Don't hold your breath on me using Twitter regular-like: it's more a point of contact for when other things fail.
Please note: I do NOT get free texts from my mobile. So I won't be texting or receiving by text Tweety-type updates.
Just so ya know.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Indietracks 2009: live music review
With a Friday that saw torrential showers, and a Sunday that has been distinctly overcast with occasional drizzle, I think we had the best of the three days at Indietracks, a music festival of Indiepop held at the Midland Railway Centre, Butterley, Derbyshire.
Indiepop you say? No, come back, please don't run away.
Taking a positively eclectic interpretation of this much derided term, Indietracks provides a small scale festival specialising in music that ranges from twee, to weird, to catchy pop, to pop sung in languages other than English, to twee as fuck and everything in between along with a DIY ethos encouraging badge-making, sewing and other assorted craft activities. There were plenty of pretty summer dresses on the girls and lots of band/quirky t-shirts on the boys.
I said come back! Please! It WAS good - really it was!
Indietracks is establishing itself as a lovely little event with a sister event called Christmas Twee (don't groan). We missed 2008 - when Ballboy performed - due to commitments with a friend's wedding - but it there certainly seems some returning business as Gordon of Ballboy was coming back this year to solo perform and run the quiz.
Of course the band that pulled us in for this summer were the wonderful Camera Obscura who can't turn in a bad gig even when they play with instruments that aren't their own (though that occasion at Summer Sundae 2006 did memorably turn the organ's middle eight in 'Lloyd, Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?' into a Raw Sex tribute). At Indietracks 2009, Camera Obscura were second top on the main, Elefant sponsored, stage and with the sun blazingly setting behind them they put on a glorious performance. I even think Traceyanne smiled!
As ever Carey Lander is the one who made me swoon - god I wish I was her! - but the band were on seriously top form.
(Shamefully, we passed on the headline act, La Casa Azul. What can I say: I'd done my shoulder in the previous day, my leg was aching and any later leaving and there would have been a hungry Lisa on arrival home. Ahem)
Anyway, amongst the other artistes we caught were:
Indiepop you say? No, come back, please don't run away.
Taking a positively eclectic interpretation of this much derided term, Indietracks provides a small scale festival specialising in music that ranges from twee, to weird, to catchy pop, to pop sung in languages other than English, to twee as fuck and everything in between along with a DIY ethos encouraging badge-making, sewing and other assorted craft activities. There were plenty of pretty summer dresses on the girls and lots of band/quirky t-shirts on the boys.
I said come back! Please! It WAS good - really it was!
Indietracks is establishing itself as a lovely little event with a sister event called Christmas Twee (don't groan). We missed 2008 - when Ballboy performed - due to commitments with a friend's wedding - but it there certainly seems some returning business as Gordon of Ballboy was coming back this year to solo perform and run the quiz.
Of course the band that pulled us in for this summer were the wonderful Camera Obscura who can't turn in a bad gig even when they play with instruments that aren't their own (though that occasion at Summer Sundae 2006 did memorably turn the organ's middle eight in 'Lloyd, Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?' into a Raw Sex tribute). At Indietracks 2009, Camera Obscura were second top on the main, Elefant sponsored, stage and with the sun blazingly setting behind them they put on a glorious performance. I even think Traceyanne smiled!
As ever Carey Lander is the one who made me swoon - god I wish I was her! - but the band were on seriously top form.
(Shamefully, we passed on the headline act, La Casa Azul. What can I say: I'd done my shoulder in the previous day, my leg was aching and any later leaving and there would have been a hungry Lisa on arrival home. Ahem)
Anyway, amongst the other artistes we caught were:
- bits of Downdime, Sucrette (from Japan, who were lovely but seemed to take an hour to get going and then set the main stage running well off schedule: still, they had come in from Kyoto), Friends, and Butcher Boy
- Little My (quirky collective from Wales who perform together whilst wearing animal ears. From Minnie Mouse and her hairbow to a full-on bear suit)
- Tender Trap (sounding suspiciously similar to Tallulah Gosh because, gosh, they share some of the same members!
