Off to London today to the theatre. Matinee performance as do not want to stay up too late. Needless to say, this coincides with a Tube strike so I think I shall be doing a lot of walking. Hooray for the new hip! Will blog about it in a day or two
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I am here
if you have landed on this page HOORAY! It has been a confusing time for me and I have to tell you right away that I have a brilliant computer friend in New York and on zoom etc she has helped get Random Jottings safely here. Going to take me a while to get used to it and refine the blog but hopefully all will be well.
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OK well here I am and it is all a bit confusing. I have already tried to post and it failed so haveing another go. Also typepad which hosts my blog seems to have vanished so hoping I can get the old blog back.
This is another tester and let’s see if this one works
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I have been with typepad since I started my blog nearly twenty years ago now. I have just been informed that it is now closing and after the end of September it will vanish and I will have no access to anything I have written.
Part of me thought I would close down as I know I am intermittant in my posting these days but I do wish to hold onto everything I have written and discussed since 2006. I can have it turned into a book etc but it will be wildly bulky and expensive.
I am therefore setting up on WordPress and am in the process of entering into a contract with them. I have to set it all up and then export Random to them. I am hoping to retain the name.
So over the next few weeks I will be dealing with this. Luckily I have a computer expert friend who is going to help me sort it all out and with a bit of luck I will be up and running in the next few weeks.
I would be delighted, pleased and thankful if you will remain with me and I will post updates etc on Random on Typepad for the next few weeks.
Elaine
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"Sir John's satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting about him more young people than his house would hold and the noisier they were the better he was pleased. He was a blessing to all the juvenile part of the neighbourhood for in summer he was for ever forming parties to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the insatiable appetite of fifteen"
Yes I am reading Sense and Sensibility and the above paragraph explains my absence from Random because, as in Emma, my "engagements have increased". My daughter has been over from Australia for four months and all has been parties, banquets and balls (well, perhaps not a ball…). We did go to the seaside too though Cromer not Weymouth and nobody fell off a boat…
While all this was going on I have been having a Janeathon and reading Austen as I could not really find the time for exploring the latest offerings by the publishing houses. Come September and when the nights draw in, I shall be settling down to my reading.
This post is about Emma which is one of my favourite of Austen. Persuasion remains dear to my heart and always will, but I find Emma delightful. She gets everything so wrong and mucks up simply everything, and yet at the end when she realises just what mistakes she has made, she is honest to herself. I simply love her. And after reading the book I embarked on an Emmathon and pulled up all the adaptations of Emma I could find. Here are my thoughts:
I loved the BBC adaptation of Emma with Romola Garai but I know it garnered a mixed response, largely to do with the fact that great chunks of the script were not Jane but newly written. I decided this week to revisit other adaptations and I sat and watched the Gwyneth Paltrow version which I have
not viewed for some time. What struck me straight away was just how strangulated Ms Paltrow's speaking voice sounded – while striving to sound English Upper Class she merely sounded as if she had got something stuck in her throat and this, coupled with a permanently wet look on her face, made me not like her as much as I had hitherto. Mr Woodhouse a bit too genial and amusing to be believable and Toni Collette not totally convincing as Harriet, but but but – yes, the thing that makes it all worthwhile, not just Jeremy Northam as Mr Knightley, gorgeous though he is – Juliet Stevenson as Mrs Elton. Absolutely spot on.One thing I cannot let pass about this particular version is Ewan MacGregor as Frank Churchill, sporting a hair style which just takes your breath away in its awfulness and a reminder, for me anyway, of what a boring actor he is.
So then I turned to a version made some ten years ago with Kate Beckinsale as the heroine.This was not available anywhere but hooray for You Tube. There it was. She has it just about right, more matter of fact about her snobbishness and selfishness and more honest about her shortcomings. Samantha Morton as Harriet, excellent; Bernard Hepton as Mr Woodhouse, also excellent; Prunella Scales as Miss Bates, no comment needed here on just how wonderful she was and then we have Mark Strong as Mr Knightley. Now in real life this actor is totally bald so obviously he had to sport a full
head of hair and I must admit I was totally fascinated by its luxuriance and the way it floated in the wind. However, not as bad as Ewan McGregor's syrup and this actor has the most gorgeous brown eyes and when he said to Emma 'I have lectured you and you have borne it as no other woman in England' and looked at her, I sat on my sofa and went all thing…The only drawback of this well nigh perfect version is the Mrs Elton, played by an actress whose name escapes me (she was one of Bingley's sisters in P&P) who had the most peculiar accent which fluctuated wildly between Irish and American. Not quite sure why.
Some few years back I watched a version of Emma made in 1972 with Doran Goodwin as Emma and I remember her being very very good, though her Mr Knightley looked nearer 50 than 40. It was shown on BBC4 and I watched it with great interest to see if it held up, and it did. At the same time I picked up a version of Sense and Sensibility that I remember watching yonks ago and that was pretty poor, pace so funereal you wanted to fall asleep. Also on You Tube. Here is what I said about it at the time:
"OK, apart from the pace, which was funereal, MY DEAR the vowels, the prunes and prisms and plummy pronunciation. All too much to bear. Everything was so beautifully modulated, the lines were spoken with a reverence suitable for a service in the local Cathedral and it was all so niminy piminy and without any life at all. I really could not believe what I was hearing.
The next thing I noticed was the hair, particularly those of the men. Willoughby as befitting the cad and bounder had gold locks, fairly long and casual and the actor playing him looked rather like a young Rik Mayall when he was a bit gorgeous; Edward's hair was flat and seemingly glued to his head (the actor is also totally bald now) but the best of the lot was Colonel Brandon. Curled and pomaded and masses of it, side whiskers the lot The last hair that fascinated me so much was that of an American actor, Cliff Robertson, in the 1970s Robert Redford movie, Three Days of the Condor (great film) where he looked like he had a back combed ferret on his head. I could not take my eyes off Colonel Brandon in this adaptation".
