Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What Are We Reading? 7 June 2021
Gpfr wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Just landed back in Portland (event-free drive, for once!)..."Glad to hear you're safely back home.
On another note, are people being continually asked to prove they're not robots..."
i leave myself signed in, so i dont get that but after our discussions about surveiliance, i might sign out more often!
The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane Gardam
I read this in three gulps, and a real pleasure it was. Her characters are larger than life and true to life at the same time. The atmosphere does have some snobbery about it as someone here has said, especially in Hong Kong, but Elizabeth the central figure does not. The writing itself is clean and unpretentious.
…
I also tend to leave myself signed in. When recently I signed out I had to go through the security check, but only once.
I read this in three gulps, and a real pleasure it was. Her characters are larger than life and true to life at the same time. The atmosphere does have some snobbery about it as someone here has said, especially in Hong Kong, but Elizabeth the central figure does not. The writing itself is clean and unpretentious.
…
I also tend to leave myself signed in. When recently I signed out I had to go through the security check, but only once.
About being followed online. Usually I don't mind the ads as I pay little attention (I need an extra set of cheapish ( under $25 headphones) but I can't think of anything else to order from Amazon right now at get free shipping) since I am such a lousy consumer.But the other day Google really ticked me off with some ad. I went in to Google-owned Chrome and privatized my settings. What difference it makes I don't know, but I do feel better.
Thinking of George Orwell now.
The Last Wolf by Jim Crumley
This is a very readable history of the wolf, and it’s place in our World today. Crumley keeps coming back to that society’s portrayal of the animal is an unfair one, that they are wronged in many ways, whether it be in folklore, fairy tales or legend passed down the generations. Sometimes his labouring of this point is to the detriment of the book.
I suppose, loosely only, it’s a book about conservation. But stand it up against a book like Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl, and shows to be lacking in many ways. I wanted to know more about studies into the behaviour of wolves in the wild, and how much of that was used in their reintroduction to Yellowstone. Also, more about plans to reintroduce them elsewhere in the world, particularly Scotland.
There are some interesting literary resources, amongst the very many...
Notably a poem about my favourite mountain, which I will finish this brief review with...
Gulfs of blue air,
two lochs like spectacles,
A frog (this height) and Harris in the sky –
There are more reasons for hills
Than being steep and reaching only high.
Meeting the cliff face,
the American wind
Stands up on end:
chute going the wrong way.
Nine ravens play with it and
Go up and down its lift half the long day.
Reasons for them?
The hill’s one...
A web like this
Has a thread that goes beyond the possible:
The old spider outside space
Runs down it –
and where’s raven?
Or where’s hill?
High up on Suilven by Norman MacCaig
(Those lines that are bolded are the ones Crumley chooses to rightly highlight).
It’s a sound exchange AB, one Italian dystopian novel for another..Fair to point out though that Morselli is hard going at times..
Mod
I use Mozilla Firefox & have done for years now. Definitely not Chrome. On my laptop, I have an ad-blocker.
I have to confess that I am a 'news junkie' (although a little less since Trump went quiet). During the week I receive several daily updates from various sources. One is OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting). From them this struck me as excellent food for thought - The truth is, when privilege is all you’ve ever known, equity feels like discrimination (House Majority Leader Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D-NE Portland)
Andy wrote: "It’s a sound exchange AB, one Italian dystopian novel for another..Fair to point out though that Morselli is hard going at times.."
i have another Italian dystopian novel in my pile but forgotten the title!
by the way Andy, The Sea is going well, going to read it quite slowly as its a short novel, it seems to a big text in Catalan, plenty of reviews online too
Ok, I am an idiot when it comes to social media. Because I avoid them.I have no idea whatsoever whether closing the GR tab means that I am logged out.
But I found the log-out button today. And pressed it.
To log in again I had to go through
pictures of bicycles. Failed. Passed the cars, thank God.
Still have no idea whether closing the tab logs me out.
Anybody who said I am too stupid to use social media would be right. Considering my level of ignorance.
Georg wrote: "Ok, I am an idiot when it comes to social media. Because I avoid them.I have no idea whatsoever whether closing the GR tab means that I am logged out.
But I found the log-out button today. And pr..."
I don't think is being a idiot to avoid social media. I would never do facebook, twitter or tumblr either. To save having to log in every time, I have bookmarked this group on this site so that when it opens up I can immediately check to see if there are any new posts on the threads in which I am interested. The only time I have to log in therefore is after I have cleared my browsing history. If I want to send or read a message from a friend on here I just have to put in my password.
