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What are we reading? 19 December 2022
Finished Zone Defence, Petros Markaris and enjoyed it very much, thanks for the recommendation and I will read more.Reading a book set in a different cultural setting, always makes for comparisons. Our own tendencies/preferences/prejudices can show up to the party. So I found the curmudgeonly Inspector Haritos a bit traditional Mediterranean macho for my taste. Never even makes his own coffee let alone cooking anything for himself. It is a personal gripe with me but I dislike “game playing” in relationships and Adriani and Costa are at it all the time. It is excellent character description but I can’t help thinking you might both be happier if you were a little more honest with each other. But I’m single so clearly what do I know?
Quote
I said it deliberately, provocatively, so she would get annoyed and react, but there was no reaction, nor did her stance shift one iota.I have to admit that her tactics were effective because they baffled me. I had expected her to start yelling and to counteract her, I had prepared a full-scale zone defence, which began with excuses, continued with cajolery, and ended, as a last resort, with an out and out slanging match. But her silence blew my whole Maginot Line to bits.
Some excellent writing and translation work there I’d say as well.
Plus, re NHS, how irritating to think people are giving doctors backhanders to be seen before you while you wait in a queue.
Mod
I'm glad you and scarletnoir have enjoyed the Markaris books.
giveusaclue wrote: "
Just finished reading this book set around the actual place name of the title overlooking Puget Sound. I know some folks on here are familiar with ..."
Thanks - 'definitely, maybe'.
Storm wrote: "the Tory party isn’t right wing ENOUGH?"Not for some apparently - which explains (but does not excuse, for me) Starmer pussyfooting around the 'elephant in the room' - Brexit - which has done immense damage (to the glee of Putin and, probably, the USA too). The independent GOVERNMENT FUNDED Office for Budget responsibility predicts that Brexit " will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU" and further that "Both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU."
But wait - what about those glorious opportunities elsewhere in the world? Well the OBR concludes that "New trade deals with non-EU countries will not have a material impact, and any effect will be gradual."
https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the...
Brexit is - and always was - a fact-free cult indulged by charlatans, chancers and 'those who benefit' from a weakened UK. It's just a pity that Starmer is too scared of the nutters who gave us this disaster to call them out.
AB76 wrote: "Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History
... It is a real shame across the world that so many Soviet agents spread their influence in the Allied world in WW2. Ostensibly on the same side, the Soviet agents were pawns in the bigger game of Stalin's evil plans....."Well, yes and no - the reasons lie in the history of the 1920s onwards, where the extreme right (Nazis in Germany; Fascists in Italy; Francoists in Spain, and Salazar in Portugal) - in my opinion (though history is not my specialist subject!)
I think that those who felt understandably attracted to the communist ideal (as opposed to what it became under Stalin and others) felt the need to redress the balance against the malign influence of the regimes I mention. They were no doubt naive in many cases - 'fellow travellers' - but also you'd have some cynics in it for the money.
It is possibly a good thing that the Russians had the atomic bomb fairly early, as the 'balance of terror' theory has held good for a very long time now. Let us hope that it continues to hold in the near and not-so-near future.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History ... ..."I see both left and right wing extremes as equally loathable., although the damage that communist traitors did to the UK between 1940 and 1960 was significantly greater than any Fascist traitors. Certainly the communists were better organised, laid low and worked harder than the loud, boisterous and frankly rabble like british fascist groups and agents
I would like to read more about how these traitors felt in that period where the Nazi's and Soviets brutally carved up Poland in 1939. there was certainly nothing noble and glorious about what the USSR did in eastern poland.
I read a good account of that invasion of Poland where the author fled from the German zone to the Russian zone during the invasion. He noted how much more efficient and cruel the NKVD were compared to the Gestapo, they had organised lists and killed or deported everyone on them, dealt with unspeakable cruelty with Polish civilians in random incidents and deeply shocked the narrator.
