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non-finance books |
Non-Finance Books
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This is a new Annexe to Wheelie's Bookshop - it's making use of a corridor which we needed to tidy up and make functional. Please be careful where you tread and watch out for the cobwebs - I am sure this place hasn't been used for years.
We can't and mustn't be obsessed with Stocks all of the time and it will do us all good to read something unrelated occasionally. I do a fair bit of reading (less since starting WheelieDealer unfortunately !!) and I have had an incredible run of good luck in reading some outstanding books. Therefore, I decided to expand the Bookshop and give you all some ideas of great Books to chuck in your libraries. I have signed up with Amazon as an 'Associate' which basically means that if you click the pictures then you are directed through to Amazon and they take care of ringing you through the till and wrapping your lovely book and stuff - and if you are really excited, I am sure they can deliver it extra fast for you if you pay them a little more. If you spend over £20 you should qualify for 'Supersaver Delivery' - which I think means Free Delivery within 3 to 5 days. I will receive a small amount of money for any books that are purchased in this way. Please appreciate that WheelieDealer is a 'Free to Air' website and I want it to always be that way - but any pennies you help me get will mean I can eat in those Nasty Grizzly Bear Markets and of course I am rather partial to Beer. So please buy stuff from my Bookshop with Gay Abandon. Many thanks, wd |
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My Latest Reads.................
The Binding by Bridget Collins - This one was a really lovely surprise because I was given it as a Christmas Present and from reading the cover and suchlike I had absolutely no idea what it was about or would be like. With the Review words on the front cover like ‘Truly spellbinding’, ‘Utterly brilliant’ and ‘Pure magic’ all that I could pick up was a low-level connection to magic and spells !!
I won’t ruin it for you by trying to pin down a date but something that hit me very early in reading the book was that in this fictional story I could not figure out at what time historically it was set – and perhaps that adds to the mystery and fantasy aspects of it but later in the book I did get more of a sense of what time period it was set.
It also has this sort of other-worldly feel because the whole premise of the story is that unpleasant secrets can be erased and it is all about the consequences of this really. I found it a very easy and enjoyable read and it is without doubt an adult book (over 18s LOL) and I would say it is very well written and not one of those books that you think has a good story but it has been written by someone with very weak vocabulary etc.
I would say this book really is a bargain because it is very good and I understand it has been given a lot of praise in the literally world and all that.
The Kindle Version is the slightly cheaper one.
I won’t ruin it for you by trying to pin down a date but something that hit me very early in reading the book was that in this fictional story I could not figure out at what time historically it was set – and perhaps that adds to the mystery and fantasy aspects of it but later in the book I did get more of a sense of what time period it was set.
It also has this sort of other-worldly feel because the whole premise of the story is that unpleasant secrets can be erased and it is all about the consequences of this really. I found it a very easy and enjoyable read and it is without doubt an adult book (over 18s LOL) and I would say it is very well written and not one of those books that you think has a good story but it has been written by someone with very weak vocabulary etc.
I would say this book really is a bargain because it is very good and I understand it has been given a lot of praise in the literally world and all that.
The Kindle Version is the slightly cheaper one.
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Immediate Response by Major Mark Hammond - I have some reservations about this one with the main one being that perhaps not all that much happens in the book but without doubt it was worth reading. Not all that long ago I read a book that was from an Apache Helicopter Pilot in Afghanistan and this one is written by a Chinook Pilot (the Chinook is the huge twin-rotor transport Helicopter that Allied Forces rely on in modern theatres of war).
It is very good for insights regarding what is involved and just how dangerous it is to fly such a huge lumbering machine in a territory that is so full with Enemy Fighters who are desperate to knock you out of the sky. With an Apache Helicopter Gunship you obviously have immense firepower but the Chinooks are quite limited in their own weaponry and they usually fly with protection from 2 Apaches. Chinooks are ideal for lifting wounded Soldiers out of the battlefield and for bringing in and removing groups of troops.
A particular issue Chinooks face is the problem of a ‘Brown-out’ when they go down to land in the extremely dry environment and once they get quite near the ground, they kick up loads of dust and it becomes impossible to see, so that the Pilot has to learn quickly how to set the craft down without falling too heavily and smashing up the landing gear etc.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban were particularly eager to take down a Chinook because of the huge propaganda value and this meant they really were prime targets. The result of this was that even when flying out of or into a camp, such as Camp Bastion, they had to use different routes every time and to do things like going vertically up and then moving out or perhaps just flying out low straight away. It is intriguing to read about all these kinds of details of how they operate.
Anyway, it is a good read although there probably could have been more to it.
As is often the case, the Kindle Version is the cheaper one.
It is very good for insights regarding what is involved and just how dangerous it is to fly such a huge lumbering machine in a territory that is so full with Enemy Fighters who are desperate to knock you out of the sky. With an Apache Helicopter Gunship you obviously have immense firepower but the Chinooks are quite limited in their own weaponry and they usually fly with protection from 2 Apaches. Chinooks are ideal for lifting wounded Soldiers out of the battlefield and for bringing in and removing groups of troops.
A particular issue Chinooks face is the problem of a ‘Brown-out’ when they go down to land in the extremely dry environment and once they get quite near the ground, they kick up loads of dust and it becomes impossible to see, so that the Pilot has to learn quickly how to set the craft down without falling too heavily and smashing up the landing gear etc.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban were particularly eager to take down a Chinook because of the huge propaganda value and this meant they really were prime targets. The result of this was that even when flying out of or into a camp, such as Camp Bastion, they had to use different routes every time and to do things like going vertically up and then moving out or perhaps just flying out low straight away. It is intriguing to read about all these kinds of details of how they operate.
Anyway, it is a good read although there probably could have been more to it.
As is often the case, the Kindle Version is the cheaper one.
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Built for Speed - Bikes, Beers and Balls of Steel by John McGuinness - For bike racing fans and particularly anyone fascinated by the Isle of Man TT this is a cracking read. It covers John's life in road racing right from the early motocross days as a kid through to current times and his nasty accident in 2017. Anyway, I wrote a Blog about this which you can read here:
https://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-built-for-speed-bikes-beers-and-balls-of-steel-by-john-mcguinness
In this case the Kindle Version is the really cheap one.
https://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-built-for-speed-bikes-beers-and-balls-of-steel-by-john-mcguinness
In this case the Kindle Version is the really cheap one.
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Shadow of the Hangman by Edward Marston - I picked this Book up recently and it is a good old historical yarn and a decent bit of escapism. It is written quite well but certainly it ain’t no Shakespeare but the thing that stood out to me is that it seems to be a mesh of layers of plots upon plots which sort of worked quite well. The basic premise is that there are 2 brothers in early 1800s London and they are identical twins and work together as Detectives and, in effect, can be hired by various people (mainly wealthy men) for security work and surveillance and stuff as well. We then get one sort of plotline where they are in competition with the Bow Street Runners (oh, just to be clear, this is fiction based pretty loosely in a historical context – but it works quite well) and they are battling with each other to solve various crimes etc. There is also a plot about some escaped Prisoners from Dartmoor Prison and a missing Cleaner and a plot to kill the Duke of Wellington – oh, and one of the brothers is madly in love with the most sought-after actress in the capital. That probably gives a flavour of what is going on and I quite enjoyed reading it although it wasn’t overly taxing on the old grey matter – you need to keep on top of the plots and it sort of comes together at the end although I could reasonably say it all concluded a bit fast – but I am probably being a bit over critical.
Note: The cheaper book underneath is the Kindle version and the third option without an image should take you through to a full 4 book series which makes up the 'Bow Street Rivals' of which 'Shadow of the Hangman' is the first book.
Note: The cheaper book underneath is the Kindle version and the third option without an image should take you through to a full 4 book series which makes up the 'Bow Street Rivals' of which 'Shadow of the Hangman' is the first book.