Mod
"To save having to log in every time, I have bookmarked this group on this site so that when it opens up I can immediately check to see if there are any new posts on the threads in which I am interested. ..."
Georg, closing the tab doesn't log you out - you have to click on 'Sign out'. The captcha picture tests are what I was referring to earlier, this morning I had to go through 5.
I also have the group bookmarked, but I log in & out.
Lljones wrote: "Ooh, I'd love to give you some travel ideas for this trip! ..."Absolutely no rush at all. It will be at least 12 months away, but any tips would be greatly appreciated!
i just had that sign in nonsense too, with all the captcha crap, i hate captcha!The Channel
keeps surprising me with its depth of analysis, the shared space of the English Channel and the people who live alongside it, contrasted against British and French political policies from 1688-1815I learnt that "smuggler" comes from the flemish term "smokkelaar" which implies fraud and that Dunkirk was a haven for english smugglers in the 18th century, in quite significant numbers.
Also that the privateer/smuggler groups could play the two nations off each other, that the french favoured the british smugglers as they increased the french income with their goods that they imported and exported. In wartime both were used to help their own nations. Likewise with fisherman, in peacetime they were competing nation vs nation, region vs region, for the same fishing grounds.. wartime produced more unity but again not as much as you would expect
I have just spent at least 20 min to sign in. Looked at and clicked on dozens and dozens of grainy photos. Probably easier to convince a confidential part of the Pentagon website that I am not a human being.
Going to bed now, muttering every invective I can think of starting with f; and ending with GRs.
Some time ago I picked up a copy of A Digest of 500 Plays for my Reference shelves, thinking it would be a convenient way of getting a plot summary of various titles encountered in my reading. But so far, I don't think I've found a single play that I was curious about included in the book.I recall looking in vain for Mary Rose, a play Hitchcock wanted to make a film of. Just now I did not find Und Pippa tanzt!, which Alban Berg considered for a opera before settling on Lulu. Erdgeist. Die Buchse Der Pandora instead.
Mod
i feel your pain! I've just had 6 or 7 series of photos, some of which as you say are really unclear. Maybe I'm going to stop logging out...
I was a little bit disappointed with The Inheritance of Loss, a Booker Prize-winning novel by Kiran Desai. The writing was lush and had some good humour but I felt that the narrative never really quite got going and ended in an unsatisfying way. I’ve dipped into A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry but I think I’m just not in the mood for it at the moment, so I’m putting it aside for the time being in favour of State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Thanks to Lisa who recommended this work to me many years ago.
Hushpuppy wrote: "(Companies) collect(s) data from other things you might be doing on the side, "Do you mean from the other websites you may be looking at in other tabs?
Is that why I keep getting advertisements from companies offering cremations? Do they know something I don't? (I have no current plans to die any time soon...)
Just asking!
Edit: having read more recent comments in the thread, it seems as if these companies do indeed track our activity in 'other tabs'...
I still wonder why they think I am going to pop my clogs soon, though!
CCCubbon wrote: "I was looking through the list of poets in The Oxford book of twentieth century verse the other day and it struck me how the vast majority were male...There it is, plain to see. Was it because women did not write(?) "
I have a possible and partial answer, from this excerpt from Henning Mankell's 'The Eye of the Leopard', mainly set in Africa - the questioner is a recently arrived European:
They walk down to the river... Everywhere he sees women with hoes in their hands, bent over the earth.
"Where are all the men?" he asks.
"The men are making important decisions, Bwana. Maybe they are also preparing the African whisky."
"Important decisions?"
"Important decisions, Bwana."
Mod
Gpfr wrote: "Further to the captcha question - I had a look at 'known issues' in Help: it seems people have signalled this & GR is looking into it."I really don't understand this. GR has signed me out at least 5 times. To sign in again I never had to do this. Just e-mail and password. I only ever had to answer this capcha thingy when I first signed on to a website.
Then again: the datagrab in the background only works when people are signed in. My reaction was the same as yours: stay signed in to avoid the hassle. That should suit them fine.
My data are pretty useless for them, no online shopping, no social media, secure e-mail. But it is the principle that grates. Big Brother is watching you.
SydneyH wrote: "I was a little bit disappointed with The Inheritance of Loss, a Booker Prize-winning novel by Kiran Desai. The writing was lush and had some good humour but I felt that the narrative never really q..."I though The Inheritance of Loss was disappointing, for exactly the reasons you mention. There are some lovely bits but, for me, it didn't add up to much. Others, including the Booker judges, clearly disagree!