I dont think either extreme idealogy should have had popular support but i can see that idealist young people wanted to see what they wanted to see and hear what they wanted to hear.
Wells, Shaw, Brecht,Hobsbawn,Sartre and others were no better in their strange worship of the Stalinist world at times
giveusaclue wrote: "According to the King's Fund, funding for the NHS has gone up by 50% since 2009. I would love to know how much of that has gone on frontline treatment."I'm not sure where you found that -perhaps you would be kind enough to provide a link, as I always try to do? - but I did find this:
Under current spending plans, the NHS budget will increase by an average of 1.1 per cent a year between 2009/10 and 2020/21, compared to the long-term average of nearly 4 per cent a year since the NHS was established.
The mismatch between demand for services and funding is creating significant challenges. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publicat....
So, as I said, the increase in spending is running well behind the increase in demand - hence the current crisis.
If your question is an implicit demand for information on how efficiently the money is spent, then this might help:
Myth. The NHS in England is a £100 billion-a-year-plus business. It sees 1 million patients every 36 hours, spending nearly £2 billion a week. Aside from the banks, the only companies with a larger turnover in the FTSE 100 are the two global oil giants Shell and BP. If the NHS were a country it would be around the thirtieth largest in the world.
If anything, our analysis seems to suggest that the NHS, particularly given the complexity of health care, is under- rather than over-managed.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects...
Of course, turning the NHS into an 'internal market' in the 1990s increased the complexity of the bureaucratic system and many claim that this in itself led to a huge increase in costs on administration (though as it's hard to pin down the figures, some dispute this). Here is a comment from a patient's group:
Estimates of the extra costs arising from ‘marketisation’ are difficult to calculate but have been estimated as between £4.5 billion and £10 billion a year – or enough to pay for either ten specialist hospitals; 174,798 extra nurses; 42,413 extra GPs; or 39,473,684 extra patient visits to A&E.
According to a House of Commons Health Select Committee report, before the NHS was run as a market, 5% of the NHS budget was spent on management and administrative costs. Research carried out on behalf of the Department of Health (but not published) has estimated that, after turning the NHS into a market, these costs rose to 14% of its budget each year.
https://www.patients4nhs.org.uk/marke...
giveusaclue wrote: "Shouldn't someone have started wondering during the 10 years it took to come to light?"Absolutely - shoddy work by someone in the procurement section. At least, the evildoers were eventually named, shamed and fined. (I did seem to remember that a Health Secretary from way back when had insisted that the NHS buy generic rather than branded drugs whenever available, but can't find a reference... faulty memory, or imperfect online records? Not sure.)
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Shouldn't someone have started wondering during the 10 years it took to come to light?"Absolutely - shoddy work by someone in the procurement section. At least, the evildoers ..."
Great NHS info from Scarlet and giveusaclue, i must read that Kings Report, have just downloaded it
Gpfr wrote: "Here are a couple of quotes. These are humorous,"Indeed - very funny! At least Beckett wasn't in so much despair that he had recourse to the Telegraph or the Daily Mail...
MK wrote: "When do you get to consider a political path different from the Tories?"Soon, I hope! Labour aren't perfect but just have to be more competent that the shysters who have asset-stipped the country in the last 13 years.
As for health systems - the NHS could work fine if properly funded, which it isn't:
Over the past decade, the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care compared with the EU14 countries for which data are available. Between 2010 and 2019, average health capital investment in the UK was £5.8bn a year. If the UK had matched other EU14 countries’ average investment in health capital (as a share of GDP), the UK would have invested £33bn more between 2010 and 2019 (around 55% higher than actual investment during that period).
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-co....
Having said that - there are different ways of doing things. In France, the State system is bolstered by extra spending through the 'mutuelles' - private funding paid for from monthly salaries by employers and employees. This helps to keep funding higher than in the UK without the state footing the whole bill.
https://expat-in-france.com/french-co....