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The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas 2 and the Russian Revolution by Robert Service - Yet again I have been ridiculously lucky and stumbled across a very readable and educational book. My knowledge of the final days of the Tsar and the early days of the Russian Revolution were quite patchy before this but I now know a huge lot more. This really focuses on the captivity of the Tsar and the Romanov family for the 2 years after the Tsar's abdication and from this the story is expanded out to cover the tumultuous events that were going on in the country at that time. It is very insightful and I was a bit surprised by just how engrossing it was and apart from a lot of confusion from the countless personalities that come and go in the story, it was quite riveting to see what happened next and I could follow what was going on. It is sad in many ways although the Tsar clearly had some rather unpleasant character traits - although to be fair I suspect a lot of that was a result of his upbringing. I wrote a short blog about it which you can read here:
https://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-the-last-of-the-tsars-by-robert-service
Note, this time the Kindle version is the cheaper one below.
https://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-the-last-of-the-tsars-by-robert-service
Note, this time the Kindle version is the cheaper one below.
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The Longest Winter by Alex Kershaw - Great read this one. It is about a key engagement between a small group of US Soldiers and the German forces during the Battle of the Bulge and how the remarkable defence of their position is credited by many as being a key factor in why the last throw of the dice by Hitler failed. That specific story is in itself highly fascinating but the book also covers much wider topics regarding the Second World War and my blog below gives a flavour of the many informative tangents the book goes into. It is well written and certainly a book that kept me engrossed and without doubt widened my understanding of so many aspects of the fighting after D-Day and leading up to the final assaults on Berlin. I wrote a short Blog about it which you can find here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-the-longest-winter-by-alex-kershaw
I had trouble finding the correct Links for this one but if you click on the images below you should be able to find a copy of the book in the format you require - but please check carefully that you have the Kindle version or Paperback or whatever you want.
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-the-longest-winter-by-alex-kershaw
I had trouble finding the correct Links for this one but if you click on the images below you should be able to find a copy of the book in the format you require - but please check carefully that you have the Kindle version or Paperback or whatever you want.
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A Song for Bridget by Phyllis Whitsell - This is not too difficult to read although it is quite a tough subject at times. In essence the story is about the birth mother of the Author who grew up with a tough life in Ireland and then ended up as a filthy drunken 'bag-lady' in Birmingham. It is a useful read to appreciate how challenging some people's lives are and how they can go off the rails and the end is quite uplifting in many ways although tinged with some sadness. Anyway, I wrote a more complete Review here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-a-song-for-bridget-by-phyllis-whitsell
I have included links below to the other related book by Phyllis Whitsell 'Finding Tipperary Mary' and the Kindle Versions are on the right hand side.
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-a-song-for-bridget-by-phyllis-whitsell
I have included links below to the other related book by Phyllis Whitsell 'Finding Tipperary Mary' and the Kindle Versions are on the right hand side.
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Head On: The Autobiography by Ian Botham - I finished reading this book quite a while ago but due to problems with my old Netbook, I was unable to load anything up to the Bookshop. Anyway, my new whizzy Laptop has solved all that so I can do some updating !! Being 'of a certain age' I really enjoyed this and that is despite not being much of a cricket fan these days. This time the Kindle Version is the really cheap one. You can read a short Review I did of the Book here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/ian-botham-autobiography-head-on
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/ian-botham-autobiography-head-on
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Spymaster - The life of Britain's most decorated Cold War Spy and Head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, by Martin Pearce - I finished reading this one some time ago and only just got around to writing a Review. It is pretty much as it 'says on the tin' and I found it a worthwhile read because it covers the period from the end of WW2 up to around the late 1970s/early 80s which was when Sir Maurice Oldfield undertook his career with many overseas postings and ultimately becoming the Head of MI6. It is a decent insight into how MI6 works and in particular I enjoyed the stuff about Philby, Burgess and Mclean (the infamous 'Cambridge Spy Ring') which gives a lot more detail than I had seen before. Anyway, I have done a full Review here which should give you a good flavour of what is in it:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-spymaster-by-martin-pearce
The Links below will take you to the Books on Amazon and the cheaper one is the Kindle version this time.
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-spymaster-by-martin-pearce
The Links below will take you to the Books on Amazon and the cheaper one is the Kindle version this time.
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American Sniper - The Autobiography of the most lethal Sniper in US History by Chris Kyle - This book is pretty much 'as it says on the tin' and I found it a really decent read which gives a lot of insight into the conditions faced by Soldiers in Iraq and also the selection and training of US Navy Seals and then the personal and more psychological aspects of doing such a demanding 'job'. I wrote a Blog about this recently and you can read that here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-american-sniper-by-chris-kyle
The Kindle Version is the cheaper one in this case and the Film on DVD can be found next to the Books.
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-american-sniper-by-chris-kyle
The Kindle Version is the cheaper one in this case and the Film on DVD can be found next to the Books.
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Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - this is a cracker of a Book which I actually read quite a while ago but with some health aggravation I had I got delayed in shoving it into the Bookshop. I picked it up in the Charity Hospice Shop just around the corner and from looking at the cover I thought it was about an American WW2 Pilot but in fact it turned out to be a fascinating and inspiring True Story about an Italian Immigrant who was an utterly feral Kid who then became an Olympic Runner and met Hitler before becoming part of a Bomber Crew in the Pacific and getting shot down and then stranded in the Ocean before getting captured by the Japanese and enduring abuse entirely beyond belief before finally being liberated at the end of WW2. He then had Post-Traumatic Stress and went very much off the rails before finding Religion and ending up running Kids Camps and stuff. A truly remarkable Story of just what Humans are capable of enduring and the Power of Determination and bloody-minded ness. Anyway, you can read a very detailed Blog I wrote about it here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-unbroken-by-laura-hillenbrand
In this case the Kindle Version is the cheaper one and I have put a Link to the DVD as well.
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/non-finance-book-review-unbroken-by-laura-hillenbrand
In this case the Kindle Version is the cheaper one and I have put a Link to the DVD as well.
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Painting the Sand by Kim Hughes - This is a Book I read recently and really enjoyed it and found it very easy to read and a surprisingly relaxing Summer read !!
Kim Hughes was out in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban back when the problem of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) was at its peak and causing huge Casualties for Allied Forces as the Country became almost entirely a Minefield. Kim was an ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) which is sort of code for a Bomb Disposal Bloke and in addition to leading a Team of Men who were tasked with locating IEDs it was Kim’s role to disable them and he became the ATO who disarmed more IEDs than any other ATO in Afghanistan - and of course many did not come back.
The Book goes through Kim’s background of a difficult School Life and then sort of falling into the Army and then specialising in Bomb Disposal. It then goes on to his 6 Months in Afghanistan and all along the issues around his Personal Life with a failing Marriage and young Son are clearly in the background but really not far away. It is quite surprising that he is only in Afghanistan for a 6 Month Tour because when you read the Book it seems like he is out there forever - although to a large extent I did get the impression that there were countless IED disabling Missions that he does not tell us about in the Book - in fact, I think we probably only get to read about a handful if that of the Missions he actually undertook. I guess the impression of I get of it being longer than 6 months comes from the utter unpleasantness of their situation in pretty much every aspect - not just the Fear and Danger which was constant.
One thing that comes over a lot in the Book is about just how awful life at Camp Bastion was (and probably still is) with such things as ridiculous pettiness of some Senior Officers, the boredom of Camp life, the filth and heat of the Country (apparently it just smells of Poo all the time !!), and the way the Troops are continually mucked about by Army incompetence and bureaucracy which seems extremely frustrating and frankly totally unnecessary and avoidable. Crazy things like telling them their Tour has ended and they are on their way home when at the last minute they are told to come back as there is a Mission for them to do - that must have been psychologically crushing for the Men who were very worn down after 6 Months. The other thing about Camp Bastion is the danger that is all around them - probably on the Camp itself they are quite safe (although ‘safe’ is definitely a relative term when it comes to Afghanistan) but just Metres outside the Camp they are at risk and even on the Camp Training Ground a load of Soldiers got blown up by an IED.