A Fine Balance, on the other hand, is a masterpiece and one of my favourite modern novels. It's worth waiting until you're in the mood (it's fairly long and involving) but definitely worth going back to when you are.
AlbyBeliever wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "I was a little bit disappointed with The Inheritance of Loss, a Booker Prize-winning novel by Kiran Desai. The writing was lush and had some good humour but I felt that the narrativ..."Same here. Read The Inheritance of Loss not long after it had won the Booker. Good enough, but not good enough for me to keep and re-read.
I am always reluctant to use the word "masterpiece". But A Fine Balance does come close. And Family Matters isn't far behind.
Mistry never won a major prize. I think even the 'weakest' of his three novels Such a Long Journey was more than worth winning a Booker.
Russell wrote: The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane GardamI read this in three gulps, and a real pleasure it was. Her characters are larger than life and true to life at the same time. The atmosphere does have some snobbery about it as someone here has said, especially in Hong Kong, but Elizabeth the central figure does not.
The snobbery comment was probably mine, and explains why I was unable to continue reading Gardam after the first in her 'Old Filth' trilogy. The characters in the book seem to suffer from something described in a very recent comment by MK:
"(From) OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting).
'The truth is, when privilege is all you’ve ever known, equity feels like discrimination.'
(House Majority Leader Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D-NE Portland)
I found the characters pretty insufferable.
AB76 wrote: "...that Simenon makes me wonder if there are any of his books left to translate!"I discussed this recently - briefly - with one of you. Since Simenon published nearly 500 novels, I would think it very likely that a good number of the 'romans durs' remain untranslated. I could find no trace of the last one I read in French - Faubourg - in English translation.
The Maigrets, though, are so popular that I'd be surprised if any remain unavailable in English.
CCCubbon wrote: "I was looking through the list of poets in The Oxford book of twentieth century verse the other day and it struck me how the vast majority were male..."
In a later Oxford book, The Oxford Book of English Verse as edited by Christopher Ricks and published in 1999, there’s a piece by Anthony Thwaite which he calls On Consulting “Contemporary Poets of the English Language”. It comprises almost nothing but a list of names, arranged rhythmically. Quite a fun little thing. By my count there are at least 189 names (I say at least, because of e.g. “Fullers both and Joneses all…”), split 176 men and…13 women. I’m not familiar with Contemporary Poets of the English Language. A book of that title came out in 1970, edited by Rosalie Murphy. Was 13 all she could find? Even in 1970? Perhaps there were more in the book and it was AT who picked the ones he knew or liked. CR does better. There are 28 women and 193 men in his selection, not counting Anonymous.
In a later Oxford book, The Oxford Book of English Verse as edited by Christopher Ricks and published in 1999, there’s a piece by Anthony Thwaite which he calls On Consulting “Contemporary Poets of the English Language”. It comprises almost nothing but a list of names, arranged rhythmically. Quite a fun little thing. By my count there are at least 189 names (I say at least, because of e.g. “Fullers both and Joneses all…”), split 176 men and…13 women. I’m not familiar with Contemporary Poets of the English Language. A book of that title came out in 1970, edited by Rosalie Murphy. Was 13 all she could find? Even in 1970? Perhaps there were more in the book and it was AT who picked the ones he knew or liked. CR does better. There are 28 women and 193 men in his selection, not counting Anonymous.
scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane Gardam...
Scarlet, you may well be right. I was commenting on the second book and don't have that clear a recollection of the first book, which may be more offensive in that respect, though I have to say that's not how I remember it. The quote is definitely striking.
Scarlet, you may well be right. I was commenting on the second book and don't have that clear a recollection of the first book, which may be more offensive in that respect, though I have to say that's not how I remember it. The quote is definitely striking.
Andy wrote: "only one ‘review’..That being Georges Simenon’s Striptease, Striptease by Georges Simenon translated by Robert Brain.
Interesting - I may well try to get hold of that (probably in French) - we lived in Cannes for two years (though never went to a strip club) - wonder if any of it will feel familiar?
Russell wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane Gardam...Scarlet, you may well be right. I was commenting on the second book and don't have that clear a recollection of the fi..."
I know that many like Gardam - I just didn't get on with the idea that some mediocre bloke got a job as a judge 'just because' he was born into the right class, went to a fee-paying school etc. - which is, of course, all too true. Had there been a more judgmental or condemnatory tone about all that, I might have been able to tolerate it - but it felt like straight reportage from (and for) the privileged classes! (See also Olivia Manning...)
