Ersatz TLS discussion
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What are we reading? 7 November 2022
Anyone familiar with the novelists of the "Birmingham school"? Thats the drizzly cold midlands city, not the vibrant and significantly warmer Alabama version!An LRB article on the history of Birmingham mentioned a few authors i hadnt heard of and i ordered novels by Walter Brierley and Walter Allen, has anyone read anything by them?
We called our lovely front room “the lounge” and only later did I learn that proper people called it the drawing room. I rather like the word myself, because it was the place to sit on a sunny afternoon, and because it makes me think of my parents. It also reminds me of the lounges in Dublin where you go to drink creamy Guinness sitting on velvet banquettes.
AB76 wrote: "any quick wits guess who my avatar/profile pic is?i think Andy will and Mach should too..."
Louis van Gaal! Is there a prize?
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "any quick wits guess who my avatar/profile pic is?i think Andy will and Mach should too..."
Louis van Gaal! Is there a prize?"
sadly no but well done. he is quite a character and suffering from cancer but still coaching the Dutch football team at the world cup in his 70s
A Question.In the seventeenth century in London a report was published each week recording the causes of death. It was called the Bill of Mortality.
In 1650 nine cases were recorded as ‘ wolf’.
Nothing to do with the four legged creature , what do you think we would know about the cause of death? What did these people suffer?
I'm not a lover of modern novels (roughly 1990 onwards) but have had some great reads this year Upon reading the NYRB article on the late Hilary Mantel, i decided to order her 1988 novel Eight Months on Ghazzah Street based in Saudi,as i'm interested in novels set in different cultures and with the very corrupt and dodgy Qatar bid for the world cup now days away, a reality, not a bad dream, i feel it may be relevant to life in these restrictive, oil rich desert states At school i had some classmates who briefly had lived in in Saudi and i remember their mothers loathed the experience of restriction and boredom, this was early to mid 80s.
Its a shame that hyper-capitalism and greed has been aligned with repression so firmly in these places, they offer a dreamworld (grass in a desert, endless buildings and roads) but its all a eco-nightmare, a pollution problem beyond belief and yet they keep going on expanding into a ecosystem that is almost dead.
i'm not a Mantel fan really, though i respect her work, so lets see how this goes. waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR
AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR"I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Ratcliffe didn't believe in free speech (re J K Rowling). I have given up on them.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR"I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Ratcliffe didn't believe in free spee..."
its a big reason why unlike some ersatzers i havent gone fully over to the Guardian, its tedious to realise your words can be uber-monitored and salami sliced through some wonky moderation system. Rusbridger in his very boring book, spends pages on how the moderation on comment was a good idea and sure, if somebody is expressing hateful and harmfulm views its necessary but enough, Guardian Gremlins, enough with censoring free speech and comment.
Ratcliffe and all his co-stars were spineless over JK Rowling, that poor woman has had a tough few years. I dont think Ratcliffe is that bright and could actually articulate what JK was saying and thats the other bugbear of the Gremlin world, the knee jerkery and howls of rage at things that need to be carefully read and studied.
I recently signed up with the Guardian again after an absence of 2 or 3 years, I think it's been, but haven't yet commented much on anything.
CCCubbon wrote: "A Question.In the seventeenth century in London a report was published each week recording the causes of death. It was called the Bill of Mortality.
In 1650 nine cases were recorded as ‘ wolf’.
Nothing to do with the four legged creature , what do you think we would know about the cause of death? What did these people suffer?"
I will guess starvation.
Berkley wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "A Question.In the seventeenth century in London a report was published each week recording the causes of death. It was called the Bill of Mortality.
In 1650 nine cases were recor..."
There's a https://billsofmortality.org/ to scroll through, if interested.
I recently checked out
. It's oversize with lovely pictures and a map of Shrewsbury which I am going to scan for future use. It has brought on a bit of nostalgia. I felt compelled to pull
which I read early in lockdown. I don't think I was paying attention or my memory isn't so hot because it's all new - and enjoyable to me.If there are any dog lovers who don't mind having a lawyer in the lead role, you might like to start the occasional read of the Andy
Carpenter/Tara (the dog in question) mysteries. They are formulaic, but still a fun read. I like to listen to them. Author - David Rosenfelt.
Mod
"I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Ratcliffe didn't ..."
I was moderated for the 1st time a little while ago when below an article by Hadley Freeman, someone said she was leaving The Guardian and I linked to an article giving her reasons. (Like Suzanne Moore before her, it was about the trans issue.)
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR""I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Rat..."
so it seems that cannot be discussed on the G, what a mess!
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR""I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Rat..."