I have no rigid adherence to any POV on this, except to say that health care should be available to all, that it is underfunded in the UK by the government, and that it is cynical to claim otherwise. Probably (and speaking from relative ignorance) the US system seems among the worst in that it depends on ability to pay - with prices cynically boosted - with a very poor 'basic' service for the poor. But hey, I could be wrong.
scarletnoir wrote: "I'm not sure where you found that -perhaps you would be kind enough to provide a link, as I always try to do?
Sorry, will try to do better in future.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects...
Storm wrote: "Finished Zone Defence, Petros Markaris and enjoyed it very much, thanks for the recommendation and I will read more....I found the curmudgeonly Inspector Haritos a bit traditional Mediterranean macho for my taste.." Ah, good! A copy for me just dropped through the letter box at lunchtime, and I look forward to it.
I totally agree about the sexual politics and intended to write about that in my review of Markaris' 'Death in Athens', which I finished this morning. I'll write a review soon, but after a bad night I'll probably leave it for a day or two.
Haritos is definitely a 'flawed character', but interesting.
I liked the book a lot.
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Shouldn't someone have started wondering during the 10 years it took to come to light?"Absolutely - shoddy work by someone in the procurement section. At least, the evildoers ..."
I vaguely remember that too. I may be cynical, or jaded, but I tend to think that procurement in the private sector is possibly more tightly controlled then in the public sector. We hear tales, possibly apocryphal, of how much the NHS pays for such things and paracetamol, and:
https://www.supplychain.nhs.uk/news-a...
And don't get my started on the number of laptops that "get lost" by MOD staff:
https://www.forces.net/news/revealed-...
Best get back to books we have read now!!Anyone prepared to take one for the team and read H's book Spare? Mind you by the time it gets to 10th January it will all have been leaked now!
Mod
Indeed - very funny! At least Beckett wasn't in so much despair that he had recourse to the Telegraph or the Daily Mail..."
That was my thought too!
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I'm not sure where you found that -perhaps you would be kind enough to provide a link, as I always try to do?
Sorry, will try to do better in future.
https://www.kingsfund.or..."
Thanks - but are you agreeing with Sunak that the NHS 'has the funding it needs', or not?
(The 50% figure does not appear as such; it depends on how you calculate it.)
Current reports, even on the Tory friendly BBC, tends to suggest otherwise.
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I'm not sure where you found that -perhaps you would be kind enough to provide a link, as I always try to do?
Sorry, will try to do better in future.
http..."
No fan of Sunak, what I think is that the NHS is not as efficiently run as it could be, certainly as far as budgets are concerned.
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History[bookcover:Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in Hi..."On the far side of anything - left or right, I can assure all here that the far left is just as bad as the far right - living in Seattle where the far left is bound and determined to demolish any single family (I live in one) housing as the answer to our current housing crisis. Of course this is just one example as we continue to molly coddle those who steal about anything as well.
Sorry, but this is from a middle of the roader.
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History[bookcover:Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in Hi..."I share, in general, your views about the far left and the far right.
Yet your hatred of communism seems to surpass your hatred of fascism by a substantial margin.
I have almost finished Dying in the Wool by Frances Brophy. Enjoying this book set shortly after WW1 ; it is well researched. I found myself checking whether it was written at that time as it appeared to be so gently authentic. It wasn’t.Two points arising I found interesting in particular.
‘Surplus women’ is mentioned and I looked up some of the statistics. So many young men were killed during the war there were many young women who had little chance of finding a husband and little chance of finding suitable employment because women were not held in regard as employees; simply a dearth of employment opportunities for them.
The other was an event that I had not heard about. On 16 August 1916 there was an explosion at Low Moor, a munitions factory near Bradford which resulted in the deaths of forty people including six firemen who arrived to try to put out the fire. The factory manufactured picric acid which is an explosive also used in medicine and dye. Something else that I had not heard about.
Georg wrote: "I share, in general, your views about the far left and the far right.Yet your hatred of communism seems to surpass your hatred of fascism by a substantial margin."