I have only read the Book through once and I don’t really feel like it fully conveyed to me just how awful it must have been to do 6 Months in such a difficult Unit as Bomb Disposal especially when you knew the other Men in similar Teams were getting killed and also that many Infantry Troops etc. were getting killed and maimed by IEDs and it was your job to help prevent these but worst of all they often had to go into an area to secure the site after a Bomb had exploded and they had to remove Bodies and suchlike. That must be very tough and by the end of the 6 Months it was clear that they had seen enough of such regular occurrences. Perhaps if I was to read the Book again I would pick up more on some nuance etc. and it might seem a bit more horrific. Maybe I am just too thick skinned myself !!
Again on the subject of the conditions that the Troops have to endure out there, one thing that sticks in my mind is just how uncomfortable many of the forms of Transport were. For instance, they had to wear Full Kit when sat inside a Chinook Helicopter and the heat was sweltering and of course it is noisy and very uncomfortable. Once the Chinook sets down to let the Soldiers off they need to rush out and form a Protective Ring as the Chinook takes off again and quite often the Taliban have seen the Helicopter coming in and are waiting for the Troops who have just set down. After all the heat and noise etc. it must be extremely difficult to be alert and ready for action as you run down the Off-Ramp.
The trips in Warrior Armoured Cars and various other Vehicles seem equally unpleasant and often they were stuck inside them literally packed in like Fish in a Can for hours and hours as they travelled by tortuous routes across the Country with progress being slow as when they approach Junctions and suchlike they have to do checks for IEDs with Metal Detectors etc. Again, how on earth the Troops can fight after such journeys is a total mystery to me.
There’s a great section in the Book where they realise that the Taliban have wised up to the methods the Bomb Disposal Teams are using to find the IEDs and to disarm them. In fact, one of the insights this Book gives is that while Kim would be lying on his stomach and using a Paintbrush to slowly sweep away the Sand around the IED (hence the Book Name !!), he was often being watched by Taliban ‘Dickers’ who were trying to work out how the ATOs were defusing the Bombs so that they could incorporate ways to trick the Defusers or to booby trap their IEDs. It got so bad that Kim just used a continual curtain of Smoke from Flares to prevent the Dickers from seeing him at work. The Defusers got so good at their job that the Taliban were very keen to put them out of action and Kim was a clear target for this.
Another good bit is when they sweep an area and think they have cleared it of IEDs only for a Soldier to get killed by an IED in that area. It causes all sorts of recriminations and accusations but after a while Kim realises that the Taliban have wised up to the use of Metal Detectors and have created an IED which has no Metal Parts and is therefore undetectable by that method. The Army then have to find another method such as Ground Penetrating Radar to identify the Bombs and quite often the experienced Searchers can spot them from where ground has been disturbed and usually the Taliban were marking the IEDs with small piles of Stones or similar to warn their own Men and local Villagers. There is a fair bit of detail about how the Taliban construct the devices by using such simple everyday items as Biros for the Fuse and old Palm Oil Cans to hold the Main Charge of the explosives.
Overall it is a really good book and gives a lot of insights into the challenges our Troops face in such godforsaken places - the futility of it comes across hugely as well with various areas that are won from the Taliban soon being given back to them as the Allies departed.
Cheers, WD.
NOTE - this time the Kindle Version is the cheaper one - yeah, I know, it never makes any sense !!
Kim Hughes was out in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban back when the problem of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) was at its peak and causing huge Casualties for Allied Forces as the Country became almost entirely a Minefield. Kim was an ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) which is sort of code for a Bomb Disposal Bloke and in addition to leading a Team of Men who were tasked with locating IEDs it was Kim’s role to disable them and he became the ATO who disarmed more IEDs than any other ATO in Afghanistan - and of course many did not come back.
The Book goes through Kim’s background of a difficult School Life and then sort of falling into the Army and then specialising in Bomb Disposal. It then goes on to his 6 Months in Afghanistan and all along the issues around his Personal Life with a failing Marriage and young Son are clearly in the background but really not far away. It is quite surprising that he is only in Afghanistan for a 6 Month Tour because when you read the Book it seems like he is out there forever - although to a large extent I did get the impression that there were countless IED disabling Missions that he does not tell us about in the Book - in fact, I think we probably only get to read about a handful if that of the Missions he actually undertook. I guess the impression of I get of it being longer than 6 months comes from the utter unpleasantness of their situation in pretty much every aspect - not just the Fear and Danger which was constant.
One thing that comes over a lot in the Book is about just how awful life at Camp Bastion was (and probably still is) with such things as ridiculous pettiness of some Senior Officers, the boredom of Camp life, the filth and heat of the Country (apparently it just smells of Poo all the time !!), and the way the Troops are continually mucked about by Army incompetence and bureaucracy which seems extremely frustrating and frankly totally unnecessary and avoidable. Crazy things like telling them their Tour has ended and they are on their way home when at the last minute they are told to come back as there is a Mission for them to do - that must have been psychologically crushing for the Men who were very worn down after 6 Months. The other thing about Camp Bastion is the danger that is all around them - probably on the Camp itself they are quite safe (although ‘safe’ is definitely a relative term when it comes to Afghanistan) but just Metres outside the Camp they are at risk and even on the Camp Training Ground a load of Soldiers got blown up by an IED.
I have only read the Book through once and I don’t really feel like it fully conveyed to me just how awful it must have been to do 6 Months in such a difficult Unit as Bomb Disposal especially when you knew the other Men in similar Teams were getting killed and also that many Infantry Troops etc. were getting killed and maimed by IEDs and it was your job to help prevent these but worst of all they often had to go into an area to secure the site after a Bomb had exploded and they had to remove Bodies and suchlike. That must be very tough and by the end of the 6 Months it was clear that they had seen enough of such regular occurrences. Perhaps if I was to read the Book again I would pick up more on some nuance etc. and it might seem a bit more horrific. Maybe I am just too thick skinned myself !!
Again on the subject of the conditions that the Troops have to endure out there, one thing that sticks in my mind is just how uncomfortable many of the forms of Transport were. For instance, they had to wear Full Kit when sat inside a Chinook Helicopter and the heat was sweltering and of course it is noisy and very uncomfortable. Once the Chinook sets down to let the Soldiers off they need to rush out and form a Protective Ring as the Chinook takes off again and quite often the Taliban have seen the Helicopter coming in and are waiting for the Troops who have just set down. After all the heat and noise etc. it must be extremely difficult to be alert and ready for action as you run down the Off-Ramp.
The trips in Warrior Armoured Cars and various other Vehicles seem equally unpleasant and often they were stuck inside them literally packed in like Fish in a Can for hours and hours as they travelled by tortuous routes across the Country with progress being slow as when they approach Junctions and suchlike they have to do checks for IEDs with Metal Detectors etc. Again, how on earth the Troops can fight after such journeys is a total mystery to me.
There’s a great section in the Book where they realise that the Taliban have wised up to the methods the Bomb Disposal Teams are using to find the IEDs and to disarm them. In fact, one of the insights this Book gives is that while Kim would be lying on his stomach and using a Paintbrush to slowly sweep away the Sand around the IED (hence the Book Name !!), he was often being watched by Taliban ‘Dickers’ who were trying to work out how the ATOs were defusing the Bombs so that they could incorporate ways to trick the Defusers or to booby trap their IEDs. It got so bad that Kim just used a continual curtain of Smoke from Flares to prevent the Dickers from seeing him at work. The Defusers got so good at their job that the Taliban were very keen to put them out of action and Kim was a clear target for this.