Sandya wrote: "The Satapur Moonstone. Sujata MasseyThe second in the Perveen Mistry series and one I enjoyed immensely."
Thank you for this review - I may well give this series a go, to partner (in a sense) the Abir Mukherjee series set in Kolkata in a similar period.
As for your comment: "I found it hard to read about the internal conflicts in the zenana between the Dowager Maharani and the Junior Maharani, her DIL, because this stuff is what put me off having an arranged marriage...", I'm sure you will know better than any of us that arranged marriages - even outside India itself - still go on in expatriate communities. My wife attended the marriage of a former pupil whose marriage was very much 'arranged' (in Leicester, UK), with hundreds of guests... her sister (who is gay, never admitted by the family) stood against a similar fate and is now USA based...
Lljones wrote: "Francis wrote: "Lljones wrote: It once took me over 9 hours to make the trip, 7 of those hours spent getting from Seattle to Tacoma, 25 miles south."All being well, we may end up in Santa Clara ne..."
Llj - just to back up what others have written - there is absolutely no need to re-start the thread every week... we all appreciate what you do immensely, and if you can just do it whenever is convenient, we'll be happy with that!
scarletnoir wrote: "...I now that many like Gardam...
It is made clear in the second book that Filth has an outstanding legal brain. He is always getting arbitration appointments (which is like an international freemasonry of talent), and is asked to take on the editorship of the leading textbook on building contracts (the sort of thing I would have been happy to consult). So I’m not sure it’s fair to say he got his appointments and his judgeship because he went to the right school. In my experience the legal world today has an unquestionable hierarchy of intellect. It is allied to which school and university you went to – which I accept means there is some inequality in the starting point - but at the end of the day what counts is the ability to win cases through the power of legal reasoning, whatever your background, and the second-raters drop away. I suppose you could call it a snobbery of intellect – which chambers or firm are you in, have you just had a big win in court, have you been appointed a deputy high court judge yet? That’s different from social snobbery. Also - a bit outrageous this – is it really snobbery if, as happens in the second book, one character says to another “You are as vulgar as they say you are” - when the person addressed truly is vulgar? I confess to thinking it isn’t.
Olivia Manning – Only saw the TV dramatization, but I sort of see what you mean.
It is made clear in the second book that Filth has an outstanding legal brain. He is always getting arbitration appointments (which is like an international freemasonry of talent), and is asked to take on the editorship of the leading textbook on building contracts (the sort of thing I would have been happy to consult). So I’m not sure it’s fair to say he got his appointments and his judgeship because he went to the right school. In my experience the legal world today has an unquestionable hierarchy of intellect. It is allied to which school and university you went to – which I accept means there is some inequality in the starting point - but at the end of the day what counts is the ability to win cases through the power of legal reasoning, whatever your background, and the second-raters drop away. I suppose you could call it a snobbery of intellect – which chambers or firm are you in, have you just had a big win in court, have you been appointed a deputy high court judge yet? That’s different from social snobbery. Also - a bit outrageous this – is it really snobbery if, as happens in the second book, one character says to another “You are as vulgar as they say you are” - when the person addressed truly is vulgar? I confess to thinking it isn’t.
Olivia Manning – Only saw the TV dramatization, but I sort of see what you mean.
The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)
The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of the Napoleonic era. The secret to making cast steel is a high heat and a system for controlling air in the manufacturing process. Too much air and the steel has too much carbon and becomes brittle. Steelworkers could try to control the air with bellows, but it was an unreliable question of look and feel. A clockmaker in Sheffield, wanting stronger springs for his clocks, found the true method in 1740. A battery of airtight earthenware cupolas, or crucibles, were superheated with coke to smelt the mixture, and the molten metal was then poured into a central mold. The ironmasters of Sheffield guarded the secret carefully. For some 90 years, high quality crucible steel could be purchased from them alone.
In about 1830 the monomaniacal Alfred Krupp, through endless experiments, replicated the Sheffield method. At first, using this cast steel, the family works he had inherited turned out mainly spoons and forks. Then came the railways, which demanded strong axles and seamless wheels. Wrought iron was useless. Demand for Krupp’s cast steel soared. He experimented with using this same steel to make a musket, and then a six-pounder cannon. Privately he was toying with the idea of a monster gun with a bore of thirteen inches and a barrel of 15 feet. It was all too novel. Much admiration, no orders. Finally, in 1857, Prussia, then a power of middling consequence, had a resolute new prince regent, later King Wilhelm I. Krupp of Essen soon received an order for 312 of the six-pounders.