Yes, you mustn't criticise their journos but you can be as vicious and obscene about things they are against and not get modded. Free speech my foot.
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i much prefer pessimistic novels, mixed with realism."Well, somehow I missed the 'realism' part of 'The Road' which (from memory) described a post-apocalyptic lan..."
I didn't find all the behaviour portrayed in that book believable - far from it, in some cases.
Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I call mine the living room which, if you think about it, is a bit silly because it isn't alive"ah, but it's where you do your living!
Mine is the sitting room."
And ours is the 'front room'. It's at the front.
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "The other day we had friends over for dinner and on welcoming them in for a glass of vintage champagne we said 'Shall we go into the front room?' They were differently brought up from us and actually tittered at 'front room'. I still look on them as friends but I've learnt to watch my language with them."Just seen this... what odd people! Do they live in a castle? (I don't have any friends like that - they all had 'front rooms' afaik.)
As for port and small glasses... one of the things the Lisbon expert/proprietor taught us was that port tastes different depending on the size of the glass - and actually tastes better in large glasses (he got us to try this on the spot, and it's true). Of course, as it's a fortified wine you don't put a lot in the glasses...
Which sort of brings me to 'American glasses'. A few years ago, I noticed that in US films and TV programmes, the glasses used were absolutely huge - what Europeans would call 'tasting glasses' (not that I ever spit out wine, but you see what I mean). But... they filled these to the brim, which must contain about half a bottle! More recently, this fashion - if that is what it is - seems to have spread 'over here'. So, keep a watch on your consumption!
Georg wrote: "Thank God we have no "restrooms..."The naughty boy in me (never deeply buried) has always wanted to ask an arriving American whether "you'd like to go for a rest?"
Berkley wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "A Question...nine cases were recorded as ‘ wolf’.Nothing to do with the four legged creature , what do you think we would know about the cause of death? What did these people suffer?"
Maybe Lupus?
giveusaclue wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR""I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying th..."
its a broken model and it only harms the Guardian. one issue i think is while the Guardian is a british paper, its online reach in the USA is significant, which has attracted the rather more simple approach to censorship over the pond and the identity politics individualism. Hence , i think,if a moderator is from one of these groups, they see everything personally rather than objectively. They need to have a code and follow that cos for the life of me there is no pattern to what they censor
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR"I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Ratcliffe didn't ..."
I agree with you both re. Guardian moderation - it's really puerile at times. I do have a subscription, as it's the only 'proper' paper with a consistently anti-Tory line.
AB - it's also one of the reasons why I haven't abandoned this site, the other being that almost invariably commenters here are kind (-ish, anyway) whereas you can get some fairly savage animals on the G.
scarletnoir wrote: "what odd people! Do they live in a castle?"TBH I think they could afford to. They do have a nice barn conversion in the garden where we can stay over - it's like a gite. And they have another gite over the garage. Not that they let them out, but that's what they remind me of. I do like them because there's no 'side' to them and we just accept that our finances and upbringing are worlds apart.
And re 'front rooms' I do wonder if it's more a northern appellation? From terraced houses where there was just one room at the front. Having said that, I lived in a house whose layout meant there were two rooms at the front, but only one was called the front room. The other was the dining room where we only ate when guests came, and we did our homework on the dining table.
I throughly enjoyed an excellent gem of a novel called Mr Keynes’ Revolution, by È.J. Barnes. What a cracking fictionalised biography of John Maynard Keynes. Not being mathematically minded, I thought this book might be too heavy for me. Not at all. She manages to explain the economic arguments Keynes proposed and fought for in a light, but succinct manner. Originally, she intended to write a film script but decided there were too many characters and it would be too long so this is the first part, up until Keynes’ marriage to a Russian ballerina. Until meeting Lydia, Keynes was apparently gay, and had never had a relationship with a woman before. The development and explanation of their characters and the imaginative and believable recreation of their relations is beautifully handled. What I must also congratulate the author on, is her lightly worn but deeply researched depiction of the times, 20s and 30s, the political arguments taking place, the Bloomsbury set (or Bloomsberries as Lydia called them), who don’t all come off as particularly sympathetic, and her handling of the wealth of material available. The characters concerned wrote extensive letters and their lives are well documented but the book never feels “heavy”; in fact, I felt as though I were eavesdropping on some of the personal conversations, and I was at the dinner Keynes was invited to at the then Chancellor’s, Winston Churchill. I think this book is a real achievement because of the explanation of the politics and economics, the excellent depiction of the characters, and the really clever writing. I look forward to Book 2!