I sometimes wonder if there is much difference, in practice at least, because the top dogs always seem to do ok.
giveusaclue wrote: "Georg wrote: "I share, in general, your views about the far left and the far right.Yet your hatred of communism seems to surpass your hatred of fascism by a substantial margin."
I sometimes wonde..."
i thinks that the answer, both provide for the elite. The Nazi's found friends among the elite, who did favours for positions in the Reich while the communists declared themselves a new elite with special villas, resorts, restaurants and other perks, simply replacing the elites they said they were there to eliminate
Hmm. Bit of brain fog. When I mentioned backhanders I was referring to the book. Costas has a heart problem and him being rushed through tests causes hassle with those who all have been waiting longer because they think he has been giving the Doctor backhanders to be seen quicker. I suppose we can be thankful that is one headache spared us here.The dodges, most of which are legal, to save paying taxes are pretty eye watering. This is Greece, Donna Leon with her Brunetti series set in Venice also has plenty to say about tax dodging. Are we any better in the U.K.? After all I have been hearing about Russian oligarchs and PPE companies and the like, I would venture to guess that we are pretty good here at getting every last penny out of the ordinary working person but fail spectacularly with the rich.
Brunetti is a happily married family man who is not an alcoholic OR a workaholic!
Yay! Found one!
1960s Scarborough in November is a wonderful setting for A Change For The Better
. This is a bittersweet sad novel of lives going sour, of misplaced souls, written in 1969The language is excellent and so is the feel of a coastal resort in the dread months where the fog lies heavy and the sun doesnt shine. I see that Susan Hill is still going at 80, the tone of this suprised me with her reputation for gothic style literature as this could be placed somewhere between William Trevor and Elizabeth Taylor with a smidgen of Stanley Middleton.
Storm wrote: ."Brunetti is a happily married family man who is not an alcoholic OR a workaholic!Yay! Found one!
Haha, well done. I don't know where Montalbano fits in all that. Happily unmarried?
giveusaclue wrote: "NHS is not as efficiently run as it could be, certainly as far as budgets are concerned..."I dealt with this in response 308.
Could things be 'even more efficient'? I daresay here and there improvements could be made.
Is 'inefficiency' the reason why the NHS is in a mess ATM?
Absolutely not - it's the result of long term underfunding. All the efficiency savings in the world would be like a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed.
giveusaclue wrote: "I sometimes wonder if there is much difference, in practice at least, because the top dogs always seem to do ok."In general that is definitely fair comment - whatever the system, those who rise to the top have at the very least a taste for power. I do think that a taste for money and wealth is implicit in any right-wing politician, though, whereas it's not there as a matter of principle on the left. So - Tony Blair (supposedly a leftist) is very interested in money; I don't think the same is true of Gordon Brown - or certainly not to the same extent. Harold Wilson was pretty frugal by all accounts - he always went on holiday to the Scilly Islands.
What is certain is that anyone who reaches the top AND is interested in money will find a way to feather their own nest, regardless of their politics.
Storm wrote: "I would venture to guess that we (in the UK) are pretty good here at getting every last penny out of the ordinary working person but fail spectacularly with the rich."Absolutely right - which is why money can't be found for the NHS, roads etc. Our roads are in a shocking state compared to a few years ago - or compared to roads in France, for example.
Deadline in Athens by Petros MarkarisI liked this a lot - definitely better than 'Che Committed Suicide', for two reasons: the plot is far more believable, and there is rather less on road directions and traffic jams - I also skimmed those passages, which helped!
Inspector Costas Haritos is called upon to investigate the double murder of an apparently impoverished Albanian couple, but soon another much higher profile murder occurs which is given greater priority. But - wouldn't you know it? - the murders turn out to be linked in some way. Haritos has to negotiate his way to the solutions despite interference from his superior, pressured as he is by politicians and prominent businessmen. Tightly plotted and well written - definitely recommended.
