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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 7/10/2024
Tam wrote: "Here is one for CC perhaps if she drops by here. Radio 4 are doing a programme with Katherine Rundell starting on Monday at 11.45 each morning next on the joys of books of children's storiesweekhtt..."i was a distraction crime victim in Berlin in 1999. The only time i have ever been a victim of crime(yet). Was my last day of living in the city for a few months and an attractive girl at Zoo Station asked me if i had any u-bahn tickets to spare. i said i did and gave her the ones i didnt need, turned round walked off, stopped at a kiosk to buy a paper and realised my wallet was gone. Card was cancelled and all ok but for a few hours i was with german transport police sorting out money for my last day in Berlin
I sleep badly. Woke at 4am, but could not go back. It's fatal to start thinking in bed...Usually, the thoughts are of no relevance or interest to this group, but last night they may be... I'm currently reading two books in parallel, The Survivors by Jane Harper, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett. The Harper is a workmanlike murder mystery; Everett's is not his best, but fascinating and several cuts above - so that I've more or less paused the Harper.
I got to thinking about fictional names: "Not Sidney Poitier" - yes, including the "Not" - is the actual name of Everett's protagonist. You won't forget that in a hurry.. but I could not remember the name of a single character from the Harper - probably ordinary names without sufficient characterisation to make them memorable.
So then - I started thinking about Dickens, who had a genius for inventing names for his characters. Who can forget Scrooge, or Fagin, or Uriah Heep? If you say these names to anyone familiar with Dickens, they will know what you mean.
Then another thought: is there something inherent in these names (their sounds) which incline us to feel that the characters are 'less than admirable'? Do the way names sound predispose us as readers to make assumptions about the characters? Or are our reactions simply the result of culture and education? Would someone who had never read Dickens or heard these names feel the same way?
I have no idea if an academic with time to waste has ever researched this question, or even if it would be possible (with Dickens) as it might be difficult to find someone who wasn't familiar with at least the best-known characters. But who knows?
And so, I woke up and got up.
Tam wrote: "Luis Buñuel, Spanish-Mexican filmmaker..."Buñuel's memoir My Last Breath: The Autobiography of Luis Bunuel is well worth a read, if you haven't already.
Sorry to hear about Tam's woes and others who have been victims of crime... I've never had anything stolen in the street (AFAIK, anyway), though some idiot once broke into our (UK) car in Paris and stole some tapes, including one of Welsh nursery rhymes. I hope they enjoyed it. I did once lose my passport in Amsterdam, and had to spend a day at the consulate until I could get some 'travel documents' to return home... months later, it was posted to me - looked as if it had been run over by a tram. I'm pretty sure it just fell out of my rather shallow pocket. Lesson learnt. Our most dramatic crime was a home invasion - a few years ago, in October. We were all asleep in bed when there was a disturbance outside... madame woke first, started down the stairs to see a foot come through the glass of the door, followed by a hand to open it... a young woman came in, completely off her head on drugs.. we managed to restrain her with great difficulty until the cops arrived. She was so out of it she thought the dog was her daughter...
As madame was the first to react, she went to the police station next day to make a statement. It turned out the woman in question was French, and the cops - understandably, I suppose - were a little reluctant to believe that she wasn't known to my wife. What are the odds? But we didn't know her from Adam!
scarletnoir wrote: "I sleep badly. Woke at 4am, but could not go back. It's fatal to start thinking in bed...Usually, the thoughts are of no relevance or interest to this group, but last night they may be... I'm cur..."
I'm amazed you can think such coherent thoughts on waking at 4 a.m!
scarletnoir wrote: "Sorry to hear about Tam's woes and others who have been victims of crime... I've never had anything stolen in the street (AFAIK, anyway), though some idiot once broke into our (UK) car in Paris and..."The same year I was mugged in Barcelona, someone broke into my car overnight and stole the radio (they were removable in those days). A neighbour had to help me push the car back down the drive as the driver's seat was covered in glass. But the replacement radio was a better model! I felt like putting a notice on the inside of my front door "if you are robbing me, please take x y and z as I would really like new ones."