- One Happy Island (one of a whole collection of bands over from the USA . Included trumpet playing and kazoos: brilliant!)
- The Frank and Walters (taking me back to the very early 1990s but still as much Cork-derived fun as you can have)
- The Lovely Eggs (performing in the sweltering heat of the tin church stage - no, really, the old church is made of tin. Add about 100+ people on a sunny day. Worth it to hear 'Have you ever heard a digital accordion' which has to qualify as one of the year's weirdest tracks)
Okay, so in the end we didn't see any of the artistes performing on the steam trains (more by lack of planning on our part, plus it was such a glorious day we wanted to be outside as much as possible). Nor did we attend any of the workshops (though we did catch a bit of the 'how to write a pop song' which was quite hilarious) - not even Eithne's sewing session. But we waved at the passing train travellers - standard visitors were still in the vicinity though what they thought of us indie kids and not-so-kids is anyone's guess! - and we had super fun for the whole day. Utterly recommended and proceeds support the work of the Railway Centre in restoring old trains to their past glory.
Next year? maybe!
Next year? maybe!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Rubbish blogger: an explanation
Me as blogger: rubbish. Sorry about that.
In defence I was ill at the end of last week and scarcely did anything from Wednesday to Sunday. Back at work Monday and its been go go go.
What I SHOULD have been blogging about was:
* Desperate Romantics (wasn't it a hoot?!)
* Doctor Who costume and companion pictures
* Widening participation and the need to encourage 'pushy parents' (cannot begin to express my issues with the discussions so far)
* Bookshelves (from the coverage about James P rearranging his)
* the Swedish version Wallander (why did they need to remake these with Kenneth B? I like KB but they seem to replicate the originals so much I can't quite see the point... oh but there are those subtitles... *sigh*)
In defence I was ill at the end of last week and scarcely did anything from Wednesday to Sunday. Back at work Monday and its been go go go.
What I SHOULD have been blogging about was:
* Desperate Romantics (wasn't it a hoot?!)
* Doctor Who costume and companion pictures
* Widening participation and the need to encourage 'pushy parents' (cannot begin to express my issues with the discussions so far)
* Bookshelves (from the coverage about James P rearranging his)
* the Swedish version Wallander (why did they need to remake these with Kenneth B? I like KB but they seem to replicate the originals so much I can't quite see the point... oh but there are those subtitles... *sigh*)
Monday, July 13, 2009
Pain thresholds
If you have not already read it, then may I urge you to read Marie's awesome post about the Dr Denis Walsh story.
Whilst I appreciate that as a non-mother (and one not seeking to give birth in this lifetime) even I can recognise bullshit when I hear it.
Give me strength.
Whilst I appreciate that as a non-mother (and one not seeking to give birth in this lifetime) even I can recognise bullshit when I hear it.
"Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby."That line really better be a misquote or frankly I'm going to be taking a short walk with the largest watermelon I can find and putting it where the sun don't shine. Purposeful? Useful? Well, perhaps in terms of timing and responding to contractions - but that seems to be mistaking cause and effect. A number of benefits? For whom exactly? (and surely it depends on the birthing situation of the individual mother/baby --- I had the cord around my neck....) And do not get me started on that part of the sentence to which I added emphasis. Fathers presumably then have no part to play, and certainly not responsibility, in nuturing a new born baby?
Give me strength.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Post-Torchwood blues
With commentators at Behind the Sofa watching the Red Riding Trilogy to cheer themselves up, you can probably guess that post-Torchwood: Children of Earth there's a general air of 'blimey: exhausted grimness alert'.
Needless to say I've made a lentil loaf and we're watching The Blues Brothers.
I need some small pleasures.
Needless to say I've made a lentil loaf and we're watching The Blues Brothers.
I need some small pleasures.
George's munros
I felt the need for some nature so I went and had a look at my bloglines for the George's recent munro reports - the photos on the posts are so spectacular that they fair take your breath away.
I think I would be giddy being so high up!
I think I would be giddy being so high up!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Reactions for Rosby: watching Torchwood - Children of Earth
Fairly spoiler-free comment on Day Four of Torchwood's Third Series ("Children of Earth").
