Oh damn, still in this dream.

Joe Country, by Mick Herron, is easily the best so far.

Of course there are miserable deaths, and sparkling dialogue as counterpoint. And some good jokes. When you read the extremely dodgy politician Peter Judd's dialogue it really should be heard in the inner ear as speaking with Bojo's voice. Also, the spook's church being St. Leonard's; I'm sure Elmore would have approved.

Slough House is at the lower end of purgatory, one step up from the least awful circle of hell, just behind the Barbican. The stories from there are getting better and better. If Pratchett had ever attempted the spy novel, he'd have to have been on top form to get close to this. I wonder, what are the requirements for good spy writing? Dense yet traceable plots? Dialogue? Characterisation? Villainous good guys and sympathetic bad guys?

Well, none of Herron's characters is anything other than flawed; excepting a blameless incidental chap who gets scarred for life. The only innocent in the whole novel gets shafted, as is good and proper in a spy novel; but it's not really about him as he's just collateral - again, as is good and proper... etc.

To those of us who grew up on Le Carré and his cold-war novels of moral equivocation will get the seediness of the milieu. But Slough House is many ranks lower than the Park or Le Carré's Circus.

Satisfying in all the wrong ways.

My short-sightedness has been interfering with my reading habits for a small time now. Nevertheless, between infant heir, SWMBO, etc., I have found the odd moment or two. However, my myopia (a sign of age, no doubt) particularly impacts upon my enjoyment of this book:






The prints, from Gilray, Rowlandson, Cruickshank et al are brilliant examples of what we now consider "political cartoons", and Gatrell's commentary, presented with a sort of pastor-like oratorical didacticism, is illuminating and insightful: and sets a tone which, if not quite Olympian, nor even Augustan, still treats the subject of often bawdy levity with a gravitas wonderfully oxymoronic, as if trying to imbue it with dignity. And he makes sense doing so.

I'd give it an extravagant 9.25 out of 10. If you are at all interested in the history of political cartoons, this gives a selection from a time and place at the nascency of the artform.

So I bought the new Philip Kerr  Bernie Gunther novel yesterday. 



Pretty good, rather than as extraordinarily brilliant as the first three collected together in the 'Berlin Noir' compendium: but I don't think it will appeal to our American chums much, as they are cast as, if not the villains, at least not the heroes, in a pretty definite way. Mind you the Soviets, French, and Brits don't come out of it much better: nor do the majority of Germans. Oh well, there's humans for you.

Whilst in my local bookshop, buying the new Iain M. Banks novel




I saw a collection of Auberon Waugh's journalism, called 'Kiss me Chudliegh'





I quote from his Wikipedia entry:

During his National Service, he was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards and served in Cyprus, where he was almost killed in a machine gun accident. Annoyed by a fault in the machine gun on his armoured car which he drove frequently, he seized the end of the barrel and shook it, accidentally triggering the mechanism so that the gun fired several bullets through his chest. As a result of his injuries, he lost his spleen, one lung, several ribs, and a finger, and suffered from pain and recurring infections for the rest of his life. While lying on the ground waiting for an ambulance he said to his platoon sergeant, with his characteristic élan: "Kiss me Chudleigh". He later recalled, however, that "Chudleigh did not recognise the allusion and from then on treated me with extreme caution."

I have all the collections of Waugh's journalism anyway, so I probably won't be buying it: but I will recommend it to all and sundry without hesitation. Waugh was a great Englishman, a good Catholic (though such might have been thought to be mutually exclusive), and the wittiest and most vicious polemicist I can recall. His politics were much different to mine, but still....

I should go and put a rose on his grave sometime.

And produced rather a beautiful and withering critique of both the book and the author.

The London Review of Books. Something dear to my heart, really.

I bought this, because I haven't read it.



It will arrive on Monday. Can't wait.

It is hayfever season. Mother nature loves me not. The blanket of pollen intermingles with the heat haze and filters the sun on what is the third hot day of summer in a broken week of weather. And me, (ah, me, says the navel-gazer) I reside in rooms with the drapes still pulled, athwart a pile of books: an anonymous blue inhaler by my side.

And first of these books athwart which I'm sitting is Raymond Queneau's 'Zazie in the Metro'.



Now, if like me you read it as a teenager, it has pleasures anew from an adult perspective. Barbara Wright's translation is probably required for native English speakers: I'm pretty certain the colloquial and slang Parisian French of the late fifties is well beyond my ken. But I'd recommend it as a short read, without hesitation.