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It was a time when there was a limit on the currency one could take out of France and cards couldn't be used abroad. So the thief hadn't got a very good deal — particularly as I had a lot of cash in my bag which s/he didn't get. Family and friends had been giving money as presents for my son, (his father is Portuguese).
The main drawback was having to spend rather a long time at the police station to report the theft.
scarletnoir wrote: "I sleep badly. Woke at 4am, but could not go back. It's fatal to start thinking in bed...I got to thinking about fictional names..."
Those are actually the sorts of thoughts that seem to serve me as a gateway to sleep.
I’ve often thought about Dickens’ penchant for devising memorable names, which lodges even minor characters in the memory, like my favorite, Wackford Squeers.
Though I haven’t read her, I believe J. K. Rowling seems to have a similar ability.
Other authors that tend to coin memorable names are Mervyn Peake (Steerpike, Sepulchrave, Dr. Prunesquallor) and Thomas Pynchon (Tyrone Slothrop, Reverend Cherrycoke, Oedipa Maas). I much prefer reading novels with these sorts of names: in a purely verbal medium, it seems an almost graphic way to give characters unique physiognomies.
Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I sleep badly. Woke at 4am, but could not go back. It's fatal to start thinking in bed...I got to thinking about fictional names..."
Those are actually the sorts of thoughts ..."
Obadiah Slope?
giveusaclue wrote: "Obadiah Slope?"Didn't recognize that one: I haven't read any Barchester books. It's pretty good: reminds me a bit of the Victorian comic publication "Ally Sloper's Half Holiday", which came years after the Trollope novels.
Do you find Trollope has a knack for naming characters? Of those I've read, including The Way We Live Now, I can only recall the titular Phineas Finn.
Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I sleep badly. Woke at 4am, but could not go back. It's fatal to start thinking in bed...I got to thinking about fictional names..."
Those are actually the sorts of thoughts ..."
i have found that Heinrich Boll does something similar in german, a lot of his characters have names that sound fairly German but arent and that he invented
Bill wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Obadiah Slope?"Didn't recognize that one: I haven't read any Barchester books. It's pretty good: reminds me a bit of the Victorian comic publication "Ally Sloper's Half Holida..."
I haven't, to my shame read, any yet, but remember Alan Rickman being deliciously oily in the part on tv.
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Sorry to hear about Tam's woes and others who have been victims of crime... I've never had anything stolen in the street (AFAIK, anyway), though some idiot once broke into our (..."A bad year - though it ended well!
(Not sure if my random thoughts were 'coherent', but they did keep me awake!)
Bill wrote: "I much prefer reading novels with these sorts of names..."Names like those certainly make it much easier to remember who's who - as opposed to Bill and Ben, say. (One for UK readers.)
I do think that some authors with a lesser talent try to ape Dickens rather self-consciously, and end up with pale imitations... not the ones you mention to judge by those excellent names, though they write in genres I don't read.
Agatha Christie falls somewhere in the middle - her fake names aren't bad but don't quite have the memorable quality of Dickens... though they always feel a bit 'off'. Perhaps that was deliberate so that they'd all sound like suspects!
(As for going to sleep, I always read until I realise that I'm not taking in anything any more. If I misjudge it, the book or e-reader falls with a clunk on my head...)
giveusaclue wrote: "Obadiah Slope?."No idea, so let's see if this name works... probably someone linked to the church in some way - a vicar or verger, or maybe an undertaker. Probably a morally dubious individual.
You will now disclose that Slope is a handsome young man, wealthy, of impeccable credentials...!
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Obadiah Slope?."No idea, so let's see if this name works... probably someone linked to the church in some way - a vicar or verger, or maybe an undertaker. Probably a morally d..."
Errrrr.....no!
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Obadiah Slope?."No idea, so let's see if this name works... probably someone linked to the church in some way - a vicar or verger, or maybe an undertaker. ..."
In that case, although succeeding as an 'unusual or memorable' name, it fails as regards giving a clue as to the character!
The Guardian has published brief comments by the six short-listed authors about how they came to write their novels:https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Naturally, I turned first to Percival Everett's piece, which is funny and full of his usual trickery...