Quite frankly, I'm all over the place emotionally about this.
I know some have remained unimpressed, and there have been moments of high silliness, but I think the testament that has most reached me is that Cloud has been utterly addicted (and not in a 'let's laugh at Rullsenberg biting her nails' kinda way).
So far we've had tension and half-seen monsters, politics in the way that we've come to expect, grand acting from the likes of Peter Capaldi and Paul Copley and... and ...
... and...
Death.
I am now utterly torn. I can't help but feel that if (and by lordy its a big IF*) that RTD person holds his nerve and actually leaves the urge to make everything all right again, the end of S3 of Torchwood couldn't be a bigger, a more symbolic ending for Rosby growing up and going to University.
Yeah, I know, I'm personalising it: but it was my first thought last night on watching Day Four.
But part of me can't help but NOT want it to end this way, and I hate myself for that. I can't help but have the hope for a better ending, but I know that what I need - what should remain - is the bleakness.
That these deaths, THAT death, should mean something.
And yeah, in case you didn't guess: I did cry.
Guess what we'll be watching at 9pm tonight...
* RTD couldn't leave alone his dramatic finale of Doomsday and though I've been seriously sticking my fingers in my ears all year I can't help but dread that he's not been able to leave alone other endings he's given us. PLEASE DO NOT SPOILER ME. But... GAH. I just wish he would actually leave us with the grief, as traumatic as it is.
Quite frankly, I'm all over the place emotionally about this.
I know some have remained unimpressed, and there have been moments of high silliness, but I think the testament that has most reached me is that Cloud has been utterly addicted (and not in a 'let's laugh at Rullsenberg biting her nails' kinda way).
So far we've had tension and half-seen monsters, politics in the way that we've come to expect, grand acting from the likes of Peter Capaldi and Paul Copley and... and ...
... and...
Death.
I am now utterly torn. I can't help but feel that if (and by lordy its a big IF*) that RTD person holds his nerve and actually leaves the urge to make everything all right again, the end of S3 of Torchwood couldn't be a bigger, a more symbolic ending for Rosby growing up and going to University.
Yeah, I know, I'm personalising it: but it was my first thought last night on watching Day Four.
But part of me can't help but NOT want it to end this way, and I hate myself for that. I can't help but have the hope for a better ending, but I know that what I need - what should remain - is the bleakness.
That these deaths, THAT death, should mean something.
And yeah, in case you didn't guess: I did cry.
Guess what we'll be watching at 9pm tonight...
* RTD couldn't leave alone his dramatic finale of Doomsday and though I've been seriously sticking my fingers in my ears all year I can't help but dread that he's not been able to leave alone other endings he's given us. PLEASE DO NOT SPOILER ME. But... GAH. I just wish he would actually leave us with the grief, as traumatic as it is.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Theatre Review: 'As You Like It' RSC Courtyard Theatre, Stratford Saturday 4 July 2009
As with my visit to see Love's Labour's Lost, I have to confess that As You Like It wasn't a play I had previous seen or read (though I did know a tad more about this play than I had LLL).
I found this actually helped since I was placed in a similar position to many of my fellow friends. Especially with plays that lay outside the big exceptionally well known texts - most especially Dickie 3, Romeo and Juliet, Henry 5, and Hamlet - it can be incredibly demanding to be launched into the prose style of Shakespeare. But despite the initially spare setting of this production forcing focus on the early 'bequeath-ed' and 'sayest' speech patterns, we quickly and comfortably slipped into its rhythms.
Although not all productions have kept to Elizabethan period dress, it certainly worked here, not least because of the way in which gender identities are played with so freely (though I am reliably informed of many good productions with a modern setting). Rosalind's turn as boyish Ganymede, playing 'Rosalind' to Orlando, has to present a mastery/mistressy of layered identity - and this in a role we must not forget would have been played by a boy until the 18th century.