This book should have been read before 'Che...'; we learn rather more of Haritos' family life. It may have been slightly misleading to describe his marriage as 'unhappy', but there are frequent clashes as well as some residual affection. The marriage is traditional, with the Inspector as the only breadwinner; his wife - and daughter - have to ask him for any extra spending money, but he is stingy and seeks some sort of compensation when he opens the purse strings. This, of course, leads to tensions. He is also more intellectual than his wife and so they don't have the same interests. Not an easy relationship. It's a mistake to marry someone who can't be your friend - IMO. It all helps to fill out Haritos as a character - admirable in his search for truth, not so much in other ways.
That’s a very good summing up of Haritos, Scarletnoir, thank you. He is indeed a flawed, but believable, character. He seems to be just as grumpy with his underlings! I believe Zone Defence was written in 1998. Attitudes change and that is now 24 years ago. Costas daughter and the doctor seemed to have a more evolved view of relations between a couple. I feel for Adriani. No power in that relationship. And the crook who was killed, his wife was a virtual prisoner with no outlets of her own. Not painting a rosy picture of Greek men, is he?
Mod
Haritos' family life. ..."
You may see their marriage differently when/if you get to the later books ...
Ok gpf, you have me intrigued now. I will need to start at the beginning of the series though to get the full flavour!
Storm wrote: "Hmm. Bit of brain fog. When I mentioned backhanders I was referring to the book. Costas has a heart problem and him being rushed through tests causes hassle with those who all have been waiting lon..."On the money thing, it's always thus. Most recently here Trump touted his tax cuts to his followers that they would be better off when, in fact, it was the rich who once again 'made out like bandits'.
Any gardeners here? I have signed up for and consequently receive too many email newsletters, but one I like especially is from the Garden Museum (London version). Here is a link about a nurseryman in London(ish) at the time of the Regency - https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/william-p...
Really interesting article about William Pamplin from the link you posted to the Garden Museum. Thank you. You might appreciate The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan. Ok it is a light read with a romantic bent but it describes the setting up of the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens in the midst of a story about two women in Edinburgh in 1822. Part of it is true as people did line the streets to see huge 40 foot trees and other shrubs and exotica dragged through the streets of Edinburgh from their previous home in Leith to the present site of the Botanics. I enjoyed the part about the plant that flowers once every hundred years and the machinations around it. A frothy read but with some interesting historical tidbits and my Edinburgh friends enjoyed it!
Storm wrote: "Really interesting article about William Pamplin from the link you posted to the Garden Museum. Thank you. You might appreciate The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan. Ok it is a light read with a ro..."
The Garden Museum newsletter is a nice one - and it only shows up on Saturday.
Checked out the Fair Botanists and find it will be released in the States in mid-April, so I will keep a look-out.
In case anyone here is interested in what the FT has to say about "Spare" etc. They tell me that this link can be used three times.https://on.ft.com/3VXHAQm
Meantime I am wondering if I will ever get back to England. Note that as a qualified 'old-person', I fly first class when I fly which is rarely. Supposedly BA has a sale on now. I bit. The price quoted on Day 2 of this sale was somewhere between 40% and 50% higher than my Covid-cancelled flight. No go for me. In checking back twice BA has alternated the cost ($11K and change) of out bound or return seat.Is there a teary eye emoji?😪 Yes, there is!
MK wrote: "In case anyone here is interested in what the FT has to say about "Spare" etc. They tell me that this link can be used three times.https://on.ft.com/3VXHAQm"
I was quite disappointed to discover that Spare is not a book about bowling.
I managed to read the FT comment without your link, if anyone else is interested. I will not be reading the book. Trashing your own family publicly and still expecting them to give you everything you want, is not a good move for anyone, Royal or not. What of couse makes it all so much more sordid, is our trashy media. On a day when the government announced they were aiming to remove the right to strike….WTF? What do they lead with? Yes, Harry’s whinging.