Krupp became the dominant manufacturer of artillery in Europe, competing with Armstrong of England and Schneider of France. There were setbacks. At Prussia’s great battle with Austria at Königgrätz in 1866 many of Krupp’s new breech-loading cannon exploded, butchering the Prussian gunners. There was a flaw in the design of the breech, allowing gas and flame to escape, and the steel itself was faulty, because Krupp had started to use the new Bessemer converters. They worked well with English iron ore, but not so with German iron ore, which contained far too much phosphorus. Krupp ran away, and stayed away for a year, in Berne, in Nice, in Scheveningen. But eventually he mended relations with Berlin. The design flaw was corrected, Siemens developed other converters, and Krupp offered to replace all the pre-1866 guns, for free, with new breech-loaders.
Vindication was not long in coming. When Napoleon III declared war on Prussia in July 1870, his generals and every independent authority expected a swift and annihilating French victory. They all reckoned without Moltke’s strategic planning and the cast steel cannon of the Prussian artillery. With double the range of the muzzle-loading bronze cannon to which the French military still clung, the Prussian guns were immune to counter-battery fire. Add unheard of rapidity of fire from the breech-loading, and fearsome accuracy from the rifling and sighting, and the armies cooped up in Sedan and then Metz were at their mercy. No need for foot-soldiers to attack. The brutal work of reduction could be left entirely to the ring of 500 Krupp cannon. Paris in turn, behind its 30-foot high walls, 94 bastions and 15 forts, had no defence against shells fired from miles away and dropping in the heart of the city. There was an unspoken message here for princes from the minor German states, come to observe the bombardment.
In the years following Prussia’s shattering victory, Krupp the designer of the greatest guns the world had ever seen was swamped with orders from around the globe – massive guns to Belgium for the forts on the Meuse, coastal defence guns to Turkey for the Dardanelles, heavy field guns to Russia by the hundred, guns to South America and China and Japan, guns to a total of 46 countries. Krupp in his arrogance demanded that Berlin agree to let him sell to any “friendly” nation, while Berlin must agree to buy only from him. After a mighty battle, Berlin capitulated.
Meanwhile, in 1875, another English invention solved the phosphorus problem: by lining the Bessemer converters with limestone and dolomite the phosphorus was fixed in the slag, which became usable as phosphate fertilizer. Alsace and Lorraine were now found to be prize industrial assets, because both were rich in phosphorescent ore.
And in social terms Essen became the ultimate company town, with innovative benefits for all 20,000 workers - low-cost housing for the workers, homes for the aged, free schools, non-profit stores, a health service, a charity fund, a life insurance scheme, a pension plan. In return a worker had to give his “full and undivided energy,” meaning that anyone who engaged in in the least form of “troublemaking” was dismissed forthwith. A worker who lost his job lost everything. How telling that Krupp could not get himself elected to the Reichstag from Essen, the heart of his empire. In successive elections he and then his son lost to a despised Social Democrat. Fraud, he cried.
Alfred Krupp, the sole proprietor of the largest industrial enterprise in Europe, died in 1887. This account has not yet reached page 200. Another 700 pages to go. It reads like a very long newspaper piece, laying out the results of wide research while the writer tries to keep the tone bright with a mass of anecdotal detail. WM also likes to play with words, which is a pity, because it creates a facetious element. What is missing so far is any detailed technical assessment of the guns themselves: no diagrams, no comparative studies, no tables of range or velocity, no consideration of manoeuvrability, no examination of the projectiles, no comments from gunnery experts, just three photos of guns in the whole book, and scattered mentions of bore size and barrel length. Perhaps when we get into the grim 20th century there will be more technical material. Otherwise it is a solid enough work which gives a different perspective on familiar events: history from the angle of the arms-dealers.
….
Apologies for the length. My excuse is that a précis helps remind me of what is useful in the book.
The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of the Napoleonic era. The secret to making cast steel is a high heat and a system for controlling air in the manufacturing process. Too much air and the steel has too much carbon and becomes brittle. Steelworkers could try to control the air with bellows, but it was an unreliable question of look and feel. A clockmaker in Sheffield, wanting stronger springs for his clocks, found the true method in 1740. A battery of airtight earthenware cupolas, or crucibles, were superheated with coke to smelt the mixture, and the molten metal was then poured into a central mold. The ironmasters of Sheffield guarded the secret carefully. For some 90 years, high quality crucible steel could be purchased from them alone.
