We Look At Books

Books Do Furnish A Room
Apparently that is a title from a novel, part of Anthony Master's "A Dance To The Music Of Time", which I have little inclination to read even if it did get good reviews.  It is also a plain fact, and if you disagree THEN THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY!
     Ahem.  Okay, yesteryon I received a book in the post, which I had ordered.  They don't just turn up at random, you know.  Art?

     Listy - as I like to call him - has an interesting blog that he publishes, and I have referred to him on several occasions.  He's working on another book at the moment, which I won't detail here in case someone selfishly tries to pip him at the post.
     I did my usual skim of that above, which consists of flicking through and inspecting the photographs, and it does what it says on the title.  The "Cambridge Camal"?  The "Motley Rocket Gun"?  The "Garrett Tank"?  Never heard of any of them.
     And now back to Sergeant "Val Allerton", whom you may know better as the anonymous "Zeno", a chap who wrote and had published a very realistic novel about Arnhem ("THe Cauldron").  Realistic because he'd been there and took over the running of his platoon when the lieutenant nominally in charge broke down.  He was commissioned as an officer later in the war.  Art?

Looking the part!

     Then, in 1953, he stabbed a man to death.  Apparently the victim was abusing one of Val's ex-mistresses, and the police had strong suspicions he was responsible for various sex crimes.  Having done the deed, Allerton walked into the nearest police station and gave himself up.  He pleaded guilty in court and was quite prepared to be hung; however, the death penalty was abolished whilst the trial was underway and instead he went to prison.
     That's where he wrote TC, and a couple of other works.  He was a model prisoner, which led to his release after only 9 years.  And ever since the publication of TC, people had been trying to track down who he was.
     One thing was for sure: he was NOT Val Allerton.
     Confused?  Well you'll just have to put up with it, as I'm stopping there for today*.

The Motley Rocket Gun schematic

     Whilst still on the subject of books and authors, colleague Lee at work is the first person I've ever met who's ever mentioned "The Inklings", that group of Oxford scholars that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, which came about because Shazad explained "Aslan" in Turkish meant "Lion".

You see?  You see how everything is connected**?

     Oh, in case you were wondering, I have finished "Vanilla Ride" and there were two more shoot-outs, except the second one doesn't go anywhere near where you expected it to go, in a surprising kind of way.
     Now, motley, in one unmarked box I have the collected works of Shakespeare, and in the other the complete set of "Invincible" and you have to toss the coin and read, heads for the left, tails for the right.

"We Have Ways Of Making You Talk"
Yes, a quick visit to those rascals James (Holland) and Al (Murray).  James came out with some bad news about the author Philip Kerr, who apparently died last year.  I did not realise.  This means no more "Bernie Gunther" novels, which both James and I are sad about.  Art?

A rather hangdog Phil

     You're going to ask about Bernie, aren't you?  The novels are written from the perspective of one Bernie Gunther, an ex-soldier who becomes a detective in the Berlin Police after the First Unpleasantness, and who subsequently is shanghaied into the SS.  The novels are set between the wars under the doomed Weimar Republic, then the Second Unpleasantness itself, and into the Cold War.  If you had come up with an idea to please Conrad, this would have been one near the top of the list.
     I have also checked up on "First Light" by Geoffrey Wellum, and I do recall the latter part of it, where Ol' Geoff is part of a flight of 8 Spitfires that are due to fly off an aircraft carrier in order to reinforce Malta.

Malta - where Val Allerton ended up.
(You see?  You see how everything is linked?**)

     This was horribly dangerous duty, as the Axis inexorably sent planes and submarines and torpedo boats to bomb and torpedo such convoys, and I remember Ol' Geoff remarking with horror when the attacks began and a ship blew up.
     On an aside note, those Spitfires were absolutely crucial to the defence of Malta.  As soon as they arrived, the odds against the island abruptly shifted favourably, because they could outperform any Axis fighter of the time, and did so.  I refer you to James Holland's book about Malta, "Fortress Malta".  Art?

My edition
(Also - you see?  You see - hang on, is that poultice Mister Hand annotating my work?)

I Feel Your Pain
Conrad noticed a sidebar item on that font of all that's fit to be writ, the BBC website, and it tickled my Angry Gland.  Art?

We are Stoke-on-Trent: 'Buses are so bad, going out is pointless'

     (Will that count towards my word total? - let me check - yes, good, let's carry on).  Conrad read a familiar tale of bus services being cut and cut again, and then, just to continue the theme, cut some more.  The quote above comes from someone who said the last night bus from the nearby town of Leek had gone from being 22:30 to 19:30, and that there was no point in going, since you'd have to come back as soon as you'd arrived.  Art?

One of the culprits

     I see by the livery that First are one of the "Service providers" - note the deliberate use of quotation marks there - which immediately explains a lot of things.  These bumbletucks loudly and proudly claim that 90% of their services run on time, which is SCANT COMFORT INDEED to anyone relying on the other 10%.
     Some of these people are going to pay once I take over, O Yes Indeed!

     And with that, we are done, as I need some quiet time to allow my blood pressure to fall.