(NB – I know this post is about Emma but these comments on S&S also apply to the adaptations I have been watching – shows how TV presentation has changed)
The latest Emma had Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley with a very close crop, probably the Brutus which
was fashionable at the time, and all the characters had much less puffed up hair than in other versions. Even Pride and Prejudice, infinitely great in its Firthdom, has more hair than later adaptations…Out of the three I have seen, in the end I plump for the Kate Beckinsale offering. About 90% pure Jane Austen and any additional dialogue fits in beautifully and just so well done. Of course, no surprise as this adaptation was done by none other than Andrew Davies who I think deserves to be knighted for his gift for bringing the classic to life for us all to enjoy.
But, no matter how enjoyable and wonderful all these are in their various ways, nothing beats returning to the original text. I know the most famous Austen opening line is 'It is a truth universally acknowledged…" and everyone knows it and it sets the scene in one utterly perfect sentence, but read this one:
"Miss Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her"
I think this might just pip a universal truth to the post as far as I am concerned and I also admit that I might like Emma more than Elizabeth Bennett…..
More to come on TV adaptations as I shall be watching the Winselt, Thompson, Grant, Rickman Sense and S when I have finished my read.
PS I have not mentioned the last movie of Emma which I really disliked. Even the wonderful Bill Nighy as Mr Woodhouse could not redeem it and why the director thought it a good idea for Emma to have a nose bleed after Knightley's declaration remains one of life's great mysteries.
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Lots of celebrations of the Divine Jane this year which, on the whole, I have avoided as any documentary or programme about her, particularly on the BBC, is 'dramatised' which entails a lot of blurry people wafting about interspersed by talking heads (all of whom are interesting) saying one sentence before we cut back to more wafting.
Yes I know I am a misery but this kind of presenttion on the tv infuriates me and treats us as morons. So I have been returning to the books. At the moment BBC4 are showing some older Austen adaptations and I have recorded and have watched Mansfield Park, made in 1983, and though production values are a little dated, it is still wonderful and all, and I mean ALL, the dialogue is Jane, nothing added. It is still excellent and I have loved it. I then returned to the book which divides opinions and found it as absorbing as ever.
But my favourite Jane remains the same and I
cannot see that changing any time, and it is Persuasion. I have recorded the wonderful version with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root and it is, in my view, just perfect.Persuasion is Jane Austen's last book and it has an autumnal, elegiac, slightly melancholy feel about it. Anne Elliot is 27 and unmarried and living at home with her vain father Sir Walter Elliot and her proud, snobbish elder sister Elizabeth. Mary, the middle daughter who is a fussy, hypochondriac suffering from a permanent state of imagined ill usage, is married and away from home. Anne is totally unappreciated by her family 'it is only Anne' which is a
source of sorrow to her great friend Lady Russell who sees Anne's sterling qualities and similarity to her long dead mother. Lady Russell exerts a strong influence on her and it is she who 'persuaded' Anne to refuse a marriage offer from Frederic Wentworth, then a lowly sailor, who she deemed not good enough for the 19 year old youngest daughter of Sir Walter.Sir Walter Elliot is deeply in debt and is forced to retrench and move to Bath, letting out Elliot Hall to an Admiral Coft and his wife who turns out to be sister to the long lost and loved Frederick.
In Bath Anne finds find her father and sister very pleased with their situation and also boasting that Mr Eliot, their father's heir, is in town and very anxious to be reunited with the family that he, purportedly, slighted many years ago. He is charming, elegant, smooth talking and well bred and begins to pay marked attention to Anne. It seems that he is the perfect match for her and Lady Russell, once more, tries to 'persuade' Anne that this would be a good marriage and would give her a household of her own. Anne is not so sure and while visiting an old school friend, living in difficult circumstances in Bath, finds out certain facts that are detrimental to Mr Eliot and show him for what he is, untrustworthy and scheming.
Frederick is also in Bath and now deemed a much more worthy person than before by her family as he is now a Captain and rich and can thus be admitted to their social circle. By the time Anne and Frederick see each other in Bath they have met frequently in the company of others and Anne has had to suffer in silence, noting his apparent love for Louisa Musgrove and thinking that she has lost him for ever. A surprise engagement announcement that Louisa is marrying another gives Anne hope that perhaps all is not lost.
Anne has a steadfastness and quiet determination, a quality that Jane must have had in abundance and which she has passed on to all her heroines. Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility shows this quietness and her adherance to what she knows to be the right behaviour no matter what, in total contrast to her sister Marianne who, quite frankly, I find a pain; Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, despised as she is by all her relatives save Edward, sticks to her principles throughout and is the only protagonist not to be taken in by the Crawfords; Lizzy Bennett, on the surface much wittier and light hearted than other heroines, also has determination and the strength of character to admit she has been blinded by prejudice. Even Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, who seems to be the silliest of all the Austen heroines, shows remarkable tenaciousness in clinging onto Guy Tilney after she has spotted him and wins him, despite her seeming idiocy. These girls have all got staying power……
Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen and rather derided her style of writing, finding her passionless. This is an understandable reaction from the author of Jane Eyre whose cry of equality to Mr Rochester must surely be one of the greatest moments in English literature, but Austen is not lacking in passion. It is there alright but is hidden and simmering below the surface which makes the declaration of love all the more potent.
Each time I reach the last few chapters of Persuation I am on tenterhooks and want to read on to know what is happening, even thought I have read it countless times. Anne is in Bath, in a hotel sitting room with the Musgrove family who have come to town to buy wedding clothes for their two daughters, Louisa and Henrietta. Anne is by the window talking to an old sailor friend of Captain Wentworth, Captain Harville. He is talking to her of the pain a man feels when he says goodbye to his family on setting sail, while wondering if he will ever see them again. Anne believes that men are capable of 'everything great and good in their married lives' but then comes the sentence that galvanises Frederick into action 'All the privilege I claim for my own sex…………..is that of loving longest when existence or all hope is gone'
Shortly after this Captains Wentworth and Harville depart but before Frederick leaves he gives Anne a letter and places it before her with 'eyes of glowing entreaty'. She opens it and this is what she finds:
"I can listen no longer in silence…….you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own that when you almost broke it eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you…."
No passion?
Yeh, right.
I closed the book last night and loved it all over again.
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OK well I finally have a floor, pipes replaced, working water heater and lagged pipes and all is ok. I have contacted my insurance company and, as yet, no response to letter or emails so I feel another Elaine Special Letter is due to go to the CEO. I am giving them two more days before I get writing.