So I had lunch with Felix: who was especially sane today, baring the odd blip or two. His most impressive quote was:
"I saved one....four....two-thousand-six-hundred-and-three planets from criminals last night." Followed by:
"So is it true that I won the Booker Prize and am on the cover of 'Guitar Player'?"

I want to record what Felix says on my iPhone and transcribe a complete conversation in all of its non-linear glory....but it seems intrusive and making of him a spectacle, so perhaps not. I want never gets: and as Felix is an adjunct to this blog, rather than its central character, I have a moral dilemma here.

Opinions?

On the way home I stopped off at Forbidden Planet to meander amongst the comic-books. I came across a British first of 'Persepolis' (hardback dust-jacket - Jonathan Cape, 2003) for £12.99, which will replace my paperback. About the right price, though some in the US and Canada are charging $175 for the same book.

Sorted the Mother's few little computer problems. Booked her holiday in the Republic and my train tickets. As an aside, the Mother can't fly, being disabled, and the drive from London to the edge of Wales to catch the ferry is a bit much for her, so I do the driving to Swansea, whereupon I pass the last stage of the journey over to her, and board a train for London. Then, when she's returning, I do the journey in reverse, and she picks me up at Swansea and I drive back to town.

This year, as soon as I'm back in town, I'm packing alongside the missus in order to catch the train down to Faro in the Algarve, where we have booked a villa with a pool for a week. Through the Chunnel then change in Paris and (probably) Lisbon; though there may be an alternative route via Madrid. No more planes for me thank-you-very-much. There's something so much more appealing about the train, especially if you're travelling first class.

Of course, next year we'll probably go to Calcutta (as was) where I have an appointment at a family graveside: so we'll have to fly. I will also have to try to find a bit of spare moolah to employ someone local to look after the graves. But this is in the future: for now my ears are safe from the pressure differentials occasioned by flying for another whole year. Yippee!

A compendium of short stories. Most are pretty good, some excellent. Few as good as Vance himself, but that's to be expected.

I bought this on Sunday at the South Bank and read it yesterday.


Now I have to declare an interest here. During the sixties and seventies Dad worked for the Express, and I have all the Giles books from '61 onwards, and a few from the fifties too. Dad knew Peter Tory, and I am loathe to criticise....however I do feel he has missed some salient points in his biography of the Giles family: and there are some errors in the text which early cartoons from the fifties rather give away. Nevertheless, as a social record it has many admirable qualities, and as an introduction to Carl Giles' work it more than suffices.


I reread this:


Which was also worth my time.

And this:


because I'd been somewhat out-of-it when I read it first time around (some two or so weeks ago). I think we should all hope Pratchett doesn't succumb to his illness before he can finally get a few more good tales finished. IMO Vetinari is one of the best characters in fantasy fiction: though I'm pretty sure that of all the discworld characters, I resemble an unsuccessful Moist von Lipwig more than any other.

I am ploughing through Lindsay Davis'  oeuvre again before starting on Robert Harris's


which I picked up from a local charity shop.

But in the meantime I'm trying to get my tax sorted before the 31st of this month, else I'll have to submit it online.

Go well, do good things, and if you come across an exceptionally good read, don't forget to recommend it to me.

The last two days there have been TV crew in TPA Studios.
G P Taylor (who wrote 'Shadowmancer') has been in interviewing authors for an upcoming Television series.
Really nice bloke. He's about the same age as me (born '61) and amongst other things has been in his time a PR person, a Policeman, and a Vicar. When He was a PR person (late 70's) he used to pop into TPA Studios and he may have been the reason that the TV company decided to do their interviewing therein.
When Mr Taylor was a Vicar his parish was in North Yorkshire. In fact he lived in the next Village to Hackness, where my bridge partner's parents live. Small World. We got on like a house on fire.
Now Steve, God bless his soul, then happened to mention that I'd written a novel a few years ago. So Graham (as I've been instructed to call him) told me the story of how he got started.
He wrote his novel, and then self-published it.
After that small (2500) first edition from Mount Publishing, the book was taken up by Faber whereupon it became a best seller.
So I immediately went on to ABE books to try to find a first (so I could get him to sign it etc) only to find the prices were ridiculous. In fact, the most expensive copy (hand corrected) was some $40,000. I showed this to him and he said: 'Oh, I gave that away.' He then promised each of us a copy as he still had a few left. Which was nice.
Yesterday, when I got in to TPA, during a break in recording, I thanked him for the previous day's advice, and told him I was investigating self-publishing costs. He asked me to hang fire for a bit as he is a director of another publishing house, and there may be no need to self-publish.
Picked chin up off floor etc.
It may come to nothing, but....you never know. Here's hoping.