever find myself in Swindon in the future, for whatever reason, I’ll have to pop in and pay a visit!

Ever put something in a safe place and it’s so bloody safe you can’t find it? I had some glue dot rollers, which I use for my journalling. Little blue things (well, most of mine are) that you retract the cover of and roll the tape along paper and it leaves a trail of tiny sticky glue dots. I was using one recently and it ran out on me. I thought I had some more but couldn’t find them, so then I wondered if I’d actually used them all up, so erring on the side of caution, I ordered a few more and they arrived on Wednesday.

Wednesday evening, I pick up a see-through pencil case and unzip it to get some pens out, and what do I see in there?! Yep, that’s right… a load of glue dot rollers! Typical! So, I added the three new ones to the mix and I now have an absolute stash of them! Providing my brain lets me remember where they are, I won’t be running out for a while!

Anyway, that’s about it for now, so I’ll be back soon with another helping of complete and utter waffle with some book news thrown in for good measure, lol! Until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Anti-Social – Nick Pettigrew
• Canary Island Dreaming – Ron Weatherby
• Terrifying Tudors – Terry Deary
• Last Train to Hilversum – Charlie Connelly
• Radio Waves – Seán Street (Ed)
• Radio Broadcasting – Gordon Bathgate
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly

An Empty Arm and the Return of the Wheelie Bin Slalom…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the first book blog of 2024 from yours truly, who has an empty arm! Yep, I was in town earlier today to give a pint of my O positive to the Vampires, and you will not be terribly surprised to learn that there was some retail therapy as well, and that some new items of reading matter were acquired, lol!

Before we get going, this is just to let you know that last year’s lists are on List Challenges if you want to see how many books you’ve read from the list of the 70 books I read in 2023, or the 135 books that I mentioned on this blog during the course of last year.

And so we have let in 2024, which Mum and I did by having a meal at La Turka. No lurgy this time, thankfully, so we were able to dine in. Earlier on New Year’s Eve, I had gone down to Tesco’s on the road to get some chocolate… and saw that Easter eggs were already on sale! There were several hours of the old year left at that point so I was a bit taken aback to see Easter food already! Mind you, there’s probably also hot cross buns on sale by now… ooh, I love hot cross buns! Mmm…

Anyway, never mind wiffling on about Easter grub, let’s get on with this blog…

These are bits at the back of my book journal, and as you can see, the blog logs have been set up, so we’re all ready to go with this year’s blogs and this set of pages should take me up to the end of June – four spreads of six lightbulb-topped checklists. As you probably know, I use these to make a list of stuff to blog about. Most of it does get mentioned, although not everything makes it onto the internet, the odd one or two items don’t get ticked off. The front of the journal was prepped last year, and indeed I have now done February’s theme in my book journal so I can show you that later, but we need to get on with some actual book news now…

I currently have five Ongoing Concerns. Two of these are the books which hibernated at the end of November, and there are three books which have been started since 2024 got under way, including one which I started on my Kindle today and it seems to be a fairly short book as I am already a third of the way through it! This book is Canary Island Dreaming, by Ron Weatherby, and I had had it on my Kindle for a bit, and having been to all four of the main Canary Islands, I thought why not read this?

I needed something on my Kindle to read while giving blood as it’s much easier to deal with when one of your arms is out straight with blood being collected from it. Much simpler to turn the pages of a Kindle one-handed, by tapping on the screen, than it is to turn the pages of a physical book one-handed. I still prefer physical books, but there are times when ebooks hold a distinct advantage over paperbacks and hardbacks, and giving blood is one such occasion.

Next up on the Ongoing Concerns, at 27% read, is Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, which was one of the two books I had started in 2023 but had put to bed at the end of November. The other book which hibernated at the end of last year was The Almost Nearly Perfect People, by Michael Booth, but I need to resume that one. Might do that in the coming week. Still 10% read at the moment.

So, we have covered the ebook and the two books from last year, so now for the other new books, both of which are 10% read. These are Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad, which is pictured above, and is about Chris going over to Japan to be an English teacher there, and the other book is Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash, about life in a Cornish fishing village.

A bit of an honourary mention here for Murdle, by G. T. Karber. Although it is a puzzle book so not being classed as regular reading matter, it was something I bought at Waterstone’s in my post-Christmas spree at the Trafford Centre on 28th December, and I’m glad I bought it as I’m very much into it! So much so that I’ve got the follow-up, Murdle: More Killer Puzzles, when I was in town today! They are logic problems and murder mysteries rolled into one. I just wish my dad was still with us, as I think he would have enjoyed these too!