So it has all been a bit of a pain and then my daughter arrived from Australia (which is NOT a pain) and it has all been a few weeks of rushing around, meeting and greeting and everything went by the board. I am just grateful that the leak etc happened before she landed.
In the meantime I have been lucky as, in consolation for all the havoc, I have had some wonderful publications from some of my favourite authors and have loved them all. Here they are:
Michael Connelly – Nightshade. A new series with a new detective set on Catalina Island. There is another Lincoln Lawyer on its way later this year and I gather from reading an interview with Connelly that Harry Bosch may be bidding us a farewell soon. His daughter Maddy, now in the police force, turns up in the Ballard and Bosch books so the links continue.
Nightshade opens with a body coming to the surface in the
harbour. Weighed down with an
anchor it was supposed to totally sink but the incoming tides brought it in. Detective Stilwell is the man in charge. It goes without saying that he has been exiled to Catalina by another detective back in LA after department politics got in the way and it also goes without saying that he has shades of Harry Bosch in his character and decides to track down the case though he is not supposed to.Not saying any more but it is, as always, tightly plotted and well written and the markers are there for a good long series.
Jane Thynne – The Judgement of Stars. I love all this author's books and while she has been writing others under a different name, and also some stand alone novels, I have been hoping that another Clara Vine book would eventually arrive. I gather I was not the only reader urging the author to give us what we wanted and here it is.
I have reviewed Clara Vine before and the link is here so you will know that Clara is an Anglo-German actress and she meets and knows many of those in charge and is involved in spying for the British government. I have loved all of them and this one was a sit down and read in one sitting story as I was so eager to see what had happened to Clara since the last one. If you are already a fan you will need no urging from me to read it. If you have not read any of them, then please please do so but do start from the beginning.
Marble Hall Murders – Anthony Horowitz. A third book featuring the detective Atticus Punt and, as with the previous titles, we flit backwards and forwards in time, a device which I always enjoy. The BBC have dramatised the previous two titles and I gather this one is in the works. I am not going to give details of the plot as I have no desire to give anything away, but
Horowitz's writing is just soooo good. He wrote the scripts for Foyles War one of my all time
favourite TV series (and I still wish they would bring it back) and it is sheer joy to read such elegant and witty writing. Again, you will need no urging from me to read this title if you are a fan and, if you are not,then please get hold of the first two and sit down and binge and enjoy,OK well I have others to write about but the fingers are getting weary so I will try and do another post with the other books I have loved in the last few weeks,
Currently watching the tennis from Roland Garros so I might be a little bit delayed but I will return and I appreciate you bearing with me.
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Apologies for absence but as you may guess from the title of this post I have had a mini disaster at Schloss Random. My hallway carpet was showing stains which after being cleaned kept coming back and then I discovered that they were, oh horror, wet. My wonderful go to guy came round and ripped up the hall carpet to discover carnage underneath.
I had a new water heater installed about eighteen months ago and the pipework was not, shall we say, one hundred per cent. A tiny tiny little leak had been slowly growing over these months and caused havoc. The whole floor had to be taken up, skirting boards off etc. My guy sorted out the piping and then the whole floor and the storage cupboard had to be dried out. One week of humidifiers going 24/7 and then when the work was started another leak discovered and off we went again.
To cut a long story short, I had to cancel a visit to London to be with the family and ended up over the Easter holiday feeling totally fed up. Of course the Easter eggs could not be delivered so I thought sod it and ate them myself.
Tomorrow the flooring goes down and all will finally be finished. Then in goes the insurance claim……
In the interim my reading has gone to pot and I have been rereading Patricia Wentworth Miss Silver mysteries which are always tremendous fun and some sloshy romances, also fun.
I am also half way through a knitting project for my granddaughter Beatrice who is a huge Harry
Styles fan. Apparently he was filmed wearing a cardigan which is now being copied by fans of
One Direction and Bea, knowing I could knit, asked if I could make it for her for her birthday. I foolishly agreed but must admit I am thoroughly enjoying it. Also tennis and cricket on tv at the moment so all in all I have been kept entertained though I have found the entire event stressful. I find as I get older I worry more about things…'sigh'
What has kept me going is my walking group which I joined six months ago and is proving to be not only a great way of keeping fit but has introduced me to a shedload of new friends.
Au reservoir
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I have not been posting recently as my reading has not been of outstanding interest over the last few weeks. Most of you will know that I am not a lover of modern fiction try though I might and, quite frankly, there has been very little published of late that sparks my interest. This is not a dig at modern day publishing but rather my admission that I now do not really bother to keep up with Booker Prize, Orange Prize, Pink Prize or whatever prize and admit that most of the books nominated simply bore me. This is a reflection of my own personal views not on any of the authors currently writing.
So what to do I ask myself and the answer comes Why Worry? So I am not. I am currently re-reading a lot of authors on my shelves and there are plenty there to keep me going. After I watched the wonderful David Copperfield BBC production about which I posted, I decided to read the book again and so enjoyed it. The anguish David felt when he was working in the blacking factory and the loneliness of his childhood anguish is simply heart rending.
And then, back to one of my favourite genres, crime and a re-read of books by Kate Rhodes. Her first series featured Alice Quentin, a psychologist who is called in to work on profiling with
the Met Police. She has enough childhood and family traumas of her own to deal with and on
first sight one wonders if she is able to deal with murders, some of which are pretty horrid, but this is the heroine of our story so of course she is. All these books are so well written, they fairly zap along, full of interesting characters and twists and turns. The first one in particular left me totally discombobulated at the discovery of the criminal. There are a few occasions when the phrase "with one bound he was free" came to mind as she seems to tumble across bodies on a regular basis, is hit on the head, captured etc but this is fiction and it is all terrific stuff and I can really recommend them. There are six and please do read them in order.Kate Rhodes then turned her attention to the Scilly Isles and a new protagonist Ben Kitto, a former undercover police officer, who returns to his home. No more Alice Quentin which I am rather sad about but off I went with Ben. The Scilly Isles are obviously dear to this author's heart as they are written about beautifully with wonderful descriptions that make you want to charge off straight away and visit.
Ben has his hang ups and is, dare I say it, a bit of a maverick and as all crime readers know we MUST have a maverick who is stubborn and does things his way. There are seven in this series and I hope there are more to come as I have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I have just reread them right from the start and, like the aforementioned Aice Quentin, he does seem to have life threatening adventures on a regular basis and always emerges unscathed but hey ho never mind, loved them and hope there are more to come.
