What are we reading? 10 October 2022

[AB76]

Still globally warmed in the shires, it remains mid to late teens in temp, if a bit wetter, looks like it will be the incredibly mild autumn i expected

Reading is going well with Vaughans The Soldier and the Gentlewoman(1932) reminding me of the powerlessness of women in the 1920s, in a world where a man needs to be present for every transaction and duty.

In Vargas and Brazil a superb collection of essays studies the Vargas era from 1930 to 1954. Vargas broke the oligarchies of Sao Paulo state and Minas Gerais state, to create a federated Brazil which remains to this day. He managed it with revolution and dictatorships and is seen in latin america in a similar light to Argentine dictator Juan Peron. Both populists breaking the corrupt establishment's grip on power but unlike in the Anglo-Saxon world then falling into the same traps to keep themselves in power.

Lastly is O'Faolains biog of Eamon De Valera and the brilliant Lobo Antunes novel Knowledge of Hell,(1980) which continues his autobiographical fiction of being a military doctor and then working in an asylum, both which he loathes

[MK]

Really nice piece in the FT Weekend online - audio books. Specifically, Sean Barrett and how he works. I've just begun to listen to 'Slow Horses' on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ftk....

I'm off to a bookshop tomorrow and will look to see if the piece is available on paper.

[[deleted user]]

The Gate of Angels – Penelope Fitzgerald

Not one I’d read before, and what a pleasure it was. She writes with such exquisite ease. Every sentence has precision, and an effortless unobtrusive humour. I loved the story too, set in the heroic days of the Cavendish Laboratory pre-WWI, when an unbeliever-physicist might find himself obliged to speak at a private debating society in support of the existence of the soul, for is it not true that every mind has a body of its own? And if you’re an impoverished Junior Fellow, forbidden by the statutes to marry, and helplessly in love with no-nonsense Daisy Saunders, who tended you when you came off your bicycle, what becomes of your free will and your power of choice? These beguiling conundra fill the book. If I hadn’t already been dazzled years ago by The Blue Flower, my introduction, I would say this was her best.

[Gpfr]

Russell wrote: "The Gate of Angels – Penelope Fitzgerald

Not one I’d read before, and what a pleasure it was. ..."

I've got this waiting to be read — it sounds as if I should get to it sooner rather than later!

[[deleted user]]

Gpfr wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Gate of Angels – Penelope Fitzgerald

Not one I’d read before, and what a pleasure it was. ..."

I've got this waiting to be read ..."

You'll love it. I should have said also that it draws a compelling picture of the status of Edwardian women. In addition to Daisy there are at least nine other female characters in different conditions of social servitude.

[Lljones]

Russell wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Gate of Angels – Penelope Fitzgerald

Not one I’d read before, and what a pleasure it was. ..."
"

I re-read it recently - so wonderful to hear Fitzgerald's divine voice again.

Now I'm reading Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson - so wonderful to hear her voice again!

Next up: Less Is Lost.

[Tam]

Thanks for the good wishes from those on here about our latest trials. Hopefully a diagnosis will come on Wednesday, and things will be clearer. It is not helped by only having random internet access (an hour or so a day, if we are lucky! until the battery runs out!..) due to BT having screwed up their maintenance schedules. Might be resolved by next Friday they say!.

Funny how the new normal is looking increasingly abnormal... It's as if a whole country has forgotten how to run itself...

[giveusaclue]

Tam wrote: ""Funny how the new normal is looking increasingly abnormal... It's as if a whole country has forgotten how to run itself...

Think you might have hit on something there. Isn't there a word omnishambles?

[AB76]

Am greatly enjoying Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives

Getulio Vargas etablished state run restaurants in the 1930s to combat the dreadful malnutrition issues in Brazil. He was a fan of public education and health initiatives and these bars called "SAPS" were popular with the urban population.

.He stated SAPS must promote wide dissemination, in the labor circles, of the advantages that the worker has of eating properly, as well as, in the employers' circles, of the usefulness of guaranteeing him adequate and timely food”

However like many things in the New World, these were not universal provisions and the clientele were workers who paid into the official workers pension schemes or had recognised trades, which therefore excluded the informal workers and the un-organised.

The scheme to improve nutrition failed as it largely exluded poorer rural and northern Brazil. The SAPS scheme was closed in 1967.

I enclose two photos of SAPS bars...one with Vargas himself "dining out"

[MK]

AB76 wrote: "Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: "re helmets, i imagined the virtual world would be helmetted in your own house, so you dont need to go out but i realise thats naive, as people will want to wander in field..."

Actually I think Musk could use an implant - one that at least quiets him.

[MK]

For those of you on facebook, you might want to like the Financial Times (they have a more difficult time building a wall for non-subscribers there). I just watched a 28-minute video about Brexit.
It appears the problems arising from Brexit are really of a drip-drip-drip type. I feel sorry for small firms trying to grow now. It certainly appears to be much harder to grow a business today, post-Brexit.

I should note that I thought the idea of leaving the EU was misguided.

[Gpfr]

I'll close this thread in a couple of hours.

[Bill]

MK wrote: "Actually I think Musk could use an implant - one that at least quiets him."

I can't help imagining that there must be some overlap between people who would be eager to get a Musk-engineered implant and those who avoided the COVID vaccine in the belief it contained a Bill Gates-designed microchip.

[MK]

A political note before closure (clipped from a US DC political item- → Rishi Sunak: The former chancellor of the Exchequer is expected to become the next British prime minister. Sunak, though, may find out the journey is better than the destination. Inflation is soaring, and interest rates will have to rise too, further threatening the British economy. Energy costs are an enormous challenge for average Britons. Union leaders are ready to fight any calls for big spending cuts.

At Bloomberg there is also a rant from Union folks about "No savings on our backs".

After all the Brexit drama and Covid, maybe you thought things would quiet down? It looks like a rough - at least - winter for you.