We got into “ordinary” logic puzzles back in the mid to late 80s due to my sister’s trampolining, funnily enough! We were in a minibus and on our way to some other part of the country, possibly Sunderland, for a competition, and one of the other kids, I think it was Steven Worrall, had a book of Logic Problems and introduced Dad to them, and I got into them via Dad.

Choir returned on Thursday, so a couple of days beforehand I got my arse in gear and came up with the above pages in my choir journal. “Shine on Me” is a spiritual and one of the songs in our huge repertoire. I felt the lighthouse was a good choice for a dark wintery month like January. Also, this year is, of course, the 200th anniversary of the RNLI, so a theme of keeping people safe at sea seemed relevant. I had to improvise as I don’t have a stencil of a lighthouse, one of the few things that hasn’t been done in stencil form by Oops a Daisy!

Of course, heading off to choir on a Thursday night also meant the return of the infamous Wheelie Bin Slalom as I headed down our road having to weave around the bins that were still out in the middle of the pavement, lol! Maybe it should become an Olympic sport?! Bit short notice to introduce it for the Paris Games this summer, though, ha ha!

While we’re still sort-of on the topic of music, there were a couple of notable departures this week. On Thursday, we lost actress Glynis Johns, aged 100, who was best-known for playing Mrs Banks in “Mary Poppins” and on Friday we lost actor and singer, David Soul, aged 80, who was Hutch in “Starsky and Hutch” on telly and also had a pop career in the 70s including two UK number ones in 1977, “Don’t Give Up On Us” and one of my favourites from when I was little, “Silver Lady”.

That’s my “Bloomin’ Marvellous!” plant theme for February in my book journal, and it includes some cactus stickers and washi tape from my first happy mail of 2024, an order from Hubman & Chubgirl which plopped through the letterbox on 2nd January. I had the cacti from Oops a Daisy for a while and wanted to do a theme, and they recently brought out their forget me nots theme, so I decided to combine them for a plant-related setup.

Not done February in my general journal yet, but as 10th February will be Chinese New Year, when we will be letting in the Year of the Dragon, I may well be opting for a theme relevant to that.

Anyway, as I said earlier in this blog, I got some books while I was in town this afternoon, and not just the book of further Murdle puzzles, but some actual reading matter, so we need to mention those books, don’t we?

That’s the first Murdle book, by the way, the follow-up has a purple border. But let’s get on with what else I bought this afternoon other than murder mystery logic puzzles…

First up we have Karma, Boy George’s autobiography, but you probably expected that to be on my TBR list, especially if you know how much I love 80s music! Culture Club made a significant contribution to the soundtrack of my childhood, and I still remember, after their first appearance on “Top of the Pops” the bafflement of many who weren’t sure if the lead singer was a boy or a girl!

Next, we have Steeple Chasing, by Peter Ross, which is UK-based travel writing – Around Britain by Church. This is the same writer who gave us A Tomb With a View, which I read a couple of years ago as my concession to Halloween, and which provided me with the title for my October set up in last year’s book journal.

Strong Female Character, by Fern Brady, is next, and one that I saw near the counter at Waterstone’s. It sounded promising from the blurb, so I thought I would take a chance on it.

Then we have the two I bought from Fopp before I gave blood – Fopp is across the road from the donor centre so it is handily placed! World Mythology in Bite-Sized Chunks, by Mark Daniels, is one of the books, and does what it says on the tin, as the Ronseal adverts would say, lol! It basically gives you the gist of myths from past and present cultures around the world, including our old mate Gilgamesh, the Chinese zodiac, and Greek mythology. Wonder if it will point out that most problems in Greek mythology were due to Zeus not keeping it in his pants?!

We round off this book spree with Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, so there is a bit of fiction in amongst all this non-fiction, but you know I like my factual reads, especially travel writing. Out of the 70 books I read last year, 18 of them were in the travel writing category. This is why I’m thinking travel books for a “24 in 2024” thing.

In my last blog of 2023, I was able to show you the first six days of the 12 Days of Planning, so you can now see the remaining six days as it was Day 12 on Friday. As I have hinted, the stickers are in use in my book journal for my travel writing challenge. 24 in 2024 will see me attempt to read at least 24 travel writing books amongst all the books I read during the course of this year. I read 18 such books last year, so I just need to up that total by six books.

Well, I think that’s about it for the first blog entry of 2024! I will be back again soon enough with more waffle and book progress reports, but until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Canary Island Dreaming – Ron Weatherby
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
• Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
• Dark, Salt, Clear – Lamorna Ash
• Murdle – G. T. Karber
• Murdle: More Killer Puzzles – G. T. Karber
• Karma – Boy George
• Steeple Chasing – Peter Ross
• A Tomb With a View – Peter Ross
• Strong Female Character – Fern Brady
• World Mythology in Bite-Sized Chunks – Mark Daniels
• Cannery Row – John Steinbeck