The language of the play includes a healthy range of Shakespeare's best known neologisms and familiar passages - not least the 'all the world's a stage' speech, but I was also pleased that I spotted some echoes of the earlier comedy of Love's Labours Lost (noted, as I read on the journey home, by scholar Juliet Dusinberre in the Arden edition of the play). As You Like It certainly has a playfulness that belies its references to the poverty that rural/forest-based life could present.
As mentioned in my post about meeting friends for this wonderful experience, the leading lady - Katy Stephens - was sadly indisposed. But this did not sadden me for one, since it meant we saw lovely Mariah Gale as Rosalind (Ophelia in last year's production opposite first Tennant and Bennett).
The setting for the play is beautifully simple: an almost white boarded background which opens up in a variety of ways. The music and choreography are, as befits the breadth of skills at the RSC, as exquisite and witty as befits the play. And although the costumes reflect the naturalistic palette of the setting, it never feels dull.
As with any ensemble production, it feels harsh to pick out particular performances for individual credit. But I have to praise Forbes Masson as Jacques who resembled Tim Minchin's wild haired appearance to such a degree that I almost had to check that it wasn't he! Richard Katz too as Touchstone was hysterically good, with suitably bawdy demeanor (it is telling these roles are the two added by Shakespeare's revision of Thomas Lodge's earlier telling of the tale).
There was also a nice touch in the final speech, wherein Rosalind usually declares that 'it is not the fashion to see the lady the Epilogue', the line was amended to 'see the understudy' in acknowledgement of Gale's substituting Stephens. Very nice I thought.
Overall, heartily recommended and on until 3 October.
I found this actually helped since I was placed in a similar position to many of my fellow friends. Especially with plays that lay outside the big exceptionally well known texts - most especially Dickie 3, Romeo and Juliet, Henry 5, and Hamlet - it can be incredibly demanding to be launched into the prose style of Shakespeare. But despite the initially spare setting of this production forcing focus on the early 'bequeath-ed' and 'sayest' speech patterns, we quickly and comfortably slipped into its rhythms.
Although not all productions have kept to Elizabethan period dress, it certainly worked here, not least because of the way in which gender identities are played with so freely (though I am reliably informed of many good productions with a modern setting). Rosalind's turn as boyish Ganymede, playing 'Rosalind' to Orlando, has to present a mastery/mistressy of layered identity - and this in a role we must not forget would have been played by a boy until the 18th century.
The language of the play includes a healthy range of Shakespeare's best known neologisms and familiar passages - not least the 'all the world's a stage' speech, but I was also pleased that I spotted some echoes of the earlier comedy of Love's Labours Lost (noted, as I read on the journey home, by scholar Juliet Dusinberre in the Arden edition of the play). As You Like It certainly has a playfulness that belies its references to the poverty that rural/forest-based life could present.
As mentioned in my post about meeting friends for this wonderful experience, the leading lady - Katy Stephens - was sadly indisposed. But this did not sadden me for one, since it meant we saw lovely Mariah Gale as Rosalind (Ophelia in last year's production opposite first Tennant and Bennett).
The setting for the play is beautifully simple: an almost white boarded background which opens up in a variety of ways. The music and choreography are, as befits the breadth of skills at the RSC, as exquisite and witty as befits the play. And although the costumes reflect the naturalistic palette of the setting, it never feels dull.
As with any ensemble production, it feels harsh to pick out particular performances for individual credit. But I have to praise Forbes Masson as Jacques who resembled Tim Minchin's wild haired appearance to such a degree that I almost had to check that it wasn't he! Richard Katz too as Touchstone was hysterically good, with suitably bawdy demeanor (it is telling these roles are the two added by Shakespeare's revision of Thomas Lodge's earlier telling of the tale).
There was also a nice touch in the final speech, wherein Rosalind usually declares that 'it is not the fashion to see the lady the Epilogue', the line was amended to 'see the understudy' in acknowledgement of Gale's substituting Stephens. Very nice I thought.
Overall, heartily recommended and on until 3 October.