I have also pulled down several titles from my collection of Freeman Wills Croft. I first discovered this Golden Age author when the British LIbrary Classic Crime collection came into being and I was immediately a fan. His Inspector French is a delightful character, a bit pleased with himself sometimes, but stalwart and plodding and never gives up. What I love about these stories is the details. One of my favourites. Death of a Train. involved measurements of gauges and rails, talk of esoteric parts of the engine of which I know nothing. One set in the middle of the sea tells of the times of the tides, the ebb and flow etc and though half the time it is all a mystery to me I love it. A friend of mine who also loves these books said they appealed to the pedant in her and I agree. I now have all his books on my shelves and they took some tracking down as many of them are not in print. There is a lovely series which I gradually purchased and there was one title left. The only copy was for sale at £54 and even I am not daft enough to pay that for a paperback and I regretfully had to let it go. A few weeks later rummaging in a charity shop there it was. £2! Let joy be unconfined so now I have the lot and have been dipping into them again.
I shall be keeping an eye out for the new Shetland story by Ann Cleave. She had given up on these saying she felt there had been too many murders on the Shetlands, bit like Midsomer really, but I get the impression that she has been inundated with requests for another so that will be up soon.
Then Linda Castillo whose crime stories are set amongst the Amish in the US, and I have to say they seem like the Shetlanders to be a murderous lot, has a new title in the summer. On my list.
And, finally a new Bill Slider book due out soon by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. I love these books and urge you to read them but do read them in order please. Witty and amusing and beautifully written.
So I have enough to keep me occuped so dear readers if you are looking for reviews of new and modern books and my thoughts on same, prepare to be disappointed but as most of you know me by now perhaps you won't be…
I should mention that I adore the rather slightingly named chick lit which seems to encompass most female authors who are not Zadie Smith or Iris Murdoch. There are some excellent writers out there who give us books to enjoy and savour and will never make the so called Lit Lists which I have mentioned above but these are the books that many of us love and read and I am one of such. I have the new Veronica Henry ready to go, Millie Johnston has another one out soon and I shall read and wallow.
And then there are the D E Stevensons on my shelves, again I have all of them, to reread and Molly Clavering and Richmal Crompton and E M Delafield…
I shall not be left with nothing to read that is for sure.
Back soon I promise.
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Over Christmas the BBC repeated a marvellous dramatisation of David Copperfield which I remember watching and loving years ago. It was shown in a tribute to the late Dame Maggie Smith who played the role of Aunt Betsy Trotwood and it was a total joy to see this portrayal again. Appearing at David's birth and then rushing away furious because he was a boy and then taking him in when he runs away from London and arrives on her doorstep, she is the most wonderfully warm and lovely character that Dickens ever created. In my opinion anyway. The scene where the Murdstones turn up and she gives them a piece of her mind is simply glorious and I rejoiced in it all over again. I should mention that the late Bob Hoskins played Mr
Micawber beautifully. Normally I always find him acutely irritating but not this time. Also worth remembering is that the young David is played by Daniel Radcliffe before he found fame as Harry Potter. He was a better actor then than he is now…So I took my copy of David C down from the shelf and read it after a long gap and loved it all over again. I can never fathom out what drove Mr Murdstone to behave the way he did and what made him into the person he was but he really is vile, a sadist of the first order.
Of course large parts of the story are autobiographical and Mr Micawber is surely based on his father the improvident John Dickens who ended up in Marshalsea prison being unable to pay off his creditors. The young Charles was sent out to work by his mother and even when better times came she overruled his returning to school and continuing his education for which he never forgave her. He got his own back by basing Mrs Nickleby on her.
David's happy life began when he was adopted by Aunt Betsy and went to live with her. There is a touching moment when, having walked all the way from London, he falls asleep on her sofa and feels a light touch on his head and Aunt Betsy murmuring "poor boy" and it always brings a lump to my throat.
Recently I had a discussion with another reader about Dora Spenlow with whom David falls madly in love. Yes she is silly and inefficient and childish but he still adores her and she is championed by Aunt Betsy who is very aware that David could be in danger of behaving towards her as did Mr Murdstone to his mother. Yet, there is steel in her. On her death bed she tells David that perhaps they were too young when they married and though he loved her as the years went by (he was by now becoming a famous writer) he would tire of his "silly wife" and want something more. I always found this scene incredibly touching and, once again, on reading it I was reduced to tears.
Of course the book is full of glorious creations, the charming and feckless Steerforth, Peggoty, Barkis ("Barkis is willing") Mr Micawber, Mrs Micawber and the vile and ghastly Uriah Heep. I had forgotten how much I loved this book and it was a joy to discover it all over again.
Along with Great Expectations this is my favourite Dickens.
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Back in 2010 having discovered and read, in order, the wonderful Morland Dymasty books of Harrod-Eagles I was totally astonished and dismayed to hear they were coming to an end. Not because the author had got fed up with writing them, au contraire, but because her publisher decided they did not want them any more. It seems this decision was reached because they felt not eough copies were being sold. Although the Morlands were extremely popular too many people either borrowed them from the library or bought a second hand copy (the hardbacks were expensive) and the publisher receives no money from that (neither does the author of course though with library loans some pennies may come her way.) .
I found this decision incredibly short sighted. Historical fiction always sells well – why is Jean Plaidy being reprinted? Why are Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory plastered all over Waterstones? No need to answer that one – because their publishers pay for this space that is why. There is very little publicity for the latest Morland novel as each is published and I think the publishers have lost sight of what a marvellous series they have in their keeping. My gut feeling is that Cynthia Harrod-Eagles has been with them a long time, she is reliable, she gives them a Morland book a year so they take her for granted and perhaps don't think she is 'sexy' enough.
I could not understand why they did not do a push on these titles by rebranding, them, new covers etc. A good marketing exercise would have boosted sales in no times. The odd thing is that her publisher a little while later asked her to do another historical series for them which all sounds a tad confusing, the Ashmore books, which I admit I have tried and did not enjoy as much as her other books.