*  Heh!
**  This is slightly more modest than braying "See how clever I am!" <the horrid truth courtesy Mister Hand>

Berry My Knee -

 - With The Rest Of Me
Ha!  Gotcha.  You were expecting some excruciating variation on "Bury My Knee At Wounded Heart" or similar, weren't you?
      Alas, no.  We here at BOOJUM! like to keep you guessing.  At times we keep ourselves guessing, too - the game of "What on earth did I mean last night by creating that title?" of a morning is such a fulfilling one.
     We'll come back to that horrid punning title shortly.  In the meantime I am hammering this out prefatory to whizzing off to Pub Quizzing, as I need to make the most of it.  Rosie and Phil, my PQ partners, are selling their house shortly and moving to London to be closer to their kids and grand-kids.  Not sure what I shall do then.  Pine and decline?
     Enough of morbid!  Art, entertain and divert people.

     This is the badly-bashed bus I told you of yesterday.  It's not a great shot but hey I didn't want to look like a disaster tourist, though you can see everything below the windscreen has been smashed either flat or absent.  This spot is just about the worst spot to pick for a collision.  Dunno if I can get up a map to illustrate -


     Church Street is the "A6" in fetching taupe.  
     So, at peak time, in the rush hour, two of the city's busiest roads were blocked off, thanks to some idiot trying to beat a red light.
      

      That red object is a massive metal ramp that was being sent under the bus in order to lift it up, so that something wheely could be placed beneath it, and the wreck towed away.  Impressive if time-consuming, so Conrad ambled and shambled his way off to Stevenson Square (visible on the map above) to get home a lot later than liked.
     Enough of misery and misfortune!  

The Haul
Er, yes, funny you should mention misery and misfortune, because here we have the two latest Hap and Leonard novels in Joe R. Lansdale's series about Our Hapless Heroes, which are made up of equal parts misery and misfortune, with a dash of malice thrown in for seasoning, and the occasional mayhem arriving for free.  Art?

CAUTION!  Do not mis-interpret as "Vanilla Devil" or "Ride Red"

     It was a bit tricky deciding which to read first, until I checked the publication dates and worked out VR is the first.  Interestingly enough there is no mention in the index of the three novellas that were published after these two, which intrigues me a tad.  Are these volumes too recently printed to have "Hyenas" present?  Or were they published by a different imprint?  Or is someone trying to squeeze the market so they can either sell off their old copies for princely returns?
     It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out, as we've already had one particularly extreme gun battle on the streets of La Borde and I can't see Ol' Joe repeating himself.  But, count on Hap and Leonard to find the biggest, baddest pile of trouble there is and fall gracelessly into it.
     >>>  Short update - we're 140 pages in and no gun battles so far.

"The Disaster Twins" as the police know them

About That Horrid Punning Title -
This goes back to that BBC article on British towns with names that are difficult for outsiders to pronounce, which can be a worry for said outsiders if the locals look inbred and truculent less than welcoming.
     Anyway, we have a local town that is a touchstone for this: Bury.  Art?

Wild times in Bury

     I have visited in the past, because it's where the Lancashire Fusiliers Regimental Museum is located, and that would have been a lot better to put up as an illustration, Art.  Sometimes, you know, I wonder why we employ him*.

The hilariously re-purposed Land Rover at said museum

     The acid test is how you pronounce it.  As an outsider <hack! spit!> you would of course pronounce it as "Buree" which is WRONG!  And by now you're already inside the wicker man with the scent smoke in your nostrils.  It is pronounced "BEREE".
     So now you know, and knowledge is power.  If only we could use it to fuel the national grid, as it would be so much cleaner than nuclear power (though Art would have to go without his snacking on nuclear fuel rods).
     Where were we?  O yes.  Try this from yesterday:

Ballachulish, Highland, Scotland

     Which is pronounced "Ball-a-hooish".  I think (since I copied this from the BBC) that by "Highland" they mean "The Highlands".

Further Down The Rabbit Hole
If you recall, Conrad was banging on about a novel called "The Cauldron", by one 'Zeno' and yes that's a pseudonym, as the real Zeno coughed it many millennia ago.  I was yarking about it because Al Murray of the "We Have Ways Of Making You Talk" podcast recommended it, and I recalled some of it, too, which, given that it's over 30 years since I last perused it, implies either a good novel or a retentive memory**.

One edition

     The novel was very well-regarded, and the man who wrote it was a highly-experienced paratrooper who had served with distinction in North Africa, Sicily and Holland.  He wrote it whilst serving a prison sentence for murder, which is only the beginning of a long and convoluted story that beggars belief.
     More at the weekend!
     "From Alamein To Zem Zem" is another work that the WHWOMYT recommended, and yet another that I have in my collection, and have read, too.  Art?

No, I don't know what it is, either

     It's a fascinating read, not least because Douglas was killed a couple of days into the Normandy invasion in 1944, having gone through some of the worst that North Africa had to offer.  Although Your Humble Scribe loathes poetry with a passion, one line of the author's has rather stuck with me.

"How can I live amongst this gentle, obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep?"

Finally -
Another wretched Windows Forcible Update this morning, THAT I DID NOT WANT OR NEED! AND WHICH HAS - excuse me, I'll stop shouting now - and which put me at risk of missing the bus.  Windows and First Bus - a truly frightening combination!

"Of course, hideous is in the eye of the beholder," said the First Bus spokesdemon.

*  Because he works for nothing, except delicious plates of coal <the evil truth courtesy Mister Hand!>
**  Or both.  Just to cover all eventualities.