Stratford-upon-Avon visit: what friends are for
It wasn't as planned in terms of my weekend as a whole: weather predictions meant my 2 night stay in Stratford was abandoned for on-the-day return train journeys (and even that was oh-so-nearly replaced by a last minute 1 night away, thwarted by ill health). There were minor hiccups on the day: three of our number were temporarily separated into a pair and a wrongly boarded train single, with an unusual lack of mobiles making reassurance impossible (thankfully, the three were reunited and progressed to our meeting). And then the leading lady was indisposed, creating a shuffle-up effect on the cast similar to that imposed by Tennant's back injury last winter.
But it mattered not a jot because we managed it. Nine of us made it to Stratford, as planned for not just an annual reunion but also a significant cultural activity. We came from across England: the north-west, the south coast, the entire sweep of the west midlands and beyond, and from the east midlands.
The sun shone - not too unbearably. And we were all happy.
When I was at Wolverhampton Uni, first as an undergraduate and then as a temporary lecturer, I felt incredibly lucky to meet and befriend such wonderful people on the teaching staff. The class that I first ran on my own, Romanticism, in the 1994/1995 academic year, included a delightful cohort of youngish to older mature students. In subsequent years we kept in touch and my former tutors, now colleagues, saw them through to graduation and subsequently on to further studies, other qualifications and lives. And we still meet each year for conversation and culture.
This year we planned and plotted a trip to Stratford for a play and I have to say it feels like a resounding success with even skeptical RSC visitors delighted by the production of As You Like It. Full review in next post, but thank you everyone for making it so wonderful.
But it mattered not a jot because we managed it. Nine of us made it to Stratford, as planned for not just an annual reunion but also a significant cultural activity. We came from across England: the north-west, the south coast, the entire sweep of the west midlands and beyond, and from the east midlands.
The sun shone - not too unbearably. And we were all happy.
When I was at Wolverhampton Uni, first as an undergraduate and then as a temporary lecturer, I felt incredibly lucky to meet and befriend such wonderful people on the teaching staff. The class that I first ran on my own, Romanticism, in the 1994/1995 academic year, included a delightful cohort of youngish to older mature students. In subsequent years we kept in touch and my former tutors, now colleagues, saw them through to graduation and subsequently on to further studies, other qualifications and lives. And we still meet each year for conversation and culture.
This year we planned and plotted a trip to Stratford for a play and I have to say it feels like a resounding success with even skeptical RSC visitors delighted by the production of As You Like It. Full review in next post, but thank you everyone for making it so wonderful.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Butterley trains: a visit to the Midland Railway Centre Sunday 28 June 2009
Neil's post on our trip to Butterley on Sunday nicely captures a flavour of the day.
We've been planning to head out to the place for quite some time: we had liked the idea of attending Indie Tracks in 2008, but it just isn't practical to attend a wedding in the West Midlands one day and hike back across the mids to a music festival for the Sunday (I'm too tired these days!)
Still, we'd already booked ourselves for a day at the music festival this year, so we thought we best check out the location.
What a delight! Staffed by enthusiastic people doing everything from manning the shop and buffet tills to sprucing up engine parts that could look irretrievably lost, from stoking up the coal-powered miniature railway (I felt like I was in Wallace and Gromit!) to pruning the verges, everyone gets stuck in. The gricers may be out in number when the big trains are preparing to move between stations, but there is something undeniably attractive about the heavy engineering of pre-WWII trains that is sorrily lacking in modern machinery. The compartments call to mind Agatha Christie mysteries and the sight of steam must thrill even the hardest heart (even if this was an English Electric Weekend, the Duchess of Sutherland was still on show to pump out some good old-fashioned smoke into a brilliant blue summer sky).
We also rode the narrow-gauge Golden Valley Light Railway (the 60SD364 "Campbells" Simplex).
Delightful! Some photographs to follow.
We've been planning to head out to the place for quite some time: we had liked the idea of attending Indie Tracks in 2008, but it just isn't practical to attend a wedding in the West Midlands one day and hike back across the mids to a music festival for the Sunday (I'm too tired these days!)
Still, we'd already booked ourselves for a day at the music festival this year, so we thought we best check out the location.