In about 1830 the monomaniacal Alfred Krupp, through endless experiments, replicated the Sheffield method. At first, using this cast steel, the family works he had inherited turned out mainly spoons and forks. Then came the railways, which demanded strong axles and seamless wheels. Wrought iron was useless. Demand for Krupp’s cast steel soared. He experimented with using this same steel to make a musket, and then a six-pounder cannon. Privately he was toying with the idea of a monster gun with a bore of thirteen inches and a barrel of 15 feet. It was all too novel. Much admiration, no orders. Finally, in 1857, Prussia, then a power of middling consequence, had a resolute new prince regent, later King Wilhelm I. Krupp of Essen soon received an order for 312 of the six-pounders.
Krupp became the dominant manufacturer of artillery in Europe, competing with Armstrong of England and Schneider of France. There were setbacks. At Prussia’s great battle with Austria at Königgrätz in 1866 many of Krupp’s new breech-loading cannon exploded, butchering the Prussian gunners. There was a flaw in the design of the breech, allowing gas and flame to escape, and the steel itself was faulty, because Krupp had started to use the new Bessemer converters. They worked well with English iron ore, but not so with German iron ore, which contained far too much phosphorus. Krupp ran away, and stayed away for a year, in Berne, in Nice, in Scheveningen. But eventually he mended relations with Berlin. The design flaw was corrected, Siemens developed other converters, and Krupp offered to replace all the pre-1866 guns, for free, with new breech-loaders.
Vindication was not long in coming. When Napoleon III declared war on Prussia in July 1870, his generals and every independent authority expected a swift and annihilating French victory. They all reckoned without Moltke’s strategic planning and the cast steel cannon of the Prussian artillery. With double the range of the muzzle-loading bronze cannon to which the French military still clung, the Prussian guns were immune to counter-battery fire. Add unheard of rapidity of fire from the breech-loading, and fearsome accuracy from the rifling and sighting, and the armies cooped up in Sedan and then Metz were at their mercy. No need for foot-soldiers to attack. The brutal work of reduction could be left entirely to the ring of 500 Krupp cannon. Paris in turn, behind its 30-foot high walls, 94 bastions and 15 forts, had no defence against shells fired from miles away and dropping in the heart of the city. There was an unspoken message here for princes from the minor German states, come to observe the bombardment.
In the years following Prussia’s shattering victory, Krupp the designer of the greatest guns the world had ever seen was swamped with orders from around the globe – massive guns to Belgium for the forts on the Meuse, coastal defence guns to Turkey for the Dardanelles, heavy field guns to Russia by the hundred, guns to South America and China and Japan, guns to a total of 46 countries. Krupp in his arrogance demanded that Berlin agree to let him sell to any “friendly” nation, while Berlin must agree to buy only from him. After a mighty battle, Berlin capitulated.
Meanwhile, in 1875, another English invention solved the phosphorus problem: by lining the Bessemer converters with limestone and dolomite the phosphorus was fixed in the slag, which became usable as phosphate fertilizer. Alsace and Lorraine were now found to be prize industrial assets, because both were rich in phosphorescent ore.
And in social terms Essen became the ultimate company town, with innovative benefits for all 20,000 workers - low-cost housing for the workers, homes for the aged, free schools, non-profit stores, a health service, a charity fund, a life insurance scheme, a pension plan. In return a worker had to give his “full and undivided energy,” meaning that anyone who engaged in in the least form of “troublemaking” was dismissed forthwith. A worker who lost his job lost everything. How telling that Krupp could not get himself elected to the Reichstag from Essen, the heart of his empire. In successive elections he and then his son lost to a despised Social Democrat. Fraud, he cried.
Alfred Krupp, the sole proprietor of the largest industrial enterprise in Europe, died in 1887. This account has not yet reached page 200. Another 700 pages to go. It reads like a very long newspaper piece, laying out the results of wide research while the writer tries to keep the tone bright with a mass of anecdotal detail. WM also likes to play with words, which is a pity, because it creates a facetious element. What is missing so far is any detailed technical assessment of the guns themselves: no diagrams, no comparative studies, no tables of range or velocity, no consideration of manoeuvrability, no examination of the projectiles, no comments from gunnery experts, just three photos of guns in the whole book, and scattered mentions of bore size and barrel length. Perhaps when we get into the grim 20th century there will be more technical material. Otherwise it is a solid enough work which gives a different perspective on familiar events: history from the angle of the arms-dealers.
….
