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I can see that I'm simply going to have to let my mother have first read of this gem! I shall somehow have to be patient.

Perfect escapism for the quiet post-Christmas & New Year period. Will the diamond markets be destroyed by the Professor’s complex recipe for nature-identical synthetic diamonds? Explosions, imprisonment, the feigning of madness, yachting pursuits at night on the Solent, & now it’s heading to a final denouement in Switzerland ….

Finished Round 2, “The Black Gang” last night. Such style, honour, strategy, and quite exquisite violence. A riveting good read. So very, very reminiscent of Fleming’s James Bond books; except that Hugh Drummond comfortably predates Bond by almost a generation.

Now getting into “The Black Gang”: “If Mr Darrell or any of them ring up I shall be tearing a devilled bone to-night at the Savoy grill at eleven o’clock.” The imposter James Bond is a mere copycat by comparison!

“We were prepared for the worst: for a week’s, for a month’s delay. Actually we were there (the Naichi River) only three days. We got hold of a Mongol who had two camels of his own and scrounged another; and Li bought a she-camel in calf which he hoped to sell at a profit. Camels carry their calves for thirteen months; Li’s was four months gone, of dwarfish stature, and altogether ludicrous to look at.”

The beginning of the expedition proper.

Angus Wilson has thrown himself into the lake in front of the house. This is reported as being just one of the 'Technicolour' outbursts of this unstable character.

I can barely believe that this morning I managed to buy this book, in mint condition, published only last year, second-hand in a charity (thrift) shop … when less than a week ago I was unable to locate a new copy in any of the three bookshops I tried!

Started this slim volume sometime last week – I can’t remember exactly when. The humour is deliciously, yet quirkily delicately, off beat.

Finished the 1st bk late last night. Overall it has read like the most headstrong collision of Hannay, Wimsey, Bond, Steed, Penelope Pitstop, & Paul Daniels: except that, of course, Hugh Drummond predated most of those. Love the dry sense of humour: “Hugh”, he spluttered, “there’s only one stipulation. An armistice must be declared during Ascot week” (p.101).

All terrifically British stiff upper lip honour and heroism.

So long ago, yet that which is described, often harrowingly, within the pages of this book feels also distressingly recent.

The variety contained within this book is remarkable. I've just read Ovid translated by Christopher Marlowe.

I’m amazed to find that I appear to be the first in the Goodreads community to read this Faber collection.

So far I’m finding the variety absolutely fascinating. “Eskimo Nell,” in particular is wonderfully explicit and absolutely hilarious. In general the ‘discussion’ of sex (I do not mean romance) through the medium of verse strikes me as being far, far more successful than prose.

Actually on pg 132, but have just found a brief biography of the author at http://www.theydon.org.uk/lhs/Downloa... which I thought worth noting here & on author's record..

1915 Mapping the enemy's defences. Holding a conical camera (5" x 4" plate-glass negative), leaning over the side of the aeroplane (in flight) to take photographs of the German positions. Ten operations required to take each photograph following the first. Talk about skill!

“But alas! Firemen [stoking a ship] are not what they were. The gor-blimey firemen of the coal-burning days must, I think, be a diminishing species and in these degenerate times, when ships burn oil, the firemen is rapidly becoming a perfect gentleman, which is a pity ..."

The whales have headed North, away from the Antarctic winter; enabling the hunting season to open off the coast of South Africa. Lovely descriptions of Durban (1930) and the Zulu natives. Formalin is regularly employed to kill the clouds of black flies which congregate in the outhouse where our two zoologists (Ommanney & his colleague) work.

“The 12,000 ton Norwegian factory ship "Antarctic" has just made harbour at South Georgia: "We passed under her stern where there was written “Antarctic – Tønsberg” and past her huge open whale slipway, up which soon the dead bodies of the Leviathan would go to their mass cremation. To the stolid fair-headed men gazing down we cried “Fuld fangst!” – Good hunting!” One or two lifted their caps. They had reacted.”

Utterly engrossing.

Here is a real and very human life who when compared to fiction such as Downton Abbey makes that particular TV production look completely one-dimensional and irrelevant.

Utterly engrossing.

Here is a real and very human life who when compared to fiction such as Downton Abbey makes that particular TV production look completely one-dimensional and irrelevant.