Anyway to cut a long story short, at long last the final Morland book, The Gathering Storm, has been published. I wonder if the author cut a deal with the publishers to wind it up and tie
up lots of loose ends that were left hanging after the abrupt cancellation? I have read it and enjoyed it but at first found it a trifle confusing as I had to remind myself of how the last book had ended. Of course, after finishing it I did wonder what would happen next but doubt if we will ever find out.It must be very dispiriting for an author who has been with a publisher for years, a reliable and, one hopes, valued member of their list to have this happen. Of course if you are a "sleb" and on telly then you can market your books and sell them in droves, even if they are pretty poor (I am naming no names) and as publishers are there to make money this is going to continue.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles also writes wonderfully funny, incisive and marvellous crime novels featuring Bill Slider. I cannot recomment these highly enough and eagerly await each one as they are published. These books are with another publisher altogether and it seems they have the sense to keep her on their list. They are quite expensive and even the Kindle edition is a bit pricy but I always buy them as I love them so much.
Finally, I would like to mention that when I originally posted about this abrupt curtailment I received over 300 comments, the highest response I have ever had on Random. People were furious and rightly so.
If you like historical novels then I recommend the Morland Dynasty but if you decide to try them please read them in order. The historical research is impeccable and, as a bonus, you learn an awful lot about the times in which they are set.
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Hello all Random Readers and my thanks for your patience. I have now emerged blinking in the sunlight and feeling human again. This happened a day or so ago when I got out of bed and thought "something is wrong" and then I realised that was was wrong was that I felt alright, if that makes sense. Gone was the shakiness, the feeling of nausea and the tiredness. Vanished overnight and gosh, gor blimey, what a relief. I would not wish this virus on my worst enemy no matter how much I loathed them as it totally wiped me out. I stayed indoors as well after my recovery as I gather I could still transfer this fiendish thing to others so thought discretion was the better part of valour.
Anyway, I rejoined my walking group yesterday and had a gentle stroll for about an hour and feel much better for it. Normality has returned.
One does tend to think that when ill you can lie in bed and read and it will all be lovely. Well, it doesn't work that way and I have done very little reading of note over the past month as I could not seem to focus on anything other than the thought was I going to throw up in a moment. Rather limiting.
Anyway, cut the waffle, and I am just going to do a general round up of books I have managed to get through, or start.
Lee Child – Gone tomorrow. Skipped great chunks of this as pages on the best type of machine gun to use and how to assemble it do not appeal. I read this one afternoon, in between dozing, and now cannot remember a thing about it. I am pretty sure, as this is not a new book, that I have already read it but as they are all the same it does not matter. Jack Reacher can get a bit boring after a while. The Netflix series is quite entertaining though. It is now on the charity shop pile.
Tess Gerritsen – The Spy Coast. A new series from this author as she seems to have come to the end of Rizzoli and Isles which is a shame as I really enjoyed them. (the tv series was an abomination turning the relationship between the two protagonists into a silly, sassy ad
libbing pair). This features a bunch of retired spooks who live in Maine and think they are safe. Well, they are not as we all know that Old Spooks never retire, they keep coming back to save the world. Dead bodies start turning up on porches which is obviously A Warning and
links back to a botched operation some years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I do all this author's books as they are well written with a narrative which moves along nicely. There is a throw away line by one of the characters that they are members of "the Martini Club". and lo and behold the second in this series is called, guess what, the Martini Club. (Reminds me of the Thusday Club series by Richard Osman which features another bunch of retirees solving murders etc. There seems to be a lot of that around at the moment).Murder as a Fine Art – Carol Carnac. Another gem from the British Library Classic Crime series. this author also writes under the name E C R Lorac and it seems these have been hugely popular and one of the best sellers of this publishing arm of the British Library. And quite right too. There are many more to come and it seems that this is because of their popularity and good to hear. I enjoy the writing of Lorac but, somehow, the style under Carnac is easier to grasp. Not sure why to be honest but there is a sense of clarity about her Carnac style, I sometimes find the Lorac writing can get a bit convoluted.
In the Ministry of Fine Arts (this dates this immediately, can you imagine this current
government being interested in such an elitist idea?) there is a hideous marble bust on a
pedestal at the top of a staircase"I've often wonders if it would topple off with a little encouragement" said Pompfret "it would be a wonderful sight to see it bounce down the stairs. It must weigh several tons…."
No guessing what happens next.
Throughly enjpying it and I have no idea Who Done it yet.
Flagging up another received from the BritLib – Lettice Cooper, Tea on Sunday. Bunch of disparate peeps invited for afternoon tea but when they arrive their host is dead.
What larks!
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Well here is me thinking I will blog more in 2025 and, yes I have tried, I have been working on posts and was actually all ready to go last week when I was struck down with the Novovirus. I will gloss over the symptoms (if you are really interested you can look them up but not really to be recommended) and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I shed 7lbs in two days, hardly a weight loss method I would offer to you as a solultion, and at the moment am "alone and palely loitering".
I will be back soon as I can
Bye bye January!
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May I wish all my lovely and loyal readers of Random a very happy New Year. I have been absent for a few weeks because of Christmas etc but now the festive season is behind us and we all look ahead to 2025.
2023 was a difficult year for me, as were the previous two, because of mobility issues, and then in 2024 I had a replacement hip. OK, nearly bankrupted me as the waiting list was two to three years, but the best thing I have ever done. To walk freely and without pain was wonderful. 2024 has been the year of consolidation when I worked on my getting better and stretching myself a bit.
I managed a walk from Iken to Snape, Maltings in Suffolk that I have not been able to do for four years, I got out and about and I have now joined a walking group which has helped enormously. I went to Kew at Christmas this year and made it all the way round, over two hours of walking. Knackered the next day but so pleased I made it. A New Year's day walk this mornig and that is going to set the tone for the coming year.
I will continue with the blog. As you know, I almost gave it up but then changed my mind as it has been part of my life for so long and many of you were kind enough to ask me to stay which I really appreciated. I have just changed the content of the blog today as I normally link, with a picture of the book, to my recent reading. For some reason Amazon has altered its set up and I can no longer do this. Today I have set up a different link on the left hand side of the main page so I can continue to list books I have recently read in case you wish to check them out. You will not be able to click on then I am afraid because of this new set up. I do not review everything I read but like to post them so you can take a look. If I review then I always put a link in the body of my post. Not quite sure why Amazon has changed its policy but hey ho…
Anyway enough wittering and, once again, Happy New Year and I will endeavour to post a bit more often in 2025.