I wish I could say that for years the idea of making this novel burned in me, but I can’t. It was nothing so romantic. I was playing tennis and as I watched my crosscourt backhand barely miss the sideline by the length of the average adult body I thought, has anyone ever told Huck Finn’s story from Jim’s point of view?...
Because of my admiration for Mark Twain and his work I had some fear that I might simply retell his story. I solved this problem by reading Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 15 times in a row...
Then, I thought that in fairness to the others, I'd better read the rest, starting at the top with Rachel Kushner's 'Creation Lake'. As I ploughed my way through this one, I could feel my will to live gradually draining away...
Writing Creation Lake was a uniquely blissful experience. The novel synthesised into one object many things I think about and feel connected to, in terms of who we are and how we’re meant to live, and how to maintain an exalted idea of human life despite doubt and chaos...
For a decade I’d wanted to write this novel. I worked on it for several years, attempting to design a voice and structure...
my character Bruno Lacombe (is) an elder addressing a group of young militants who have formed a commune in a remote corner of south-western France...
He lives in a cave, convinced he has located a world where all chronologies merge on to a single plane of existence...
His concerns, and my own, go beyond the confines of individuals, to some tear in our existence that we don’t know how to suture, and have instead opted to repress. To have, in Bruno, a character willing to face this tear, but lovingly, was a form of profound personal repair...
Through Bruno, I felt I was tunnelling down into the sedimented secrets of human existence, digging a hole to the centre of the Earth. When I got there, I was able to see the cosmos as if from a chambered but roofless place, an unreachable wonder...
If you got this far - Jesus H. Christ!
After that, I lacked the will or energy to read any of the others, for now anyway.
My guess, based on the types of book that usually win prizes, is that Kushner will walk it. The humorous (but deadly serious) Everett will come nowhere.
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No idea, so let's see if this name works... probably someone linked to the church in some way - a vicar or verger, or m..."
I think give's answer is referring to the end of your post. You were quite right in your supposition. Slope is indeed a clergyman and a most unpleasant one, physically and otherwise:
His mouth is large, though his lips are thin and bloodless; and his big, prominent, pale brown eyes inspire anything but confidence. ... I could never endure to shake hands with Mr Slope. A cold, clammy perspiration always exudes from him, the small drops are ever to be seen standing on his brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant.
Gpfr wrote: "You were quite right in your supposition. Slope is indeed a clergyman and a most unpleasant one, physically and otherwise."Haha! So I was right - thanks for that.
A most excellent name, therefore.
scarletnoir wrote: "I do think that some authors with a lesser talent try to ape Dickens rather self-consciously, and end up with pale imitations... ."An approach Pynchon has used in at least one instance (Rachel Owlglass) is to make a literal translation from a name in another language to name his character (Eulenspiegel in this case).
During the publicity surrounding the death of designer Karl Lagerfeld a few years ago, I was thinking that "Charlie Campground" would make a memorable character name.
Fascinating essay in The End of Czechoslovakia
looking at 1968-1989.It sheds light on the response of the two nations to the events of 1968, where the soviet intervention led to repression and Husaks "normalization" period.
Czechs saw most of the next decade as all part of soviet interference and faced significant purges of the intelligensia, media and political scenes, where being reduced to working class roles was punishment for thousands, even hundreds of thousands. Czechs felt their hopes of even moderate reform in 1968 had been dashed.
Slovaks saw the next decade as an opportunity when Slovakia gained a lot of new rights and influences under the Husak regime(Husak was a Slovak but i dont think this necessarily related). Representation in the civil service and central administrations grew and Slovakia saw a much softer repression after the events of 1968.
However when the communist regime started to falter from the early 1980s, the Czechs were better prepared and more organised in looking for alternatives and working with exiles and underground opposition. Slovaks saw these events as a real concern and had very little organised opposition to a status quo they were profiting from.
It is clear from this essay that the Charter 77 dissedent movement that Vaclev Havel was a key player in was a totally Czech affair. Havel found no Slovak signatories for his charter and Slovaks resented Czechs stirring things up during this period.