Another good bit is when they sweep an area and think they have cleared it of IEDs only for a Soldier to get killed by an IED in that area. It causes all sorts of recriminations and accusations but after a while Kim realises that the Taliban have wised up to the use of Metal Detectors and have created an IED which has no Metal Parts and is therefore undetectable by that method. The Army then have to find another method such as Ground Penetrating Radar to identify the Bombs and quite often the experienced Searchers can spot them from where ground has been disturbed and usually the Taliban were marking the IEDs with small piles of Stones or similar to warn their own Men and local Villagers. There is a fair bit of detail about how the Taliban construct the devices by using such simple everyday items as Biros for the Fuse and old Palm Oil Cans to hold the Main Charge of the explosives.
Overall it is a really good book and gives a lot of insights into the challenges our Troops face in such godforsaken places - the futility of it comes across hugely as well with various areas that are won from the Taliban soon being given back to them as the Allies departed.
Cheers, WD.
NOTE - this time the Kindle Version is the cheaper one - yeah, I know, it never makes any sense !!
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A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaiken - It must be an age thing with me being born in 1965 and the Moon Landings taking place between 1969 and 1972, but I am totally engrossed by what was achieved by NASA in the Apollo Missions which took 12 men to walk on the Moon (and 6 more to spend Days whizzing around it).
This book is chunky - most definitely not for people who get daunted by being confronted by such a hefty mass of reading material, but despite that I found it utterly absorbing and my issue was more about having the time to read it than having the motivation to pick it up (and quite often I really did struggle to put it down as there are many bits where a real sense of peril/mystery etc. is prevalent and I just wanted to read on and find out what came next).
I suspect that most people ‘of a certain age’ are aware of Apollo 11 and the exploits of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon itself and with Michael Collins orbiting the Moon while the glory went to his crewmates. But I would guess that is the extent of most people’s knowledge and little is known about the Mercury and Gemini Missions which led up to finally plonking 2 blokes onto the surface of the Moon and following this, apart from Apollo 13 which went very messy, pretty much nothing is known about the important scientific Missions which came next.
This book won’t help you on the Mercury and Gemini bits although there are references back to that time as it was critical in the steady build up to Apollo 11. Indeed, what comes across extremely clearly is how NASA was very much of the belief that the route to the Moon really consisted of loads of incremental steps which largely stemmed from Alan Shepherd doing the first US Manned Spaceflight (and I think it was merely 7 minutes and he only just got into Space) and then the next steps of Mercury which was 1 Man only to Gemini with 2 Astronauts and then Apollo with the essential crew of 3 which was needed to complete Manned Missions to land on the Moon.
These steady increments were evident right through the Space Programme - for example, on one of the pre-Apollo 11 Flights they tested the Docking Mechanisms for the Lunar Lander and the Command Module whilst still in Earth’s Orbit and this was the approach taken throughout where critical parts of a successful Mission to the Moon were tested in Earth’s Orbit. This even went to Apollo 10 where 2 Astronauts had to fly the Lunar Lander down to something like 50 Miles off the Surface of the Moon but not actually to land it. Must have been very frustrating to get so close but I am pretty sure those Men did manage to walk on the Moon in a later Mission.
I might have the order wrong here but I think the Book started off with the Apollo 1 Disaster where there was a fire in the Command Module whilst the Saturn V Rocket was sat on the Launchpad and undergoing tests - this was a terrible event because all 3 Astronauts were killed and Gus Grissom who was thought by many to be the First Man who would walk on the Moon was sadly one of the victims. The problem seemed to stem from using Oxygen to pressurise the Cabin and of course a Spark from the Electrical System caused the Fire and it spread extremely fast and in fact the Astronauts were unable to breathe rather than burnt. Due to earlier problems they had changed the Hatch design (ironically involving Gus Grissom) and it simply could not be opened in such an awful situation. This incident caused big delays to the NASA Programme but it was probably overall a good thing in that it meant that more focus was put on ‘Block 2’ which was a newer superior design for the Command Module and it is likely it brought home how important it was that things were done right. By the way, what is now known as Apollo 1 wasn’t actually an Apollo Mission at all - it was named as Apollo 1 in honour of the Astronauts who died in the fire.
For Apollo 11 the Astronauts were only on the Moon for something like 3 hours of actual walking about but on the later ‘J’ Missions they actually did 3 days and had the ‘Lunar Rover’ for the last 3 Missions I think which enabled them to land the ‘LEM’ and then to use the Rover to cover significant distances from the Landing Site and to explore loads of target areas which were thought to be of geological interest. In fact that is something that comes across strongly in the Book about how for the first couple of Missions it was about simply getting on to the Moon and on Apollo 12 it was about pinpoint accuracy in the Landing but on the later Missions the scientific and particularly the geological aspects were really what it was about.
Apart from the Final Mission, Apollo 17, the Astronauts who were mostly former Test Pilots from the US Air Force or the US Navy were trained significantly in geology and went on regular Field Trips out to various Deserts etc. to learn about ‘Rocks’ and suchlike. The consensus seems to be that they did really well at what was arguably a secondary role. It was only on Apollo 17 where a dedicated Geologist (Harrison ’Jack’ Schmidt) was plonked on the Moon and he was the only non-Pilot to be involved in the Apollo Missions - but from all accounts he took on the Astronaut and LEM co-piloting Roles extremely well.
There is just so much great stuff in this Book - things that stick in my mind are bits like how one Astronaut described it as “going to the Moon with your mates in the back of a Transit Van” or something like that but it really nails the situation I suspect. Apart from the Danger involved (and largely this was remarkably well handled and with minimal problems) it was the Comfort and Hygiene aspects that really hit home. For instance, I think it was on Apollo 8 where they were the first Mission to leave Earth’s atmosphere and actually fly to the Moon which took about 3 days, but during this Mission the Commander (I think it was Frank Borman) got sick and had diarrhoea problems as well !! The toiletry facilities were diabolical and his Crewmates had to chase around the Ship with Paper Towels trying to catch globules of Puke and Poo !! (one of those Crewmates says for the rest of his life he couldn’t stand the sight or smell of Airline Napkins !!).
The Astronauts also talked about how when they were flying to the Moon (and travelling at enormous speeds like covering the distance of 7 miles in 1 second or something nuts), they had no sense of motion whatsoever. Once they had fired the Rocket Motors and pushed the Command and Service Module out of Earth’s Orbit and into Space, there was of course no resistance in the vacuum of Space and the Ship would just keep heading at a rapid pace to the Moon until they fired the Engines again to get it into the Moon’s Orbit. They said the only way they knew they were moving was because the Digital Counters were turning higher and because gradually over time the Earth got smaller in the Windows, and also because the time delay in their Radio Communications got noticeably longer.
Another aspect of this Book which I really liked was the background information on many of the Astronauts and the routes they took to become part of ‘The Right Stuff’. On top of this, the politics within the Corridors of the NASA Space Center with regards to which men were in which crew and which Missions they were assigned to is quite fascinating - it seems like none of them really knew if they would ever be involved in a Mission and the stress of being on a Back-up Crew must have been awful - they had to do all the same Training as the Main Crew for probably at least 9 Months but there was certainly no guarantee they would fly on any Mission. As with all these things, it was clear that ‘the quiet ones’ simply got left out and ignored. There was even 1 Mission at least where a crew member was stood down in the last Week and unable to go - that must have been awful.
I am sure most Readers will be aware of the Apollo 13 story and perhaps this mostly comes from the Tom Hanks film. It has been a long while since I watched that film but I have faint memories of it being quite a good representation of what occurred but reading about it in this Book maybe gives it a lot more depth and you get much more sense of the true peril the 3 Men were in and just how remarkable the efforts of NASA on the ground were to find ways to overcome a myriad of individual problems which all stemmed from an Oxygen Tank exploding a few days into the Mission while they were on route to the Moon. Things that stood out from reading the book were about how cold it had become on the way home and that everything in the Lunar Lander (the Men had to vacate the already cramped Command Module and move into the Lander which of course was not needed for its true purpose - the problem was that it was only designed for 2 people and very quickly the CO2 from their breathing was building up such that it would suffocate them unless they could create a ‘Scrubber’ out of items in the Spaceship which is probably the bit most people remember from the Film) had become covered in moisture from their breathing - they had to wipe the dials and controls to see what was what !!