Apologies for the length. My excuse is that a précis helps remind me of what is useful in the book.
Russell wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "...I now that many like Gardam...It is made clear in the second book that Filth has an outstanding legal brain."
That was certainly not clear in the first book, where he was portrayed as a mediocrity. There was some acronym or other - applied to the character - which meant, in effect "Failed in London, went to Hong Kong" - though I forget what it is. Whatever, the character(s) failed to engage me.
Perhaps he was a late developer? But I assume such a late developer who attended the Bash Street Comprehensive would not have been allowed the same opportunities.
Edit: Of course! Dr Google reminds me that the acronym was FILTH, for "Failed In London, Try Hong Kong". The fact that I forgot this proves (a) that the book made little impression on me, and (b) that 'Old Filth' was not considered a legal genius in his early years...
Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of the Napoleonic era. The secr..."
i remember my first glimpse of the Ruhr aged 19, growing up in rural SE England, i had never seen a factory, save for a visit to Ironbridge with the school, The Ruhr was like one huge factory, Essen is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and it seemed to be smokestacks as far as the eye could see, even in the 1990s(but then Germany still burns a lot of coal)
Mod
"That was certainly not clear in the first book..."
But the nickname is not meant literally - from Jane Gardam's preface to Old Filth, talking about her two rival lawyers:
Filth is an acronym, well known in the Orient where the two lawyers were celebrated advocates and became judges, and stands for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. It is a joke some two hundred years old and is inaccurate, for it is hard for anyone who is a failure to survive in Hong Kong.
The epigraph is Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. Old Filth, who was one of the 'Raj Orphans' to whom the book is dedicated, had terrible experiences in childhood, as I think I said to you when talking about this before, and although having advantages of class/family money, certainly wasn't privileged from that point of view.
His longtime rival, Veneering, came from a very far from privileged background, as we discover later in the trilogy.
I really like Olivia Manning's books, too 😉
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of the Napoleon..."
The Ruhr, AB, is a river. Which has given a highly industrialized and urbanized area its name. That area is called the "Ruhrgebiet".
The closure of coal mines started in the early 60s. The last was closed in 2018.
Unlike the mining communities in England and Wales that were discarded and left to rot by your government the Ruhrgebiet prospers. Not only economically, it has also had a vivid and exciting art scene for decades.
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)
The secret to making modern guns ... I remember my first glimpse of the Ruhr..."
That's one of the many parts of Germany I've not been to. One day I hope to do a no-booking/where-the-wind-takes-us tour around Germany. Simon Winder's Germania was a very interesting read.
The secret to making modern guns ... I remember my first glimpse of the Ruhr..."
That's one of the many parts of Germany I've not been to. One day I hope to do a no-booking/where-the-wind-takes-us tour around Germany. Simon Winder's Germania was a very interesting read.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of..."
apologies Georg, we tend to call it the Ruhr in the UK and i should have called it by its proper name. When i use the term i mean the large group of cities like Essen, Bochum,. Gelsenkirchen etc
i guess the smoke i saw was other industries then...
Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)The secret to making modern guns ... I remember my first glimpse of the Ruhr..."
That's one of the many parts ..."
its a very interesting area Russell, it had a significant Polish population from the late 19thc onwards. ( i am interested in the Masurians, who were Protestant Poles)
Flying over the area was amazing, to see this engine room of mighty Germany!
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)The secret to making modern guns is cast steel, both lighter and stronger than the overheating bronze cannon of..."
We spent a very enjoyable holiday in the Ruhrgebiet several years ago. I really liked all the industrial heritage . The Zollverein Industrial complex is incredible in its scale and almost surreal ,old fashioned science fiction like
structure.
I had a dip in one of the old containers which is now a swimming pool. Even the small town where we were staying the former small steel works had an exhibition on heroes, making it very clear who were heroes, at that time Barack Obama, and obviously those who were not . The Museum Folkwang in Essen has many paintings by one of my favourite artists Franz Marc.
I would highly recommend Neil MacGregor's Germany, Memories of a Nation, a sort of history of the country in so many objects
Oggie wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 – William Manchester (1968)...
I would highly recommend Neil MacGregor's Germany, Memories of a Nation, a sort of history of the country in so many objects"
That sounds really interesting. I'll see if our library can get it on loan.
I would highly recommend Neil MacGregor's Germany, Memories of a Nation, a sort of history of the country in so many objects"
That sounds really interesting. I'll see if our library can get it on loan.
scarletnoir wrote: "Sandya wrote: "The Satapur Moonstone. Sujata MasseyThe second in the Perveen Mistry series and one I enjoyed immensely."