What a delight! Staffed by enthusiastic people doing everything from manning the shop and buffet tills to sprucing up engine parts that could look irretrievably lost, from stoking up the coal-powered miniature railway (I felt like I was in Wallace and Gromit!) to pruning the verges, everyone gets stuck in. The gricers may be out in number when the big trains are preparing to move between stations, but there is something undeniably attractive about the heavy engineering of pre-WWII trains that is sorrily lacking in modern machinery. The compartments call to mind Agatha Christie mysteries and the sight of steam must thrill even the hardest heart (even if this was an English Electric Weekend, the Duchess of Sutherland was still on show to pump out some good old-fashioned smoke into a brilliant blue summer sky).
We also rode the narrow-gauge Golden Valley Light Railway (the 60SD364 "Campbells" Simplex).
Delightful! Some photographs to follow.
In Praise of Upshares Downshares with Nils Blythe on Radio 4's PM
I'm rather fond of Radio 4's PM programme with Eddie Mair, but I have a special love of the money slot around 5.30pm (when I'm now quite likely to have reached the car to head home). Nils Blythe and Mair put out a call some time ago for a more catchy name for the slot than 'the markets', and in response the option they went for was the delightfully punning 'Upshares Downshares' (in honour of the late lamented Upstairs Downstairs series of the 1970s).
It was probably inevitable, but once the seeds were set, people were no longer satisfied with just a brief snippet of the programme's original theme music (there are MP3s of the various music from the show at the show site). So now, each week, we are treated to a variant on the original with this week's adopting a 'I do like to be beside the seaside' pier-organ version.
It's incredibly silly in many ways, but the inventiveness of the radio audience is somehow charming and I do feel as if I have missed something if I fail to catch this bit of the PM broadcast.
It was probably inevitable, but once the seeds were set, people were no longer satisfied with just a brief snippet of the programme's original theme music (there are MP3s of the various music from the show at the show site). So now, each week, we are treated to a variant on the original with this week's adopting a 'I do like to be beside the seaside' pier-organ version.
It's incredibly silly in many ways, but the inventiveness of the radio audience is somehow charming and I do feel as if I have missed something if I fail to catch this bit of the PM broadcast.
Weekend interlude - I think there was a festival going on somewhere?
We may not have been able to attend, but we caught a few bits of Glasto on the telly, including staying up late for Bruce Springsteen's gloriously uplifting performance.
Some may have been disappointed he didn't include Born in the USA (a song that I now feel is probably better interpreted by Ballboy), but the misappropriation of the song by politicians always disturbs me and I wasn't too sad to not hear it.
Besides: I got The River followed by Born to Run. And frankly that did for me from the first haunting harmonica sounds of the first track to the uplifting vrroooom of the latter.
Worth staying up late to watch.
There were bands and artistes I wish had gotten greater attention, but it was gratifying to see footage of Regina Spektor on the main stage on the Friday afternoon strutting her fingers across the piano keys and charming the audience despite the rain. Adorable.
Some may have been disappointed he didn't include Born in the USA (a song that I now feel is probably better interpreted by Ballboy), but the misappropriation of the song by politicians always disturbs me and I wasn't too sad to not hear it.
Besides: I got The River followed by Born to Run. And frankly that did for me from the first haunting harmonica sounds of the first track to the uplifting vrroooom of the latter.
Worth staying up late to watch.
There were bands and artistes I wish had gotten greater attention, but it was gratifying to see footage of Regina Spektor on the main stage on the Friday afternoon strutting her fingers across the piano keys and charming the audience despite the rain. Adorable.
Book review: Karen Maitland - The Owl Killers (plus Lowdham Book Festival event)
Last year at Lowdham I foolishly foreswore myself from purchasing Karen Maitland's intriguing looking novel Company of Liars: a novel of the plague - I had already spent my book allowance and was carrying more books than I could justify adding towards so I let it go. But the book haunted me with its exquisite cover and its intriguing premise and its even more intriguing opening line:
But there was a minor panic: the hardback had sold out and the paperback wasn't due until the autumn. A sign, with no presence of any books beneath it, declared this on the main festival book display table. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Thankfully, Lowdham's own independent book shop has staff that are made of sterner stuff, unprepared to admit defeat. They kept on at publishers Penguin until it was probably easier for them to capitulate. Trade paperbacks were provided, as big and fat and juicy as the hardback that CoL had been with a comparable whopping great 560 pages of delightful reading on offer. I was much relieved to see them for sale at her speaking event in the Lowdham Primitive Methodist Hall.