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "waiting for the G and its horrible gremlin mods to approve this on WWR"I'm still on pre-moderation from a a fortnight ago for saying that Daniel Ratc..."
i was suprised to see Mach and Glad abandon Ersatz TLS as it is a far more solid community without random flamers and of course moderation. the argument for more people on the guardian, just means more trolls and flamers and one or two incredibly boring posters who never followed on Ersatz TLS(thank goodness). Though i do miss Dandy, he was never boring
my problem with the subscription is the guardian site isnt processing my debit card, i emailled them and they havent done anything, so i havent been a contributor for 3 months now. my card is fine must be a glitch with their system
On moderation in the Guardian:Not so long ago I wrote an answer to a poster on WWR who had enjoyed the poems of Hilde Domin. Which s/he had read in in the original German. I thought s/he might like Mascha Kaleko's poetry and gave some examples. Of MK's poems. In German.
I could see that my post had registered (the paragraph spaces that eventually turn up are left out when you first view it).
It didn't even make it to the stage "this post has been deleted....", it vanished without trace.
My grandparents (two up two down Lancashire terrace) always called it the parlour. Only went in on evenings, high days and holidays!
Storm wrote: "I throughly enjoyed an excellent gem of a novel called Mr Keynes’ Revolution, by È.J. Barnes. What a cracking fictionalised biography of John Maynard Keynes...."
You make this very tempting. I'll be asking the library to find a copy for me.
You make this very tempting. I'll be asking the library to find a copy for me.
Georg wrote: "On moderation in the Guardian:Not so long ago I wrote an answer to a poster on WWR who had enjoyed the poems of Hilde Domin. Which s/he had read in in the original German. I thought s/he might li..."
how strange. have they censored using different languages before? i dont think i've seen non-english content censored...though may be wrong
Gpfr wrote: "I was moderated for the 1st time a little while ago when below an article by Hadley Freeman, someone said she was leaving The Guardian and I linked to an article giving her reasons. (Like Suzanne Moore before her, it was about the trans issue.)"I pretty much only ever used to read TL&S in the Guardian, so when that went away, so did I. I looked briefly at the first few installments of its new incarnation, but pretty quickly decided not to re-engage.
Though I hadn't previously heard of her, the comments about Hadley Freeman piqued my interest: the party line on the trans issue seems one of the most rigidly enforced on a lot of social media, either editorially or through piling-on by other users. I recently read Nora Ephron's review of Conundrum (in Crazy Salad Plus Nine) and found that it pretty much echoed my own reaction, as I recall it, when I first read Morris' book a few years after its publication. I suspect Ephron's review might now be banned as "hate speech" in some venues.
Here are two articles on the Freeman, one of which may be the one @Gpfr referred to:
https://unherd.com/2022/02/why-i-stop...
https://pressgazette.co.uk/hadley-fre...
Bill wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "I was moderated for the 1st time a little while ago when below an article by Hadley Freeman, someone said she was leaving The Guardian and I linked to an article giving her reasons. (L..."just been googling about Freeman(its half time in the rugby), geez, my word what is happening at the G. I have a low opinion of Viner and Freeman's hints that she was discouraged from writing about gender issues as a woman is just barking. what is going on?
i think its shameful that a gender which has struggled for centuries to evade the patriachy now has its wings clipped about fundamental issues to do with being female, by other women. Again, i think the USA presence of the Guardian cheapens its objectivity and vision, the stuff with Suzanne Moore was bad as well
"Being a good girl" is sadly the path so many women have to take, smile awkwardly and get on with work despite the handsy older man who is annoying them, step back in a meeting when the men start talking loudly. many women are challenging this idea but for the majority it seems to remain the way to navigate life as a woman....i have three nieces and i hope when they are adults, in a decade or two, things will have moved on...but i do wonder...despite all the progress
Mod
Here are two articles on the Freeman, one of which may be the one @Gpfr referred to:
https://unherd.com/2022/02/why-i-stop...
https://pressgazette.co.uk/hadley-freL..."
I'd read the 13 October version of the Press Gazette one.
Russell wrote: "Storm wrote: "I throughly enjoyed an excellent gem of a novel called Mr Keynes’ Revolution, by È.J. Barnes. What a cracking fictionalised biography of John Maynard Keynes...."You make this very t..."
Looks like bookdepository has a copy.
Re; death by wolf.In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wolf was the popular name for cancer.