I very much enjoy the Abhir Mukherjee series and am exploring a third series set in Southall-where I grew up!
Yes, that's really why I ended up in the US. Every career move I made took me further and further away from the family because they simply would not stop nagging me and didn't seem to understand where I was coming from. In the end I never got married at all, sadly-I really wanted to.
I did my first degree at the University of Leicester so I know Highfields quite well! I loved UL-I was very happy there!
At the research institute where I had my faculty position there was an Indian technician, a woman, who came out as gay. Her entire family just cut her off-she was the designated heir to her father's business too. It was awful. However, she created a good life for herself with a partner-more than I have.
MK wrote: "I have to confess that I am a 'news junkie' (although a little less since Trump went quiet). During the week I receive several daily updates from various sources. One is OPB (Oregon Public Broadcas..."Years ago, I wrestled with the legal definition of "equity". Equity involved the definition of rights; it was quite possible that there were legitimate sources of right on both sides, and a court had to weigh them. Now, there's talk about "equity," but it has nothing to do with the old definition, and I'm uncertain what it means. Do the people shouting "equity" recognize that different people may have sources of right, and both should be respected? Or is it a veneer for a vindictive policy?
Gpfr wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Just landed back in Portland (event-free drive, for once!)..."Glad to hear you're safely back home.
On another note, are people being continually asked to prove they're not robots..."
One of the marks of our age. If these prompts were tangible things, samples should be donated to museums.
Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: It is made clear in the second book that Filth has an outstanding legal brain.""That was certainly not clear in the first book..."
But the nickname is not mean..."
Fair enough.
Whether the nickname is meant to be taken seriously or not, I didn't take to the characters (any of them) or to the book. The writing style was perfectly adequate, but hardly of a standard to make me want to continue. (I am well able to enjoy books with unpleasant characters if the style of writing is involving - see Simenon, for example.)
As for childhood experiences in fee-paying schools - I think we in the UK suffer more than enough at the hands of those who have gone through that particular system, especially in recent years. I am disinclined to forgive our current 'leaders', whatever may have been done to them! (It is my impression, though I may be being unfair, that the 'lower class' characters are little more than ciphers... but I only read the book once, and it didn't leave a strong memory.)
Of course, as you will know, I am never offended if someone takes a dislike to my favourite books, and don't take it personally - we're all different, have different backgrounds, tastes and expectations etc. - and it is never my intention to offend others with my opinions. In our family, we always say that 'food is too important to lie about', by which we mean that if a recipe has gone slightly wrong, we will point out what could have been better. Books, too, are too important to lie about, though of course as readers it would be wrong to suggest 'improvements' - the book is what it is. We can, though, explain what we like, or don't like - and agree to disagree with those who have different tastes.
scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "(Companies) collect(s) data from other things you might be doing on the side, "Do you mean from the other websites you may be looking at in other tabs?
Is that why I keep getti..."
Companies sell data. Your likes and dislikes fit into some marketing profile, and you are sent spam. It is marketing trying to retailor itself, and it's darned annoying.
Sandya wrote: "At the research institute where I had my faculty position there was an Indian technician, a woman, who came out as gay. Her entire family just cut her off-she was the designated heir to her father's business too. It was awful..."Sad, isn't it? As far as we know, my wife's former pupil has never come out to her mother (the father is now deceased) - so that, even if she suspects her daughter's orientation, she can pretend not to know...
A quick thanks to @scarletnoir for the French book suggestion Tu montreras ma tête au peuple. I couldn't wait to finish my current book (Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too) and have just read the first chapter about Charlotte Corday, who murdered Marat in his bath. There was a little bit of "gallows" humour where she complains that the artist David took some liberties with his depiction of Marat's death ("And on the floor, a knife with a white handle" "Well! Citizen David has taken some liberties: the handle of the knife was black." - at least, that's my interpretation. I think the book is going to send me on a treasure hunt.
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Books mentioned in this topic
King: A Street Story (other topics)To the Wedding (other topics)
G. (other topics)
The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties (other topics)
The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost / Leaven of Malice / A Mixture of Frailties (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Blai Bonet (other topics)Jim Crumley (other topics)
Georges Simenon (other topics)
Jean Giono (other topics)
Thomas Ligotti (other topics)
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Glad to hear you're safely back home.
On another note, are people being continually asked to prove they're not robots when signing in? I've had this several times & this morning had to do 5 captcha before getting in.