With that relief, we could get onto the business of hearing Maitland discuss her new work. Like her previous text, it remains in the middle ages but whereas CoL had a single narrator, The Owl Killers has multiple narrators and - to my mind - works all the better for that because the narrative thrust is so different. Maitland patiently led her audience through the development of the novel: CoL's narrator has originally been intended as merely the opening and closing commentator for The Owl Killers. Indeed, there is a brief trace remaining in the epilogue of TOK of our/a camelot and it is fascinating to think that that wonderful character from CoL could ever have been contained to the outskirts of another text. But TOK is very much its own work, if still full of the same detail for history and story-telling.
I confess I knew relatively little of the history of beguinages, in Europe or in England. But Maitland spoke with gentle authority of the fascinating history she had discovered in the outlands of historical writings - and I certainly will be on the lookout for further texts on their fragmented history and presence in England. Centred on a collective of women who have moved to the outskirts of the village of Ulewic, the narrative combines religious history - both within and outside the Catholic church, the lives of women, rural poverty, and manorial power with tales of ancient beliefs and fraught attitudes towards sexuality. It is a heady mix and one that kept me turning the pages frantically through the weekend (I started it yesterday - Sunday - and had to force myself to pause with a 1/5th still to complete before concluding it this evening after work).
Heartily recommended. It may be a different style of narrative structure to the single viewpoint narration of CoL but The Owl Killers is a worthy successor to its skillful story-telling.
"So that's settled then, we bury her alive in the iron bridle. That'll keep her tongue still."By autumn I was itching to obtain it but the details had escaped me and it was only thanks to judicious searching of the Lowdham book festival website that Neil untangled the details sufficient to order me the book. I loved Company of Liars and I have since recommended it widely - not just here but In Real Life. I was therefore keen to not mess up a second time and catch her talk at Lowdham this year about her new book, The Owl Killers.
But there was a minor panic: the hardback had sold out and the paperback wasn't due until the autumn. A sign, with no presence of any books beneath it, declared this on the main festival book display table. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Thankfully, Lowdham's own independent book shop has staff that are made of sterner stuff, unprepared to admit defeat. They kept on at publishers Penguin until it was probably easier for them to capitulate. Trade paperbacks were provided, as big and fat and juicy as the hardback that CoL had been with a comparable whopping great 560 pages of delightful reading on offer. I was much relieved to see them for sale at her speaking event in the Lowdham Primitive Methodist Hall.
With that relief, we could get onto the business of hearing Maitland discuss her new work. Like her previous text, it remains in the middle ages but whereas CoL had a single narrator, The Owl Killers has multiple narrators and - to my mind - works all the better for that because the narrative thrust is so different. Maitland patiently led her audience through the development of the novel: CoL's narrator has originally been intended as merely the opening and closing commentator for The Owl Killers. Indeed, there is a brief trace remaining in the epilogue of TOK of our/a camelot and it is fascinating to think that that wonderful character from CoL could ever have been contained to the outskirts of another text. But TOK is very much its own work, if still full of the same detail for history and story-telling.
I confess I knew relatively little of the history of beguinages, in Europe or in England. But Maitland spoke with gentle authority of the fascinating history she had discovered in the outlands of historical writings - and I certainly will be on the lookout for further texts on their fragmented history and presence in England. Centred on a collective of women who have moved to the outskirts of the village of Ulewic, the narrative combines religious history - both within and outside the Catholic church, the lives of women, rural poverty, and manorial power with tales of ancient beliefs and fraught attitudes towards sexuality. It is a heady mix and one that kept me turning the pages frantically through the weekend (I started it yesterday - Sunday - and had to force myself to pause with a 1/5th still to complete before concluding it this evening after work).
