My Blog

Category: Books

  • Disembarkadero

    My liking for train travel is well documented, I have been reminded of this during lockdown by two separate emails, both from subscriber lists. The National Railway Museum in York is a fascinating destination for normal times,  I have mentioned before the thrill of sharing the same space as these leviathans of steam power.  I…

  • Down the rabbit hole

    Today is the bicentenary of the birth of John Tenniel,  artitst and cartoonist, noted for Punch and of course Alice in Wonderland.  From the entry in Wikipedia:- “Tenniel’s “grotesque” was one reason why Lewis Carroll wanted Tenniel as his illustrator for the Alice books, in the sense of imparting a disturbing sense that the real…

  • Guilty as charged

  • Tip toppermost

    Recently my niece Emma (who is my favourite niece of that name)  challenged me to list my top ten books via Facebook.  I could no more do this than fly in the air,  but I note below nine** books or groups of books, which had an impact on me that I still recall. Warning: Spoilers.…

  • in the bowl of night

    I do not know what is going on just now, but I have been waking up at stupid o’clock; this morning it was 03:38 and do you think I can go back to sleep?  Can I buffalo. So, I have now worked out how to upload pictures from my phone (use the cable for Paul’s…

  • Capital times

    Back from three days in the Smoke where we were delighted to meet up with chum Ruth.  We had originally planned to go to both Cambridge and London but Paul’s operation made us take a more realistic approach.   We saw two extremely good plays, Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and…

  • Stamp of approval

    The next set of special stamps due to be issued by the Royal Mail will celebrate Magical Realms – I never thought I would ever see Nanny Ogg* (a witch in the realm of Discworld, created by Sir Terry Pratchett) on a stamp, let alone Tilda Swinton, albeit in her guise as the Snow Queen…

  • Beadnell’s About

    Last weekend we met up with the chums from the 2008 (crikey) Norwegian cruise, down in Beadnell on the Northumbrian coast. Part of this journey involved the most sedate drive of ever down the A1, stuck as we were behind a slow moving something; despite the thirty minutes we spent behind it I never did…

  • On edge

    Went across the bridge yesterday to share in the cultural behemoth that is Edinburgh just now, as we attended the play Beautiful Burnout which was put on by the National Theatre of Scotland. It’s about boxing and I won’t say much more in case you are going to see it, but it was very well…

  • Book

    Rieko has written a new book which you can see here. It features a picture of Paul on page 75, under Scottish Kilts.