However, unlike in the USSR or Yugoslavia in the 1980s and early 1990s, there was no ethnic violence or aggressive parting of ways in terms of how the two nations saw each other, it was polite, orderly and well mannered. Probably the most unique cold bloc divorce of them all..
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Thankfully not, because I went on to read Mémoire de fille, another slim volume, which proved absorbing, and at times gripping, a scrupulous, unsparing, cool-eyed examination of her much younger self, a girl of 18, leaving home in 1958 for a summer job at a sort of sanatorium for children, the very first time she, an only child, has done anything not in the company of her parents, in particular her severely watchful mother, this girl who is the star student at her convent school in small-town Normandy but who knows nothing of the world beyond what she reads in books, a girl who has spent every previous summer alone in her room above the small family grocery, who has never been anywhere except once to Lourdes when she was 12, and who, leaving off her bottle-thick glasses, is now intent on finding romance and losing her virginity.
Every shade of this vivid experience causes her to reflect on her sense of self, even as, shortly after, we follow her to London to be an au pair. In N12 the future laureate gorges herself on trifle, lemon curd, and Dairy Milk. She also becomes an expert shoplifter. Nothing is glossed over. All this against the background of the movies, the songs and the books of that time.
So now I am interested and will be searching out her larger works.
AB76 wrote: "the Charter 77 dissedent movement that Vaclev Havel was a key player in was a totally Czech affair. Havel found no Slovak signatories for his charter and Slovaks resented Czechs stirring things up during this period..."As you say - fascinating. I didn't know about this difference in Czech and Slovak opinions.
Logger24 wrote: "Passion simple – Annie Ernaux. Exactly that, an account of a passionate affair, in which every aspect of the passion itself is more central than the personalities and backgrounds of the man and the..."Thanks for these reviews... I have been considering reading something by Ernaux - madame is an admirer and has a few. I'll get on to her - eventually - but she may have to wait on the TBR pile for a while, as it's a bit high ATM!
I finished Last and First Men: it had a similar scale in time (millions upon millions of years of humanity's future) as Star Maker had in space (across the entire universe) but I didn't find its vision as compelling as the later novel. It occurred to me that a modern SF author would probably write something like Last and First Men as a kind of grand outline and then write a series of novels set in this imagined universe. Each of Stapledon's chapters, at least after the fourth, when the time scale accelerates from centuries to millennia, would serve this presumed author with the material for a trilogy at the very least.
I've gone on to start Leslie Fiedler's Olaf Stapledon: A Man Divided, who situates the author as a British author of the 1930s, contemporary of late Wells, Huxley, and Orwell, as well as Auden, Woolf, Eliot, Joyce, Lawrence, and others and looks at his work in that context.
AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here is one for CC perhaps if she drops by here. Radio 4 are doing a programme with Katherine Rundell starting on Monday at 11.45 each morning next on the joys of books of children's st..."I was robbed twice in San Francisco. My Toyota was in a parking garage. When I approached the car, I noticed the driver's door was ajar. Both of the radio speakers (they were factory speakers) were gone. The screws that once held them in place were neatly arranged on the dashboard. The robber had the right tools. He did everything but eat his lunch.
The other was a garden variety mugging in a Safeway parking lot.
by Percival EverettHave you ever wanted to ask a favourite author: “What did you mean…”, either in a whole book, or by specific passages? For me, there were plenty of moments like that in this novel. I’ll explain why later.
First up: as with every Everett novel so far, I enjoyed it. Was I entertained? Oh, yes! But this one is as hard to pin down as any so far. It’s much easier to summarise the structure than what Everett does with it, so let’s do that.
The protagonist is a young black man whose eccentric (crazy?) mother has named him “Not Sidney Poitier” - yes, with the “Not”. Naturally, this causes the kid all sorts of problems, and leads to confusion throughout the novel. Mom dies when Sidney is still a kid, and he is sort-of fostered by Ted Turner (the media mogul) because his mother had invested her savings in Turner’s company in year dot, and this share is now worth a fortune. From then on, Not Sidney grows up and goes to college, meets girls and has a number of adventures…
And what adventures! But not ‘any’ adventures: his escapades are mirror images of plots from Sidney Poitier films - somewhat distorted, of course. For example, there is an escape from police custody while handcuffed to a racist white man (The Defiant Ones - Poitier with Tony Curtis; a trope used before to comic effect in Hitchcock’s ’39 Steps’) and a visit to a tonally sensitive family (a take on ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’, where the ‘white’ family is replaced by a pallid ‘black’ one). The plot, then, is circumscribed and restricted by those explored in Poitier’s films, though they provide ample possibilities for Everett’s imagination.