Apollo 13 was seen by many at NASA as a high point apart from the original Apollo 11 Landing and they took pride in getting the Men home safely, however, one thing that comes across from the Book is how pretty much every Mission faced problems of one sort or another and that is perhaps not realised by many People. For instance, I think it was Apollo 10 where they almost did the full Apollo 11 Mission but they stopped something like 50 Miles from the Surface of the Moon but on the way back up to the Command Module, they couldn’t get the Latches on the Docking Mechanism to work and they took several hours of attempts to get it done - in the end I think they solved it by just firing the Rocket Motors on the Lunar Lander to force it with speed into the Docking Mechanism which made the Latches catch. If they had not managed this, then there would be 2 Men not coming home.
On one of the later Missions (Apollo 16 I think) there was another problem where they set up a Scientific Experiment that was supposed to stay on the Moon and do Seismic Measurements or something but the Astronaut (I think it was John Young) tripped over a Cable and mucked up the whole thing. It is also notable that on the later Missions the Astronauts relaxed a lot more and there was a lot of joking about and playing in the Low Gravity of the Moon. Another funny bit was where even on Apollo 11 I think it was where the Ground Crew had got hold of the written Mission Instructions for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and they had stuck pictures from Playboy in between the Pages !!!
There is also the bit on Apollo 8 I think where they did the first Trip to the Moon and as they orbited around the Moon they got the totally unexpected sight of the ‘Earthrise’ which is when they come round the Dark Side of the Moon and see the Earth rising up ahead of them - apparently it was one of the most enthralling and amazing sights all the Astronauts experienced and seeing the Earth set against the Blackest Black of Space was breathtaking. The theory is that this spawned the whole ‘Green’ Environmental Movement because it made People down on Earth realise how fragile and beautiful the Earth really was.
And on the later ‘J’ Missions where they spent much more time on the Moon (3 Days for Apollo 17), they had big problems that were caused by an adjustment to the length of the Sleeves on the Spacesuits - I can’t recall for reason behind this but shortening the Sleeves meant that the Gloves were forced against the ends of their Fingers which was very painful. This was also exacerbated by the difficulty in bending the Fingers of the Gloves and the Suits in general were apparently horrible to work in. One other problem was that they got incredibly dry mouths - they were breathing raw Oxygen in the Suits and this was obviously pretty unpleasant.
As you can probably tell I loved this Book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get the full story on the Moon Missions - it is a riveting read and there are insights on every page that will grip you.
Difficult and yet sad to believe that this was nearly 50 Years ago.
Cheers, WD.
PS. I can't find a Kindle Version of this one on Amazon
This book is chunky - most definitely not for people who get daunted by being confronted by such a hefty mass of reading material, but despite that I found it utterly absorbing and my issue was more about having the time to read it than having the motivation to pick it up (and quite often I really did struggle to put it down as there are many bits where a real sense of peril/mystery etc. is prevalent and I just wanted to read on and find out what came next).
I suspect that most people ‘of a certain age’ are aware of Apollo 11 and the exploits of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon itself and with Michael Collins orbiting the Moon while the glory went to his crewmates. But I would guess that is the extent of most people’s knowledge and little is known about the Mercury and Gemini Missions which led up to finally plonking 2 blokes onto the surface of the Moon and following this, apart from Apollo 13 which went very messy, pretty much nothing is known about the important scientific Missions which came next.
This book won’t help you on the Mercury and Gemini bits although there are references back to that time as it was critical in the steady build up to Apollo 11. Indeed, what comes across extremely clearly is how NASA was very much of the belief that the route to the Moon really consisted of loads of incremental steps which largely stemmed from Alan Shepherd doing the first US Manned Spaceflight (and I think it was merely 7 minutes and he only just got into Space) and then the next steps of Mercury which was 1 Man only to Gemini with 2 Astronauts and then Apollo with the essential crew of 3 which was needed to complete Manned Missions to land on the Moon.
These steady increments were evident right through the Space Programme - for example, on one of the pre-Apollo 11 Flights they tested the Docking Mechanisms for the Lunar Lander and the Command Module whilst still in Earth’s Orbit and this was the approach taken throughout where critical parts of a successful Mission to the Moon were tested in Earth’s Orbit. This even went to Apollo 10 where 2 Astronauts had to fly the Lunar Lander down to something like 50 Miles off the Surface of the Moon but not actually to land it. Must have been very frustrating to get so close but I am pretty sure those Men did manage to walk on the Moon in a later Mission.
I might have the order wrong here but I think the Book started off with the Apollo 1 Disaster where there was a fire in the Command Module whilst the Saturn V Rocket was sat on the Launchpad and undergoing tests - this was a terrible event because all 3 Astronauts were killed and Gus Grissom who was thought by many to be the First Man who would walk on the Moon was sadly one of the victims. The problem seemed to stem from using Oxygen to pressurise the Cabin and of course a Spark from the Electrical System caused the Fire and it spread extremely fast and in fact the Astronauts were unable to breathe rather than burnt. Due to earlier problems they had changed the Hatch design (ironically involving Gus Grissom) and it simply could not be opened in such an awful situation. This incident caused big delays to the NASA Programme but it was probably overall a good thing in that it meant that more focus was put on ‘Block 2’ which was a newer superior design for the Command Module and it is likely it brought home how important it was that things were done right. By the way, what is now known as Apollo 1 wasn’t actually an Apollo Mission at all - it was named as Apollo 1 in honour of the Astronauts who died in the fire.
For Apollo 11 the Astronauts were only on the Moon for something like 3 hours of actual walking about but on the later ‘J’ Missions they actually did 3 days and had the ‘Lunar Rover’ for the last 3 Missions I think which enabled them to land the ‘LEM’ and then to use the Rover to cover significant distances from the Landing Site and to explore loads of target areas which were thought to be of geological interest. In fact that is something that comes across strongly in the Book about how for the first couple of Missions it was about simply getting on to the Moon and on Apollo 12 it was about pinpoint accuracy in the Landing but on the later Missions the scientific and particularly the geological aspects were really what it was about.
Apart from the Final Mission, Apollo 17, the Astronauts who were mostly former Test Pilots from the US Air Force or the US Navy were trained significantly in geology and went on regular Field Trips out to various Deserts etc. to learn about ‘Rocks’ and suchlike. The consensus seems to be that they did really well at what was arguably a secondary role. It was only on Apollo 17 where a dedicated Geologist (Harrison ’Jack’ Schmidt) was plonked on the Moon and he was the only non-Pilot to be involved in the Apollo Missions - but from all accounts he took on the Astronaut and LEM co-piloting Roles extremely well.
There is just so much great stuff in this Book - things that stick in my mind are bits like how one Astronaut described it as “going to the Moon with your mates in the back of a Transit Van” or something like that but it really nails the situation I suspect. Apart from the Danger involved (and largely this was remarkably well handled and with minimal problems) it was the Comfort and Hygiene aspects that really hit home. For instance, I think it was on Apollo 8 where they were the first Mission to leave Earth’s atmosphere and actually fly to the Moon which took about 3 days, but during this Mission the Commander (I think it was Frank Borman) got sick and had diarrhoea problems as well !! The toiletry facilities were diabolical and his Crewmates had to chase around the Ship with Paper Towels trying to catch globules of Puke and Poo !! (one of those Crewmates says for the rest of his life he couldn’t stand the sight or smell of Airline Napkins !!).