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One of the joys of the British LIbrary Classic Crime series has been the discovery of E C R Lorac (she also writes under the name of Carol Carnac) and becoming acquainted with Superintendent Macdonald.
Murder in Vienna was published in 1956 and has long been out of print. I managed to get hold of a very tatty copy some years back but am delighted that this new edition, with the usual elegiac and wonderful covers, was sent to me by the British Library for review. Always a joy to
receive titles and to discover writers that I know nothing about. E C R Lorac has been one of their most popular discoveries and there are plenty more titles to get through so here is hoping for more.
The introduction, as always written in a masterly fashion by Martin Edwards, points out that this was one of a number of British detective novels from this period which were sent in overseas locations."Crime writers were responding to the desire of readers, wearied by years of
domestic post-war austerity and keen on escapist ficiton to enjoy a vicarious sense of the glamour of foreign travel".Vienna is a city which I simply must visit. It has always fascinated me, the land of music and Strauss and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, sachertorte and coffee houses and much more. So any books set in this city grab my attention and I was delighted to see that the rather charming Macdonald is in Vienna.
"for him the city had a charm all of its own. After all, under its gaiety and brilliance Vienna has always been a centre of intrigue"
He is visiting an old friend Dr Natzler and on the plane notes some unusual passengers. Elizabeth le Vendre is a young new secretary to Sir Walter Vanbrugh who is going to help write his memoirs. There are rumours that these memoirs are not viewed with favour and when Elizabeth is reported missing and found unconscious from an attack, Macdonald finds himself caught up in the investigation.
Set against the background of post war Vienna, with its beautiful palaces and gardens, its disenchanted residents and scars of war, E C R Lorac has written a book drenched in atmosphere. Those of us who remember the film The Third Man which captures the slightly noirish feel of Vienna at this time will receive the same feeling when reading this story.
This mystery makes its return to print for the first time since its original appearance. I highly recommend it. Though I love Lorac's books, as with prolific authors there are those that I enjoy less than others, but this is not one of them. It goes onn my list of favourites.
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Norah Lofts is the author of almost fifty historical fiction novels none of which I have read though I am an admirer of the genre. I have tried but found them not to my taste and some of the titles and, in the sixties and seventies, ghastly covers always put me off.
She was among the list of authors who had a vast turnover when I worked in the library system years ago. In that long ago time when Mary McCarthy, Iris Murdoch et al were the authors of the day, Norah Lofts, along with D E Stevenson, E M Delafield, Miss Read and Dorothy Whipple were never on the library shelves as they were borrowed as quickly as they returned. I have mentioned before, and here I go mentioning it again, that I rather turned my nose up at these ‘nice’ books which I thought were only good enough for old ladies. Well now I know better and also as an old lady myself have read all the works of the aforementioned and love them. Inside those seemingly sweet and slightly twee book covers lurked stories that were true to life and exposed all the frailties and temptations by which we are all affected. I am pleased to say that these authors are now read by a younger audience as well and much appreciated.
Norah Lofts wrote four non historical novels between 1940 and 1960 under the pseudonym Peter Curtis. It seemed she wished to try something different but did not wish to alienate her fan base. Lady Living Alone, now published under her real name by the British Library, was one of these titles and I was rather intrigued when it dropped through my letter box.
Penelope Shadow is a moderately successful writer but her circumstances are transformed by the unexpected success of her fourth novel Mexican Flowers and, at the age of 35, she finds herself wealthy and capable of an independent life.The choice of name is apt as she seems a shadowy person, timid and self effacing and
incapable of looking after herself. She had been living with her sister Elsie and her children and when faced with the reality of buying a house of her own, as her sister wishes to remarry, she has no idea how to go about it.“As soon as she had shown her piquant little face and began to relate in her vague rambling manner what she required that men in fusty house agencies began to think dark and dangerous thoughts connected with ridding themselves of some ‘sticker’ some house which had been on the books for months or even years…”
In the end Elsie stepped in and found a suitable house. Penelope moved in and all seemed set fair except for the fact that Penelope had never lived alone before, had no idea how to deal with every day matters, and over the coming months was doomed to lose on a regular basis her housekeepers/servants who either cheated her or became bored.
Returning home one day and having been given notice by her latest woman, Penelope stopped for the night at a hotel as she simply could not go home to an empty house. The hotel is uncomfortable, badly run and in the middle of nowhere but it was better than going home alone. Here she is assiduously looked after by the Boy who makes sure she has a good room, a hot water bottle and well fed despite the slightly eccentric owners seeming careless attention to their guests.
“You have been very kind to me”
“Well I haven’t strained myself over it. And you look at though you could do with a bit of looking after”
Penelope looked up sharply, scenting impertinence but none was there. He had made a simple statement of fact and only a fool or a snob could have resented it”
Unhappy with his position as a general man of all work, Terry which is his name agrees to come and work for her and they leave together. It is clear to any reader that this is a dangerous and foolish move and disaster lies ahead. At first all is well, Penelope is well looked after, her life is running smoothly and, best of all, she is not alone in her house. As the months go by gossip about their relationship is rife but as she is totally unaware of this and it is only brought to her attention by Terry the reader once more suspects his motives.
He tells her that he has fallen in love with her.
“I think I do love you Terry and if you feel the same in the morning ….I think we’ll have to get married”
She slipped away so she missed the expression of calculating triumph which, despite his efforts to suppress it, dawned on his face at her final words……after all one likes six months of hard labour to bear some result”
The inevitable happens. Ephemeral happiness in her marriage and then a gradual realisation that Terry is unfaithful and clearly wishes to have control of her money and she is helpless. And it is then that Norah Lofts gives the story of Penelope a totally unexpected twist and an ending to the story that left me quite staggered. The slightly ineffectual Miss Shadow turns out to have hitherto unsuspected depths and imagination to best her erring husband and to emerge triumphant.
I will say no more as I do not wish to give anything away. It is not surprising that Norah Lofts wrote this under a different name as her normal readership would have been astonished. I only wish she had written more like this.
The British Library Women Writer’s series has come up with some really interesting titles over the last few years and I found this most enjoyable.