In addition to Ted Turner, another ‘real’ person makes a significant entry onto the scene - none other than ‘Professor Percival Everett’ himself. This version of Prof. Everett teaches a college course on ‘Nonsense’, and is very odd, to put it mildly - if a challenging teacher.
So as you can see, this is anything but a conventional narrative… my questions would have included: “Why include yourself, and how close is the fictional version to the real one? (I suspect the answer would be: “Go and figure it out for yourself. Dismissed!) and “Why include Ted Turner? (Probably, I’d get “Why not?” for that.)
Sticking, then, to subjective reaction: I enjoyed nearly all of this novel… it kept me amused, we had they usual sequences where racists got their comeuppance, and indeed where a light-skinned ‘black’ family were parodied for their ‘colorist’ tendencies. It also made me think, though I’m not sure I got all of what was intended here. The only chapter that didn’t work for me was the second one based on the parody of peckerwood Alabamans - not that they don’t deserve parody, but for once Everett failed to make it funny. The racists in
were dealt with far more savagely and brutally - and their fate was hilarious. Parody based just on the stupidity and poor language skills of the characters in that chapter didn’t work.
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https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBJR8O...
scarletnoir wrote: " by Percival EverettHave you ever wanted to ask a favourite author: “What did you mean…”, either in a whole book, or by specific passages? For me, the..."
have you read all of Everetts books now?
John Fowles is an enjoyable diarist, my late night diary reading which has been so rich in suprises since 2020 has continued wellBUT, i do wonder why he was so immensely popular from 1966-1974, he is on bestseller lists, all his books are made into films, plays are made into tv shows, short stories too. It seems that he faded quickly and never regained this position as a writer afterwards
I have reached 1974 so far, does anyone around in the 1966-74 period, remember him being so popular? Its odd that very few tv interviews remain, i found just one on youtube, at an american college in 1988
Oh and randomly, can i just say how much i loathe WH Auden, geez....i find far too much time is given to this man....
I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? I have to scroll back to September in order to access it. Pretty soon it will be quite a lot of scrolling to get back to access it. I used to get notifications when people have commented. All this has gone, and I don't know how to fix it. Any useful advice appreciated!...
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Tam - Very aggravating. I wouldn't bother trying a technical fix, unless it is really easy. I would just cancel your existing account and start a new one (which I had to do once) with a new name. How about Not Tam? Though this might mean that your reviews would also have to be the mirror image of what you actually think.
Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? I have to scroll back to September in order to access it. Pretty soon it will be q..."I fear that might annoy scarlet somewhat! And I'm not fond of the idea of a 'Not Tam', its taken me so long to get to be the Tam that I wanted to be!... as it is... I think some button has has been unticked, and if I knew better it is probably quite easy to fix. It's amazing how a little knowledge can be quite a handicap!... I hope you are well and in good spirits after your Sicily trip. I'm mostly playing 'catch up', which can be quite tedious work and things are falling by the wayside.
I have booked another 'secular pilgrimage' however, on Halloween. I enjoyed my last one, around Glastonbury, last December. This one is an homage, or a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Aldous Huxley, who interests me. Based around Guildford and the Watts Gallery, which is an interesting place in its own right, so something to look forward to...
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Sicily was great, thanks, and still a pleasure to think about every day. If on your travels you ever find yourself in the direction of Catania, there is a wonderful hotel that I can recommend with bedrooms overlooking an arcaded square with lots of cafés and activity and people strolling, a converted palazzo full of beautiful antique furniture and vibrant, mostly figurative, modern art. You almost wish for a rainy day, so that you can stay in and absorb it all.