The Astronauts also talked about how when they were flying to the Moon (and travelling at enormous speeds like covering the distance of 7 miles in 1 second or something nuts), they had no sense of motion whatsoever. Once they had fired the Rocket Motors and pushed the Command and Service Module out of Earth’s Orbit and into Space, there was of course no resistance in the vacuum of Space and the Ship would just keep heading at a rapid pace to the Moon until they fired the Engines again to get it into the Moon’s Orbit. They said the only way they knew they were moving was because the Digital Counters were turning higher and because gradually over time the Earth got smaller in the Windows, and also because the time delay in their Radio Communications got noticeably longer.
Another aspect of this Book which I really liked was the background information on many of the Astronauts and the routes they took to become part of ‘The Right Stuff’. On top of this, the politics within the Corridors of the NASA Space Center with regards to which men were in which crew and which Missions they were assigned to is quite fascinating - it seems like none of them really knew if they would ever be involved in a Mission and the stress of being on a Back-up Crew must have been awful - they had to do all the same Training as the Main Crew for probably at least 9 Months but there was certainly no guarantee they would fly on any Mission. As with all these things, it was clear that ‘the quiet ones’ simply got left out and ignored. There was even 1 Mission at least where a crew member was stood down in the last Week and unable to go - that must have been awful.
I am sure most Readers will be aware of the Apollo 13 story and perhaps this mostly comes from the Tom Hanks film. It has been a long while since I watched that film but I have faint memories of it being quite a good representation of what occurred but reading about it in this Book maybe gives it a lot more depth and you get much more sense of the true peril the 3 Men were in and just how remarkable the efforts of NASA on the ground were to find ways to overcome a myriad of individual problems which all stemmed from an Oxygen Tank exploding a few days into the Mission while they were on route to the Moon. Things that stood out from reading the book were about how cold it had become on the way home and that everything in the Lunar Lander (the Men had to vacate the already cramped Command Module and move into the Lander which of course was not needed for its true purpose - the problem was that it was only designed for 2 people and very quickly the CO2 from their breathing was building up such that it would suffocate them unless they could create a ‘Scrubber’ out of items in the Spaceship which is probably the bit most people remember from the Film) had become covered in moisture from their breathing - they had to wipe the dials and controls to see what was what !!
Apollo 13 was seen by many at NASA as a high point apart from the original Apollo 11 Landing and they took pride in getting the Men home safely, however, one thing that comes across from the Book is how pretty much every Mission faced problems of one sort or another and that is perhaps not realised by many People. For instance, I think it was Apollo 10 where they almost did the full Apollo 11 Mission but they stopped something like 50 Miles from the Surface of the Moon but on the way back up to the Command Module, they couldn’t get the Latches on the Docking Mechanism to work and they took several hours of attempts to get it done - in the end I think they solved it by just firing the Rocket Motors on the Lunar Lander to force it with speed into the Docking Mechanism which made the Latches catch. If they had not managed this, then there would be 2 Men not coming home.
On one of the later Missions (Apollo 16 I think) there was another problem where they set up a Scientific Experiment that was supposed to stay on the Moon and do Seismic Measurements or something but the Astronaut (I think it was John Young) tripped over a Cable and mucked up the whole thing. It is also notable that on the later Missions the Astronauts relaxed a lot more and there was a lot of joking about and playing in the Low Gravity of the Moon. Another funny bit was where even on Apollo 11 I think it was where the Ground Crew had got hold of the written Mission Instructions for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and they had stuck pictures from Playboy in between the Pages !!!
There is also the bit on Apollo 8 I think where they did the first Trip to the Moon and as they orbited around the Moon they got the totally unexpected sight of the ‘Earthrise’ which is when they come round the Dark Side of the Moon and see the Earth rising up ahead of them - apparently it was one of the most enthralling and amazing sights all the Astronauts experienced and seeing the Earth set against the Blackest Black of Space was breathtaking. The theory is that this spawned the whole ‘Green’ Environmental Movement because it made People down on Earth realise how fragile and beautiful the Earth really was.
And on the later ‘J’ Missions where they spent much more time on the Moon (3 Days for Apollo 17), they had big problems that were caused by an adjustment to the length of the Sleeves on the Spacesuits - I can’t recall for reason behind this but shortening the Sleeves meant that the Gloves were forced against the ends of their Fingers which was very painful. This was also exacerbated by the difficulty in bending the Fingers of the Gloves and the Suits in general were apparently horrible to work in. One other problem was that they got incredibly dry mouths - they were breathing raw Oxygen in the Suits and this was obviously pretty unpleasant.
As you can probably tell I loved this Book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get the full story on the Moon Missions - it is a riveting read and there are insights on every page that will grip you.
Difficult and yet sad to believe that this was nearly 50 Years ago.
Cheers, WD.
PS. I can't find a Kindle Version of this one on Amazon
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (Autobiography) - I just finished reading this Book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am by no means a big Springsteen Fan but in recent years I have got more interested in his work and I guess I have been intrigued to find out why he became a huge Artist with such truly devoted popularity. My recent interest really came from seeing him at Hyde Park many years ago - it seems quite fresh in my memory but could well have been something like 7 years ago now. My how time whizzes by…..
When I saw him the gig was excellent - he played for a very long time - it might have been 3 hours and I remember he basically played until the Power was turned off - he made a big thing of this of course and Hyde Park has Noise Rules and stuff which dictated the end - but he kept going until he couldn’t. I should have realised this much earlier but from reading this Book it has become much more clear to me that a major part of his fame stems from his Live Performances - he fully admits in the Book that he is not a great singer by any means and that he has to make up for it in other ways such as his Songwriting, Musical prowess of the E-Street Band and the lengthy but exciting Live Shows. In fact, to get a sense of what a great performer he is, check out this YouTube Video from the Superbowl Halftime Show from 2009 - it’s only 12 minutes but really encapsulates well what his whole career has been about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06FMoT-hkk
In the Book there are some funny bits about this Superbowl performance - first off Bruce said he was perplexed by how they managed to build his Stage on the actual Pitch in under 5 minutes whereas when he goes on Tour it often takes 8 Days to build !! He also comments on the bit where he goes for his trademark ‘Knee Slide’ across the Stage and he ends up crashing into the Cameraman !!
After seeing Springsteen I got what was then a current Album of his, ‘Working on a Dream’, and I remember playing that a lot at the time but for a few years I haven’t gone near it. Since starting to read this Book I have rediscovered this in my Collection and I absolutely love it - I think he has done another Album since this one. Working on a Dream is quite Country-like in parts and clearly comes from that tradition but it is unmistakeably Bruce and really a very strong Album. I also bought 2 of his ‘Classic’ Albums - ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ and I really like both of these - now I know more about Springsteen and the stories behind the making of these Records I really can appreciate the whole thing a lot more and I realise how multi-layered his Lyrics are.
I’m not really sure why Springsteen passed me by when I was younger - I seem to recall a fuss about him in the Media (presumably I mean the Music Media like NME, Sounds, Melody Maker etc. or the Radio or something) back many decades when he was hailed as ‘The New King of Rock’ and I remember a big thing being made of how he came from New Jersey - I had no idea at the time why this meant anything. Having now read this superb Book, I realise that this was probably around the start of Punk Rock and it turns out he did a Gig back then at the Hammersmith Odeon and this was hugely hyped up and Bruce utterly hated such promotion as he always felt that he should be judged by the Music he made and the Shows he put on. At this particular Gig apparently he was utterly livid and just before it started he had gone around the Hammersmith venue ripping the Posters off the Wall and just getting himself into more and more of a rage. I think he mentions in the Book about how he remembers very little of this Gig now and just thinks of it as an awful experience but apparently among his dedicated Fans it has become a truly legendary performance.