I wonder what else they will discover ……
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It is that time of the year when the nights draw in and one hunkers down and that is what I have been doing these last few weeks. When the clocks go back and it gets dark at 4pm then I like to draw the curtains, make tea and curl up with a book or the remote.
In the last few weeks I decided to rewatch West Wing right from the beginning. Not quite sure why but I keep getting little "best bits" popping up on my twitter/Face book feed so it made me feel that I would like to check it out. So I have the first three seasons to hand and am currently half way through Season 2. I am grateful for sub-titles now as most of the characters are charging around the White House at warp speed and chatting all the time and I missed quite a lot of at first watch so now I can catch up.
So what do I think? Well, I am enjoying it but am finding it somewhat irritating in parts which I did not before. I am getting older and more cycnical as time passes which may account for it. The saintliness of President Bartlett and his ability to talk knowledgeably on EVERYTHING is beginning to wear thin as is Donna's back chat with Josh which is irritating to the nth degree. I know that the script is brilliant and the back and forth is witty and savvy, but in my experience of meetings (an experience of many years) most people waffle and are less than incisive. Still it is tv.
I also am coming to the conclusion that it is not necessary for a distant trumpet to sound every time the President says something wonderful and his staff are stunned into awe struck silence.
A book has just come out called What's Next celebrating 25 years since the programme was aired and I decided to get it and read and catch up on insider chat etc. Well there is plenty of that but the two authors, who were in the show, seem to decide that gush mode is the way to go. Every time an actor is discussed, how they booked him, auditioned him etc they come in with bracketed interpolations usally saying OMG he smashed it, he was incredible, everyone was stunned into silence blah blah blah. Half way through this mighty tome, and it weighs in at about 3lb, I could take no more and it has been tossed into the home for abandoned books.
It also seems that Martin Sheen in person as well as in his role as the President was a saint, a saint I tell you, who went round chatting to the lowest members of the team and reducing them to star struck silence.
So that was that.
Now in between watching West Wing, I have binging on Netflix and have been watching the Lincoln Lawyer. Series 3 has just finished and it is excellent. There was a movie of the first book in the series starring Matthew McConaugheyand it was pretty good but the series has
taken it further and dramatised the books by Michael Connelly. They have done a really good job. The script writers have stuck to the story lines closely with no mucking about or huge changes, and though there are certain changes in personnel which I think add to the drama rather than detract, the main narrative remains the same as the books. Extremely well done and I am thoroughly enoying them.Over on Prime Video Michael Connelly has also been adapted extremely well, this time the Harry Bosch series. Once again, the story lines have been stuck to with some alteration but the heart of the stories has remained the same.
I gather there is a slight problem with the Lincoln Lawyer series 4 which they are having to solve, in that Netflix and Prime Video have dramatised the stories but have not used characters from the Bosch books and there are a few occasions when there has been a cross over. There is no way they can avoid this in the next run so I gather that meetings are being held and secret talks taking place to try and resolve the issue. I guess it will come down to money in the end.
What I have enjoyed about both the above is the producers have remained faithful to the original work. I do wish others would take note. Here in the UK there have been recent dramatisations of Dame Agatha Christie where not only have the characterisations of the protagonists been changed which is irritating, but in some case the actual murderer has been altered too which I think is unforgivable. If you are going to adapt an author for the TV or the big screen, there is nobody who does not understand that changes have to be made for dramtic purpose, but to off piste is just not on. The recent movies with Kenneth Branagh as Poirot are simply awful and I think are a vanity project for Our Ken. I gather he has more in the works. I tried to watch Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express but they had the narrative drive and speed of a sloth so I gave up.
If you have not read the Connelly books I can really recommend them. I have read the lot and he is still going strong so, hopefully, many more to come.
Oh and I have to say that if you can, do watch The Diplomat on Netflix. Not a book, an original screenplay, and it is simply terrific. In the second series which I have just watched (twice as I missed nuances the first time) Alison Janney, who played CJ in the West Wing, turns up as the Vice President of the United States, and I have to say she steals the show. Wonderful.
I have also read a rather interesting book in the last few days, as far removed from all of the above as it is possible to be, and I am pondering on my post on that. I will let you have my thoughts soon.
Now off to get my supper. Last night I was eating my casserole on a tray (I have no dining room in my flat) and I managed to drop it all over the floor. While cleaning it up I stepped backwards onto a potato and squashed it flat. Scrubbed the kitchen floor, checked food was ok and bunged it in the microwave. Got it out, put it on tray and yes, banged into the door and once again my dinner was scattered far and wide. At this stage I gave up, binned the lot and made a cheese sandwich.
So wish me luck as I head off to the kitchen………….
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“Someone had crashed their car inside the Admiralty Arch – the folly of trying to manoeuvre a large Austin 7 through such a narrow space alongside a bicycle. Voices were raised indignantly, a man was shouting and the traffic was backing up…….not far away from this commotion Hubert Newman made his way erratically along Pall Mall…”
This is the opening of Midnight in Vienna and within a few pages Hubert Newman is dead.
It is 1938 and Stella Fry has returned to London from Vienna where she has been living and working. She has had a love affair which has come to an end when she discovers her lover is joining the Socialist Party…
“What does it matter what I believe? It doesn’t change who we are’.
‘I think it matters what you believe”
She is now home, out of work and sharing a flat with Evely Lamont an actress friend.
“although actual fame eluded her she had met Edith Evans and Margaret Lockwood and could imitate both with perfect mimicry. She had taught herself to hold a cigarette like Bette Davis and she studied Vogue like the bible”
Stella had spent her time in Vienna as a private tutor before the Austrian family she worked for, and whose children she loved, had decided to leave and seek safety in New York. She
could speak three languages, had a Royal typewriter, no job and a broken heart and she knew that generous though Evelyn was she needed to find work.She then sees an advertisement in the Times ‘author seeks typist’. The author is Hubert Newman a famous writer of detective stories. They lunch at the Athenaeum and he finds her knack of "spot the mistakes" perfect for the job. This particular manuscript is a departure from the norm.