Heartily recommended. It may be a different style of narrative structure to the single viewpoint narration of CoL but The Owl Killers is a worthy successor to its skillful story-telling.
Book Review: Maureen Carter 'Blood Money'
Since first acquiring her works back in 2007, I've been galloping through Maureen Carter's Bev Morriss novels with furious delight.
(see links for reviews of Working Girls with an aside to the second novel Dead Old, plus the review for Baby Love, Hard Time and Bad Press.)
This year I was delighted to find another Bev Morriss book available. Where once Morriss was merely brittle and acerbic, she's now frequently out of control, spiting herself more than anyone who tries to reach her. She's finding it increasingly impossible to retrieve her humour, a sense of self or her once-famed intuitive insight into human behaviour. I don't think it's a surprise to find she has no Frankie to offer ballast and she's scarcely connected to her once vital family. The isolation has seen her cut off from those she cares about, though even she longs for something, some connection, some reinvigoration of the desire - even love and affection - she once felt. She can see all the signs of destruction but she just can't quite manage to stop her acid tongue and semi-functional lifestyle forcing people away from her either. Indeed, it is this carelessness that creates a sub-plot to the novel whose threat looms into the final pages once the main narrative has passed.
As with her previous works, Carter's spare prose captures locations, temperaments, character and manners with elegant ease. Though it's a trait of her narratives to find that nothing is quite as it seems in terms of victims, Carter always manages to keep an extra twist up her sleeve until late in the day. She cunningly lets you in on things that the characters do not yet know but always holds sufficient information back to throw you a late curve-ball.
In the earliest books, the appropriation of some of Carter's own passions and wit for Morriss were fairly clear cut - and certainly the long-term passion for Mr J Depp remains. But it is telling that he, like most of the other anchors of Morriss's life, is mentioned only in passing in Blood Money. The divergence has been taking place for a long time, but as a long-term reader you hope that the dark places to which Morriss descends, those places of violence and destruction that seem to pull in those around her, reflect only Carter's talent for insightful writing and that a brighter light shines on her own experience of Birmingham life (thankfully I'm pretty damn sure it does!).
Overall a thrilling read. Started it on returning from Lowdham and it was neatly devoured before the day was out. As ever, recommended reading.
(see links for reviews of Working Girls with an aside to the second novel Dead Old, plus the review for Baby Love, Hard Time and Bad Press.)
This year I was delighted to find another Bev Morriss book available. Where once Morriss was merely brittle and acerbic, she's now frequently out of control, spiting herself more than anyone who tries to reach her. She's finding it increasingly impossible to retrieve her humour, a sense of self or her once-famed intuitive insight into human behaviour. I don't think it's a surprise to find she has no Frankie to offer ballast and she's scarcely connected to her once vital family. The isolation has seen her cut off from those she cares about, though even she longs for something, some connection, some reinvigoration of the desire - even love and affection - she once felt. She can see all the signs of destruction but she just can't quite manage to stop her acid tongue and semi-functional lifestyle forcing people away from her either. Indeed, it is this carelessness that creates a sub-plot to the novel whose threat looms into the final pages once the main narrative has passed.
As with her previous works, Carter's spare prose captures locations, temperaments, character and manners with elegant ease. Though it's a trait of her narratives to find that nothing is quite as it seems in terms of victims, Carter always manages to keep an extra twist up her sleeve until late in the day. She cunningly lets you in on things that the characters do not yet know but always holds sufficient information back to throw you a late curve-ball.
In the earliest books, the appropriation of some of Carter's own passions and wit for Morriss were fairly clear cut - and certainly the long-term passion for Mr J Depp remains. But it is telling that he, like most of the other anchors of Morriss's life, is mentioned only in passing in Blood Money. The divergence has been taking place for a long time, but as a long-term reader you hope that the dark places to which Morriss descends, those places of violence and destruction that seem to pull in those around her, reflect only Carter's talent for insightful writing and that a brighter light shines on her own experience of Birmingham life (thankfully I'm pretty damn sure it does!).
Overall a thrilling read. Started it on returning from Lowdham and it was neatly devoured before the day was out. As ever, recommended reading.
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