I think the fuss about New Jersey comes from how Springsteen toiled for many years as sort of a Bar Band with various Line-ups doing Gigs almost every night just to pay the bills - and in reality he often barely managed to achieve even this level of financial ‘success’. It is something that really struck me from the Book about how he wasn’t successful in any way until he was perhaps 25 or something and before this he had just about lived ‘Hand to mouth’ and slept on friend’s floors and for a long time on the floor in an upper level of a Surf-shop. He left School pretty much as soon as he could I think and he had a ‘real’ job for about a Weekend and then vowed to make his Music fund his life from then on. At times this must have seemed like a huge mistake as he was pretty much penniless.
There’s also a bit from before he recorded any actual Records where his Band of the time were pretty big in the New Jersey area and they could just about make enough to live a miserable existence (he didn’t even drink back then and it seems partly because he couldn’t afford it although his Father was an alcoholic and that obviously kept him off it as well), so they decide to drive to Los Angeles and try to take LA by storm !! After a crazy drive across America for about 3 Days they finally get to Hollywood etc. and then suffer months of empty Gigs (if they can actually find a Bar to play at) and they end up driving back to New Jersey because simply no-one was interested in their brand of Rock ‘n Roll at the time of Flower Power….
It’s very interesting how he got switched on to Music in the first place - the initial spark was Elvis’s first appearance on TV after which he nagged his Mum into buying him the cheapest and worst possible Guitar available which he then failed at miserably - he was probably as young as 9 or something. Then some years later he got fired up by The Beatles again and went through a Beatnik phase and got his Mum to buy the only Electric Guitar she could afford - it too was awful but this time he got addicted and committed to learning how to play and in his early years he was actually a Lead Guitarist and didn’t ‘sing’ much. I guess these years of practice put him in superb shape for the future especially when he started Songwriting and building his own Band and recording Records.
After working with many Bands he realised that a democratic approach to other Band Members was not going to work and he decided to become the ‘Leader’ and any Band would be working for him and he called the shots - this might seem arrogant but it probably is a major part of why his Band has endured for so many Years as often the democracy within a Band can lead to its destruction - it is quite unnatural really to be still working when you are 60 with people you know from when you were a teenager - there are probably very few Professions/Vocations where this occurs.
Of course he did the classic Rock/Pop thing of signing up to a ridiculously onerous Contract at the start and despite working his butt off in every way he was broke despite having a huge hit with ‘Born to Run’ - he was ripped off by his Manager who did not have the foresight to stick with Bruce when he was given the chance but Bruce is perhaps surprisingly not resentful or revengeful etc. about this - in fact, he admits that without the forcefulness and commitment of his first Manager he would never have got anywhere. After various Court Cases and all the usual stuff, Bruce came out of this episode totally penniless……
His leap to Super Stardom seems to have come about as a result of ‘Born in the USA’ - this was partly a lucky accident in that it coincided with the film ‘Born on the 4th of July’ with Tom Cruise and that was such an enormous success that Bruce was launched into the mainstream on the back of it. He then had success with ‘Dancing in the Dark’ which is actually the result of him having an extremely frustrated time when trying to write for an Album and feeling that he was getting nowhere and the song is precisely about this - if you listen to the lyrics it makes sense.
Later on he had a lot of success on the back of the Philadelphia Film about AIDS with Tom Hanks from which his song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ was the Title Music - this kept him in the limelight in the early 90s I think.
The latter bit of the Book is more about his life with Patti his Wife and about his Kids - it is perhaps not as interesting as the early bits of the Book but I still found it worth reading. One of the classic bits that sticks in my mind was about when he went with his Teenage Son (at the time) to see some sort of Post-Punk Band that his Kid was into and afterwards they got to meet the Band backstage. It then turned out that the Guitarist was a massive Bruce Fan and his kid said afterwards in the Car, “Dad, I can’t believe he had a Tattoo of you on his Arm - that is so cool !!”. It is probably fair to say that his Son must have had a very different view of him after that happened !!
Building on these bits he talks about his ongoing fight with Depression and how he has taken various Medicines to help combat this and how his Wife has been a huge positive influence to help fight this - but it is something that has dogged him all his life and he thinks it is a genetic thing which he got from his Dad who was a right mess. There are also bits about going for long rides on his Harley and he also enjoys Horses and has a Ranch.
It’s a tough life being a Rock Star obviously.
Anyway, it is a great book and well worth reading if you are a Springsteen Fan and/or if you just like Rock Music. I must say also that it is extremely well written - but knowing how good his lyrics are I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. A while back I read Bob Dylan’s ‘No Direction Home’ and thought that was very well crafted but if I had to choose I would say Bruce’s is better written. Both are quality reads though.
I have put some Links to the Albums I have in the ‘WheelieTunes’ Section at the bottom of the Page.
Cheers, WD.
PLEASE NOTE - this time the Kindle Version is the more expensive one (yeah, I know, makes little sense !!)
When I saw him the gig was excellent - he played for a very long time - it might have been 3 hours and I remember he basically played until the Power was turned off - he made a big thing of this of course and Hyde Park has Noise Rules and stuff which dictated the end - but he kept going until he couldn’t. I should have realised this much earlier but from reading this Book it has become much more clear to me that a major part of his fame stems from his Live Performances - he fully admits in the Book that he is not a great singer by any means and that he has to make up for it in other ways such as his Songwriting, Musical prowess of the E-Street Band and the lengthy but exciting Live Shows. In fact, to get a sense of what a great performer he is, check out this YouTube Video from the Superbowl Halftime Show from 2009 - it’s only 12 minutes but really encapsulates well what his whole career has been about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06FMoT-hkk
In the Book there are some funny bits about this Superbowl performance - first off Bruce said he was perplexed by how they managed to build his Stage on the actual Pitch in under 5 minutes whereas when he goes on Tour it often takes 8 Days to build !! He also comments on the bit where he goes for his trademark ‘Knee Slide’ across the Stage and he ends up crashing into the Cameraman !!
After seeing Springsteen I got what was then a current Album of his, ‘Working on a Dream’, and I remember playing that a lot at the time but for a few years I haven’t gone near it. Since starting to read this Book I have rediscovered this in my Collection and I absolutely love it - I think he has done another Album since this one. Working on a Dream is quite Country-like in parts and clearly comes from that tradition but it is unmistakeably Bruce and really a very strong Album. I also bought 2 of his ‘Classic’ Albums - ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ and I really like both of these - now I know more about Springsteen and the stories behind the making of these Records I really can appreciate the whole thing a lot more and I realise how multi-layered his Lyrics are.
I’m not really sure why Springsteen passed me by when I was younger - I seem to recall a fuss about him in the Media (presumably I mean the Music Media like NME, Sounds, Melody Maker etc. or the Radio or something) back many decades when he was hailed as ‘The New King of Rock’ and I remember a big thing being made of how he came from New Jersey - I had no idea at the time why this meant anything. Having now read this superb Book, I realise that this was probably around the start of Punk Rock and it turns out he did a Gig back then at the Hammersmith Odeon and this was hugely hyped up and Bruce utterly hated such promotion as he always felt that he should be judged by the Music he made and the Shows he put on. At this particular Gig apparently he was utterly livid and just before it started he had gone around the Hammersmith venue ripping the Posters off the Wall and just getting himself into more and more of a rage. I think he mentions in the Book about how he remembers very little of this Gig now and just thinks of it as an awful experience but apparently among his dedicated Fans it has become a truly legendary performance.
I think the fuss about New Jersey comes from how Springsteen toiled for many years as sort of a Bar Band with various Line-ups doing Gigs almost every night just to pay the bills - and in reality he often barely managed to achieve even this level of financial ‘success’. It is something that really struck me from the Book about how he wasn’t successful in any way until he was perhaps 25 or something and before this he had just about lived ‘Hand to mouth’ and slept on friend’s floors and for a long time on the floor in an upper level of a Surf-shop. He left School pretty much as soon as he could I think and he had a ‘real’ job for about a Weekend and then vowed to make his Music fund his life from then on. At times this must have seemed like a huge mistake as he was pretty much penniless.