Are we meant to be shocked that two brothers had a proper barney? His army peers were certainly shocked at him admitting his kills publicly but it just isn’t done. And the Taliban weren’t too chuffed either, commenting that these were 25 humans. So, no, not going on my TBR.
On a whimsical note I have uploaded two - count 'em - two photos. The first is what to wear if you ever visit Seattle.
The second is a delicious combo of right and left during the Speaker nomination debacle. It may be the last laugh heard on this side of the pond for the next two years.
PS - I'm also squeezing in some reading and will be back later on that.
Regarding Harry and Meghan (and how I resent having to refer to them on this first name basis), their relentless publicity campaign is having the rebound effect of making me feel more sympathy for the royals than I otherwise would have done. Perhaps this is partly because I haven't seen any of the British tabloid stuff to which it is presumably a reaction. Be that as it may, seeing the headlines in the Guardian every day - and that's all I see, because I try to avoid hearing about all this as much as possible without giving up the Guardian (again) altogether - has turned me from being more or less neutral on the subject to feeling rather more anti-H&M than anything else, as unfair as that may be.
Berkley wrote: "Regarding Harry and Meghan (and how I resent having to refer to them on this first name basis), their relentless publicity campaign is having the rebound effect of making me feel more sympathy for ..."Not being unfair at all Berkeley.
Mod
Not being unfair at all..."
I have the same reaction.
Berkley wrote: "Regarding Harry and Meghan (and how I resent having to refer to them on this first name basis), their relentless publicity campaign is having the rebound effect of making me feel more sympathy for ..."i'm a Royalist and i am pretty appalled by all this faff, it all seems very petty from Harry, quite disturbing in places, he seems to have touched all the areas that would hurt his family in one long spiel of "poor me" dialogue. I wonder if he would have done this with the Queen still alive
Mod
I can't remember - did I ever talk you into reading
?
Storm wrote: "Haritos... is indeed a flawed, but believable, character. He seems to be just as grumpy with his underlings! I believe Zone Defence was written in 1998. Attitudes change and that is now 24 years ago. Costas daughter and the doctor seemed to have a more evolved view of relations between a couple. I feel for Adriani. No power in that relationship... Not painting a rosy picture of Greek men, is he?"No, indeed. I was rather surprised to read that the inspector believes they have a 'happy marriage'... from 'Zone Defence', Ch. 7:
From the time we got married, Adriani has been living with the fear of my falling ill... But because happy marriages thrive on contrariety, Adriani is terrified of illnesses and I of doctors.
This is another area of disagreement, then - Haritos won't go to the doctor even when Adriani thinks he should. I must say that the tensions and conflicts described don't add up to a 'happy marriage' in my book, but that's not how the character sees it!
Another reason to have reservations about his character - he joined the police when the Military Junta was in power, and witnessed by his own account the torture of prisoners - and may have participated, up to a point. He is, however, apolitical - and even made a sort-of 'friend' of one communist, who gained his respect by withstanding all the tortures. Haritos showed some kindness and compassion to this character - Zissis - who later acts as an informant, when it comes to providing information on former 'leftists' who have switched to being rapacious capitalists and crooks.
Why is reading about such a person enjoyable? Well, the books are first-person narratives, so we see the world through Haritos' eyes - including the descriptions of himself and his behaviour which are negative. This honesty tips us towards a degree of sympathy, especially as he is intelligent, witty and insightful - there are many amusing or downright funny passages. I also prefer characters who come in shades of grey - not white or black hat simplicity. They are more believable and interesting.
It looks as if the current book - 'Zone Defence' is the last one translated into English; I'm enjoying the series so much, I may have to read some more in French if I have the energy.
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I said I was reading this at the moment.
Here are a couple of quotes. These are humorous, but of course it's not always the tone throughout the bo..."
There was a New Yorker cartoon at about this time: a customer asks the man at the American Express desk "Can you guarantee that I won't be neutered while passing through Germany?"