Month: June 2011
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The BBC's complaints process is "convoluted" and "overly complicated", a group of peers has said. via www.bbc.co.uk Of course this article is totally correct but until the We know Best so Piss Off response is outlawed, nothing will change
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Back from a sweltering London and very glad to be home in the cool. Mother of all thunderstorms this afternoon with lightning and torrential rain but now we have that lovely fresh smell from the earth and the leaves. Bliss. So my round up of books read in the last week. Seven Days one Summer…
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Just a bijou postette today as I am in full lyinginaheaponsofa mode as it is sweltering. The reason the weather is a source of permanent discussion in the UK is that you never know from one minute to next what it is going to do. Last week it was rainy and grey and quite cold,…
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I was up in London this week to attend a Not Afternoon Tea with fellow bloggers at the invitation of HarperCollins. When I tell you the venue for this meeting was the restaurant at the top of the Oxo Tower on the South Bank, you will understand why I was happy to accept… It was…
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Been a busy week folks and had a long long long but simply wonderful day in London yesterday, not only with my darling Florence but also with lots of interesting people and had lots of fun. When I tell you I was up at 6am and driving to London and then drove home at 10pm…
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Everyone knows by now how much I love Anthony Trollope and after reading his Autobiography a couple of weeks ago, I love him even more. I have said in the past and will, no doubt, say it again that when you write an autobiography or your letters or diaries are published the character of the…
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The writer of Lark Rise to Candleford is to return to BBC1 with a new series based on French novelist Emile Zola's The Ladies' Paradise, a rags to riches story about a young girl in the 1890s. via www.guardian.co.uk I read this Zola book a few yars ago and simply loved it (my review is…
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Pouring with rain at time of writing, grey skies and really it could almost be November. After one of the driest two months for yonks the tennis and cricket season is here in the UK and, naturally, the rain is simply pissing chucking down. It was ever thus. I had an unpleasant week last week. …
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via www.guardian.co.uk As I love lists could not resist checking this out. Gorgeous pic of the reading room at the British Museum as well. As I scrawled down the list I began to feel increasingly ignorant and 'But I haven't read ANY of these' was my cry. Thankfully, I ended up with a few and…
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Three crime novels this week – all different and all great fun. Odd that the word 'fun' should be attributed to murder but all the books I read this week had a humorous side. Rack, Ruin and Murder – Ann Granger An author new to me and I freely admit that it was the cover…
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It is the start of the English grass court season and, true to form, after one of the driest three months we have had for ages, the rain is now pouring down and it is cold and grey. I have not been feeling too well this week so was glad to loll around on the…
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"You must have had the experience of finding yourself so absorbed by the world conjured up in a book that you read it ever more slowly – battling the urgent desire to find out what happens next – because you can’t bear to get to the end" These are the opening lines of an article…
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Am getting a bit behind with my reviews as I have been hit by some lurgy that is making me feel a bit under the weather, but am now feeling a little bit better so here we go with a couple of reviews. Devil's Consort – Anne O'Brien Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine is married to…
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Ann Patchett's novel bel Canto won the 2002 Orange Prize and, true to my principles, I didn't read it precisely because of that. And yes, silly I know so when a copy floated into my ken, I decided to give it a whirl particularly as it had an operatic background. Quite a few visitors to…
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Could not resist copying this review across from the Telegraph today. Echoes my feelings about the way this documentary was done. And one comment below also tunes in with my thoughts. Always good when somebody agrees with one! During the 1920s the archaeologist OGS Crawford embarked on a survey of British archaeological sites seen from…
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Cannot believe the week has passed so quickly and I have about five reviews I wish to get up on Random and just don't seem to have the time. In London on Wednesday to meet with Florence's Other Grandmother for lunch and tea, which was lovely, then Cambridge yesterday for lunch with my friend Jan…
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As with J K Rowling, this author does not give us a Christian name – perhaps not wanting to be judged by gender. There is no information on the book jacket either, but on checking on Amazon there is a picture of the author – and it is a man. I found this slightly surprising…