Reading the blurb about The Romantic, William Boyd’s latest novel, I thought it had many features that I like in a book but it did not work for me. Of course he writes well, but this was a supposed biography of the life of a fictional character, and took the form of a picaresque novel, and possibly because of the nature of a picaresque tale, moving quickly from one adventure to another where the hero always manages to extricate himself and go on to the next wild happening without seemingly being affected, there is a lack of depth in the very structure. Cashel Grevillea Ross is a drummer boy at Waterloo, refuses to participate in an Indian Army massacre of villagers in Ceylon, spends time with the Shelleys and Lord Byron in Italy, farms and makes beer in North America, finds the source of the. Nile first and rows with Speke about it, wants to marry a young Catholic girl but her father says oh no not to a Protestant, so no worries, he’ll convert, sorted! No religious second thoughts. There is no sign of what Cashel is really thinking apart from the external circumstances that will move him on to his next ploy. I understand that this light, superficial storytelling will work for many. It didn’t for me. Reading it immediately after Mr Keynes’ Revolution, a book I loved and which has stayed swirling around my brain, perhaps that spoiled it for me. I think the moments we read a book can be the right, or wrong, times. I didn’t take to this book but it also suffered by being read after an excellent one.
I am still thinking about the discussion below on Hadley Freeman, The G, and gender (you could add racism or any other current topic). Writing your thoughts online can be a moment of madness or of courage. One wrong word or sentence…..but “wrong” to or for whom? It is not possible to utter opinions which everyone will agree with. So someone is bound to disagree and on Social Media, this can be a bomb exploding. I have spoken about this phenomenon on pile ons and misunderstandings, wilful or not, before and it was the source of my taking a back seat here for a while. I felt bruised and misunderstood but needed to consider honestly how much responsibility I should take on board. It is why I have previously self censored myself on Twitter because I was sensitive to criticism. Now, I have thought long and hard about this, and have started to make comments as I feel strongly that we need to be able to discuss any topic without immediate accusations of racism or prejudice. It is how ultimately we understand each other. So I have made comments supporting J.K. Rowling and Women are Women. Because if I don’t, then the intolerant and the virtue signallers win.
There was the ridiculous situation this week of a woman being ejected from a meeting at the Scottish Parliament for wearing a suffragette scarf (subsequently apologised for) because no symbols are allowed (despite officials wearing rainbow lanyards). People become confused and afraid to take a stand. If the orthodoxy is All LGBT support is Good, then the corollary is, all anti LGBT support is Bad and we become locked in a false binary world.
What to read next? Entirely by happenstance (or is it?), my hand fell on Alexandria, The Quest for the Lost City, by Dr Edmund Richardson. Blurb:This is a wild journey through 19th c India and Afghanistan, with impeccably researched storytelling that shows us a world of espionage and dreamers, ne’er-do-wells and opportunists….
The - true - story of the discovery of Alexander’s city in Afghanistan in 1833 by “the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, deserter, traveller, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist, spy and eventually one of the most respected scholars in Asia, and the greatest of 19th c travellers”.
So this is everything I had hoped for, and did not find, in Boyd’s The Romantic, with the added bonus of it all being TRUE! What did I just post already about the right book at the right time (or the wrong one ;)…..
It begins…..
4 July 1827. Dawn smelled of sweat, incense and horseshit….
For Lewis, it was Independence Day. He pulled on his uniform, walked out of the gate past the sleepy guards and never went back. By evening, he would be a wanted man.
Well, what’s not to love there!
Goodreads keeps cutting off bits towards the end.That quote at the end should read
by evening, he would be a wanted man.
Hope that works…
By evening, he would be a wanted man.Let us hope third time lucky because this is really annoying!
Is someone playing silly buggers here? Wanted man, wanted man, wanted man, wanted man. I say again wanted man.
Mod
Well, what’s not to love there!..."
"wanted man" is there, Storm.
This sounds like a good book.
@StormI was considering The Romantic but hesitated after reading some reviews and after reading yours, hesitate further for I know that I would be irritated for similar reasons to yours.
There has been some discussion about moderation. Some may have noticed that I rarely post on WWR whereas I was a frequent poster on TL&S. i was moderated several times before, most I could understand and feel it is a difficult job. The reason that I rarely post is that I do not wish to be involved in any unpleasantness.
It is much nicer here and there is respect for another’s views generally. The other plus is that we may have different discussions on interests such as music, films or poems. I may post photos and record my Wordle score without any fuss. These pluses more than make up for the clunkiness.
I do agree, Storm, that it is necessary at times to speak out - I am not very good at keeping quiet - as long as it is done politely. Unfortunately there are some online who bear grudges and when one is attacked much later then I just wish the moderators realised what is happening but that might be unreasonable to expect.
Storm wrote: "Reading the blurb about The Romantic, William Boyd’s latest novel,..."
When it comes to Byron and the Shelleys in Europe I’ve never found anything quite so stirring as the shortish A Single Summer with LB by Derek Marlowe (1970), told from the point of view of Dr Polidori.