Guildford, I am afraid, is a place that is not so great in my memory – I had a deadly six months there studying for Solicitors’ Finals. Having spent three years at university being talk to think for myself, I now went to three or four lectures a day where you were required to take down every word dictated by the lecturer and then go back to your digs and learn those notes by heart, and be tested on how well you knew them with an exam every two weeks. I never went to the Watts Gallery. Clearly I should have, as I have since learned to love GF Watts. The Lever Gallery in Port Sunlight, with the fabulous Leightons and other great Victorians, is another place I should like to visit one day.
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Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads ..."Sicily was great, thanks, and still a pleasure to think about every day. If on your travels you..."
Watts Gallery is superb...
Logger24 wrote: "Has anyone here read the writings of Karl Marx on contemporary French history - The Class Struggle in France (of 1848-50), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (of 1852) and The Civil War in ..."i have read some Marx but none of those...i want to read the Bonaparte one, Marx was scathing about him in the collection of journalism i read a few months ago
Gpfr wrote: "Meet John Blanke, ‘the blacke trumpeter’ who witnessed history in Henry VIII’s Tudor court:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBJR8O..."
40 shillings a day? That was a fortune. Unless it was per day he performed.
Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? I have to scroll back to September in order to access it. Pretty soon it will be quite a lot o..."Is this any help or something totally different:
https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...
AB76 wrote: "have you read all of Everetts books now?.."Haha! No - he's written some 30 novels or so as well as poetry and some other stuff... I only 'discovered' him this year, but as I like his stuff so much - and as I dislike being disappointed (always a risk with other new authors, or even ones I only 'quite like'), I have been on a bit of a binge... So far, I've read five and am on a sixth -
- which is the most traditional so far - a murder mystery set in New Mexico. Maybe it's only a matter of time before aliens or zombies turn up? I'm not expecting them - but with Everett, you never know!
Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? I have to scroll back to September in order to access it. Pretty soon it will be quite a lot o..."I am not at all sure what this 'automatic system' is or what it does. Either mine is working (and always has) or I never had it in the first place. I have no idea! It seems that, when I open the group, I can click on a 'new posts' link in red, if that is what you mean.
I'm not sure why you think I'd be annoyed if you did delete your account and start again, although that seems an extremely drastic step - unless by so doing many of my old post would also disappear for some reason. I can see that as responses to disappeared comments of yours, they might appear a bit odd, though! Do what you have to do...
I hope the problem sorts itself out, one way or another.
Logger24 wrote: "a late Caravaggio, The Burial of Saint Lucia, which looks nothing much in the dimness of normal light but is quite wonderful when you insert one euro into a box which provides illumination for two minutes..."The Catholic church has always been pretty clever when it comes to monetizing its assets! ;-)
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I don't really know what you mean by "automatic updating system", but you say you got notifications — there's a box to tick under the title of the thread: "Notify me when people comment". Is that it? You had ticked it and it got unticked?
scarletnoir wrote: "The Catholic church has always been pretty clever when it comes to monetizing its assets! ;-)"I think that might come under the heading of understatement!
Buy and indulgence anyone?
Gpfr wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? ... I used to get notifications when people have commented...."I don't really kn..."
Me neither, but while hunting round to try to find out more I looked at my details and found I have only read 55 books so far this year and it is October and I read double that last year!
giveusaclue wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have lost my automatic updating system, on Goodreads. Does anyone know why this might have happened? ... I used to get notifications when people have commented...."I do..."
impressive to have read double that last year
i read about 70 a year it seems max and i'm on 63 now, so close to matching 70
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Proust contre la déchéance. Conférence au camp de Griazowietz (other topics)Bretherton: Khaki or Field Grey? (other topics)
Assumption (other topics)
Laying Out the Bones (other topics)
Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King (other topics)
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I fear that Dave's travelling days should be rather curtailed, or at least changed a lot.. He walks very slowly (he is 80) and might as well have a target on his back saying 'easy victim'. It does seem that they hunt in packs, as it was clear that there was more than just one person involved in the scam... It was my idea, as a somewhat more active 69 yr old, that we did a long train trip, so I feel somewhat responsible, I guess... I will need a rethink!... Good that you got some help from the consulate, my one attempt, many years ago, to do so, was Israel, and they were useless....