“the fact is that this book is not a detective novel at all. It is a literary investigation. It is called Masquerade. I decided to apply my skills as a sleuth to investigate all the alternative candidates for the ‘real' Shakespeare”
He offers her the job and promises to send her the manuscript immediately. The next morning Stella is shocked to hear of his death and then twenty four hours later the manuscript arrives with the dedication;'
'To Stella, spotter of mistakes.
The story has two main protagonists so we are now introduced to Harry Fox, formerly of Special Branch, brilliant at surveillance, suspended for some undisclosed mistake and now a Watcher. It is quite amusing to read that his job is to follow possible subversives such as Auden and Orwell and spends most of his days following his targets. He has his own reasons for being interested in Hubert Newman. He approaches Stella Fry to share his belief that the writer's death was no accident.
I admit that when I first started reading this book I was not immediately captivated as I have been with the author’s Clara Vine books, but I still found I could not put it down and it slowly drew me in until I was intrigued enough to carry on and read it in one sitting.
The story shifts between Vienne and London and Jane Thynne captures perfectly the atmosphere of pre- war Europe and its uncertainties. She is very much at home in this milieu. Oddly enough after reading Midnight in Vienna I watched a programme about the director David Lean and his earlier films made in black and white. I realised that when I pictured the scenes and characters in Midnight in Vienna, as I do when reading, it was the style of Lean with his sharply defined cinematography that came to mind and fitted perfectly with my inner vision of this story. The atmosphere created was almost film noir.
I love Jane Thynne’s writing. I constantly repeat myself when I say how much I appreciate clean writing, straightforward narrative no frills or furbelows – a style of writing which is a pleasure to read and which flow continuously. This title, along with others I have read by this author, exhibits all of the above and by the end I found myself totally involved with the characters. It seems, by the slightly open ended finale, that this is the start of a series and I am already looking forward to the next one.
But oh please, if I am not being too greedy, may we have another Clara Vine?
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After my re-read of Jane Eyre and watching two tv/film adaptations of same I decided to have another perusal of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I also found that the 1996 adaptation was available on Amazon Prime so I gave that another go and enjoyed it just as much the first time around. It would be good to have a more up to date version though I dread to think how it would be handled now to be honest.
So a bit of a Bronte month BUT I hasten to add, there will be no going back to Wuthering Heights which I freely confess I loathe. Why anybody should view Heathcliff as a hero is totally beyond me. I blame the old Olivier/Merle Oberon film of years ago with Laurence O looking all Byronic and glam when in reality Heathclifee was, in my opinion anyway, a pyschopath. The entire book is full of people with the most god awful characters without one redeeming feature amongst them. I have always found Emily to be a bit of a pain. Charlotte seemed to hold her in great admiration (or was it fear? would not be surprised).
I sometimes want to shake for her so called bravery when dying when I think she was being plain selfish and an exhibitionist. Others may weep at the thought of this strong woman staggering around the rooms clutching the furniture and refusing to see a doctor, thus ensuring the maximum amount of suffering for those who had to witness it all. Then the final collapse on the sofa and Charlotte rushing in with a piece of gorse from her beloved moors so she could smell it before she died. Yes and call me cynical if you like, I don't mind.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is the story of an abusive marriage to a drunken husband and Anne used Branwell's behaviour and appalling end as her model for Arthur Huntingdon. Her family were not happy with the book and did not want it published but Anne stuck to her guns and Tenant was issued. Critics have said it is clumsy and uneven but I disagree. I know that the first and last sections are in the first person of Gilbert, a young farmer who persists in his
attentions to Helen Huntingdown when she moves to Wildfell Hall with her young son and refuses to be rejected until she hands him her diary to explain her situation. The majority of the novel is then Helen's narrative and it does come as a bit of a bump when we jump back to Gilbert towards the denouement. However, I think it is a wonderful book and the more I have read it the more I have appreciated it and I now have a huge admiration for Anne.After Anne’s death Charlotte tried to stop Tenant of Wildfell Hall being republished as she disapproved of the subject matter. A bit rich from somebody who wrote about a heroine who fell in love with a man who had a mad wife in the attic.
As the years have gone by and I have re-read both Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall many times, I have re-evaluated them both and I have come to the conclusion that Tenant is the greater book. I sometimes wonder if Charlotte maintained the “quiet Anne” the “meek Anne” idea because, deep down, she realised that her younger sister was perhaps the greatest writer of them all….
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I recently re-read Jane Eyre after some years and, once again, found myself totally engrossed with it. I first read it when I was about eleven and enjoyed the first part, and cried at the death of Helen Burns, but could not really grasp the rest. I then tackled it again as a teenager and got further with it, but it was not until I read it in my twenties that I understood the wonderful moment when Jane claims equality with Rochester. Never fails to make my hair stand on end and, at the time it was published, ground breaking.
There have been many films and tv productions of the novel and, out of interest I decided to check out Amazon and see just how many there are.
First of all, there were three BBC versions. One I have never seen is the first with Sinead Cusack as Jane and her Rochester a very young Michael Jayston. I may get hold of this out of sheer curiousity. I rather liked the Timothy Dalton, Zelah Clarke one which I remember very well and, of course, the latest one which I thought was wonderful, even if they did muck about with Charlotte's words, as I found Toby Stephens just right as Rochester and Ruth Wilson quite heartbreaking and vulnerable as Jane (I just watched this again this week and still think it is terrific though rather spoiled by the chocolate box ending).
Then various film versions (love the blonde one on the left!) The Wells/Fontaine one had the impossibly beautiful young Elizabeth Taylor playing Helen Burns which is pretty mind boggling. The John Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourgh version was of monumental dullness with Hurt totally charisma free as Rochester.
Next up, George C Scott, totally over the top and a gormless Susannah York portrayal. On the right, Samantha Morton looked the part but did not shine and her Rochester, Ciaran HInds, who I thought would have been excellent, seemed curiously lacking somehow. This version, from ITV, also had Elle McPherson as Blanche Ingram. Enough said I think.
Much though I love the Toby Stephens one I have to say that I think my favourite out of all of them is the one with Fassbender as Rochester and Mia Wasikowska as Jane. I think it is absolutely perfect and the final scene, though it ends very quickly, is wonderful. The wordless joy of their reunion is spot on. And it has the bonus of Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax.
Has anybody else got any favourites or comments on the above?
It is odd that as winter gets nearer I find I always want to sit down with a good Victorian novel. I can never work out why…