When it comes to Byron and the Shelleys in Europe I’ve never found anything quite so stirring as the shortish A Single Summer with LB by Derek Marlowe (1970), told from the point of view of Dr Polidori.
Mod
I was considering The Romantic but hesitated after reading some reviews and after reading yours, hesitate further for I know that I would be irritated for similar reasons to yours..."
I usually like William Boyd's books, but am now also hesitating.
@CCCubonI agree with all you say. Because there is a kind of “history” here, we can all have a bit of a spat and move on. As I said, we can’t all agree all the time. But if it is done with respect, then we can be tolerant. Twitter etc is much less tolerant and I think cancel culture and virtue signalling are vicious sides paradoxically opposing tolerance and differing views.
On Twitter, which I do enjoy but sometimes also hate, I have learned to ask questions rather than tell someone they are talking rubbish! No one responds well to that., surprisingly….There are so many bots and false accounts online. When I tackle a foaming at the mouth Brexiter who is not seeing his/her sunlit uplands, I ask them questions. If they get no rise out of you, they will then ignore or block you, if they are a bot, or fulminate about something totally unrelated if they are a nutter/unreasonable person. Either way, I suppose I have made a point which impresses no one but makes me feel slightly better.
I do get depressed though about all the talk on diversity and yet at the same time see an attack on that diversity by the same people advocating it who then cancel others who disagree with them. And they don’t see it. Because they are RIGHT!
Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I call mine the living room which, if you think about it, is a bit silly because it isn't alive"ah, but it's where you do your living!
Mine is the sitting room."
I grew up in a house with a living room, which was a bit ironic as hardly anyone was allowed in there, unless specially invited visitors came round. So not much 'living' to be had there... Sadly it was the only place in the house that had a radio. I got a special dispensation once a week, for half an hour, to be able to listen to the Clitheroe kid, I think, though I have memory of listening to 'Round the Horne' as well... Also all the records, mostly classical and the very few books we had were in there as well. No wonder I adopted the library as a second home.
Storm wrote: "I am still thinking about the discussion below on Hadley Freeman, The G, and gender (you could add racism or any other current topic). Writing your thoughts online can be a moment of madness or of ..."I agree with you Storm, polite discussion over possible disagreement should be the way forward. I hate the way that people are bullied, even out of their jobs, simply by stating that they still believe, in relation to safe spaces, or services for women, what they believed in 5 or 6 years ago. It seems a bit bizarre that we now have to read 'The Times' to hear what the opinions of so many left-wing feminists are. 'And so it goes'...
Mod
This is another article about Hadley Freeman, in which we learn that Adrian Chiles (whom I had never heard of until he started writing in The G, and whose "articles" I very quickly stopped reading, is the partner of Kathleen Viner.
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/issue-1...
Storm wrote: "I am still thinking about the discussion below on Hadley Freeman, The G, and gender (you could add racism or any other current topic). Writing your thoughts online can be a moment of madness or of ..."So often today at least a goodly portion of the world is either 'my way or the highway' or much too easy to take personal offense. For a personal offense example I share the jist of a post on my (Seattle-area) message board.
A man accused a bar of being racist because they no longer played his music (I believe he was originally from Somalia). I looked at that and said - business decision.
Many are much too quick to take offense it seems to me and also much too quick to label that same offense as some kind of -ism.
But then I belong to that part of the crowd that says - can't we all just get along? Silly me.
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In NW England front room was commonly used, iirc. Some said lounge, or living room.
The English language, like the society as a whole, is quite class-ridden really. In Germany people who use posh word aren't "classed", they are often thought to be pretentious tw***s. Or non-local. If you ask for a "Brötchen" (bread roll in high German) in Bavaria it is quite clear you are "a Preiß" (a Prussian), and "a Preiß" is everybody who lives north of the "Weißwurstäquator" aka the river Main.
Some years ago I read Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour.
Reader, I was shocked! There I was, an upper middle-class person, Unwittingly talking like the plebs...
Although it was quite amusing as well when I compared:
In England "pardon?" is "non-u"(pperclass), whereas "what?" can signify "u"(pperclass). In Germany "pardon?" (French pronounciation) would be rees-moggish "u", If Rees-Mogg were to use "what?" in Germany people would wonder whether he was brought up in a pigsty. (as an aside: I have yet to see a lager lout with worse manners than this odious creature; and I must have seen hundreds).
And in Germany the non-u "toilet" is the posh word for the commonly used "loo".
Thank God we have no "restrooms" or even "powder rooms" (although the latter word be perfectly adequate for the posh Tory boys and girls powdering their noses every now and again)