There’s also a bit from before he recorded any actual Records where his Band of the time were pretty big in the New Jersey area and they could just about make enough to live a miserable existence (he didn’t even drink back then and it seems partly because he couldn’t afford it although his Father was an alcoholic and that obviously kept him off it as well), so they decide to drive to Los Angeles and try to take LA by storm !! After a crazy drive across America for about 3 Days they finally get to Hollywood etc. and then suffer months of empty Gigs (if they can actually find a Bar to play at) and they end up driving back to New Jersey because simply no-one was interested in their brand of Rock ‘n Roll at the time of Flower Power….
It’s very interesting how he got switched on to Music in the first place - the initial spark was Elvis’s first appearance on TV after which he nagged his Mum into buying him the cheapest and worst possible Guitar available which he then failed at miserably - he was probably as young as 9 or something. Then some years later he got fired up by The Beatles again and went through a Beatnik phase and got his Mum to buy the only Electric Guitar she could afford - it too was awful but this time he got addicted and committed to learning how to play and in his early years he was actually a Lead Guitarist and didn’t ‘sing’ much. I guess these years of practice put him in superb shape for the future especially when he started Songwriting and building his own Band and recording Records.
After working with many Bands he realised that a democratic approach to other Band Members was not going to work and he decided to become the ‘Leader’ and any Band would be working for him and he called the shots - this might seem arrogant but it probably is a major part of why his Band has endured for so many Years as often the democracy within a Band can lead to its destruction - it is quite unnatural really to be still working when you are 60 with people you know from when you were a teenager - there are probably very few Professions/Vocations where this occurs.
Of course he did the classic Rock/Pop thing of signing up to a ridiculously onerous Contract at the start and despite working his butt off in every way he was broke despite having a huge hit with ‘Born to Run’ - he was ripped off by his Manager who did not have the foresight to stick with Bruce when he was given the chance but Bruce is perhaps surprisingly not resentful or revengeful etc. about this - in fact, he admits that without the forcefulness and commitment of his first Manager he would never have got anywhere. After various Court Cases and all the usual stuff, Bruce came out of this episode totally penniless……
His leap to Super Stardom seems to have come about as a result of ‘Born in the USA’ - this was partly a lucky accident in that it coincided with the film ‘Born on the 4th of July’ with Tom Cruise and that was such an enormous success that Bruce was launched into the mainstream on the back of it. He then had success with ‘Dancing in the Dark’ which is actually the result of him having an extremely frustrated time when trying to write for an Album and feeling that he was getting nowhere and the song is precisely about this - if you listen to the lyrics it makes sense.
Later on he had a lot of success on the back of the Philadelphia Film about AIDS with Tom Hanks from which his song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ was the Title Music - this kept him in the limelight in the early 90s I think.
The latter bit of the Book is more about his life with Patti his Wife and about his Kids - it is perhaps not as interesting as the early bits of the Book but I still found it worth reading. One of the classic bits that sticks in my mind was about when he went with his Teenage Son (at the time) to see some sort of Post-Punk Band that his Kid was into and afterwards they got to meet the Band backstage. It then turned out that the Guitarist was a massive Bruce Fan and his kid said afterwards in the Car, “Dad, I can’t believe he had a Tattoo of you on his Arm - that is so cool !!”. It is probably fair to say that his Son must have had a very different view of him after that happened !!
Building on these bits he talks about his ongoing fight with Depression and how he has taken various Medicines to help combat this and how his Wife has been a huge positive influence to help fight this - but it is something that has dogged him all his life and he thinks it is a genetic thing which he got from his Dad who was a right mess. There are also bits about going for long rides on his Harley and he also enjoys Horses and has a Ranch.
It’s a tough life being a Rock Star obviously.
Anyway, it is a great book and well worth reading if you are a Springsteen Fan and/or if you just like Rock Music. I must say also that it is extremely well written - but knowing how good his lyrics are I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. A while back I read Bob Dylan’s ‘No Direction Home’ and thought that was very well crafted but if I had to choose I would say Bruce’s is better written. Both are quality reads though.
I have put some Links to the Albums I have in the ‘WheelieTunes’ Section at the bottom of the Page.
Cheers, WD.
PLEASE NOTE - this time the Kindle Version is the more expensive one (yeah, I know, makes little sense !!)
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Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop - I just finished reading this one and cannot praise it enough !! I was talking to a mate about it the other day and as I described the book (and with very useful input from her) I realised just how complex the writing actually is and how it is really ‘multi-layered’ and comprises many Stories within Stories as well as giving historical insights into Greece; all whilst including loads on the current Financial distress they are going through.
I feel guilty writing this next bit but it is sort of important - although I feel that Victoria Hislop really is an outstanding Writer in her own right but of course mentioning that she is the wife of Ian Hislop immediately changes your perception of her !! More psychology stuff which you know fascinates me. Victoria Hislop has written quite a few books now and I have probably read all of them - she has a superb ability to create fiction but based in a historical context and capturing the ‘Romance’ and essence of the Countries she sets her stories in. ‘The Island’ was about a Greek Island that was used as a Leper Colony and ‘The Return’ is set in Spain and includes loads on Flamenco Dancing and the Spanish Civil War which really encapsulates how difficult such a time would have been for the ‘normal’ people. ‘The Thread’ is set in Turkey I think (it might be Greece, my memory is struggling) and concerns how Muslims and Christians used to live alongside each other but as always Politics got in the way and I think the Muslims were driven out (further down this page you should find links to her other books).
‘Cartes Postales’ is such a complex Story - it starts off with a young girl in London who has a tedious dead-end job selling Advertising Space and who lives in a Block of Flats, and she goes to her Mail Pigeon Hole and notices in one of the other Holes that loads of colourful Postcards have piled up. She ends up sneaking a look at them and they are all from a bloke in Greece and addressed to “S. Ibbotson” - I think the writer is called Anthony. The Postcards don’t get collected and she has no idea who the intended recipient is, so after a while she decides that the Postcards have so inspired her about Greece that she really wants to go on holiday there and see the wonderful places for herself - so she books a flight and off she goes. Well, just before leaving a big package comes for S. Ibbotson and she grabs it and takes it on the plane but doesn’t open it until she gets to Greece and is sat outside a Coffee Shop. She opens the package and discovers a Notebook which is basically this bloke Anthony writing to S. Ibbotson about all the places he has visited and what happened to him at them.
This is where things get even more complex - the Book now becomes a series of Short Stories that are all linked by them being Anthony doing his travels and talking to various Greek People (so say Greeks are notoriously friendly and welcoming and will talk to anyone like they have known them for years). I have no idea how many Stories make up the book but it might be as many as 15 or so - and they vary from sort of nasty stories (Vendettas and Murders) to more uplifting Stories about incredible Artists or Violinists, and Victoria Hislop even manages to weave the Icarus and Daedalus ‘flying too close to the Sun’ historical myth into the book in a wonderful and seamless way - although this is the only Story that she has not made up herself.
There is such a range of Stories - ones that spring instantly to mind are an old bloke uncovering an amazing Greek Statue in his Vegetable Patch; a Young Boy who becomes an ‘Organ Grinder’ and collects countless coins in his hat but never pays any Tax in all his life - with surprising consequences (I couldn‘t help thinking this had relevance to Greece‘s current Economic woes and helps explain why the Tax Take there was so bad); 2 Sons who are given an equal amount by their Father in order to decide who inherits his Hotel Business - only to end messily; A jilted man who holds a Vendetta all his life and finally takes his Revenge in a hail of bullets decades later……
Alongside these individual Stories which are outstanding on their own, we also get the Story of Ellie and her ‘journey’ and how her life changes and also we get the full Story on Anthony and why he is writing to S. Ibbotson and how it impacts upon him as he travels around Greece - and why he is really there. In addtion, the book has a visually appealing look to it with lots of Photographs which were actually captured when Victoria Hislop travelled around Greece with a Friend of hers and he took the Pictures and they have been stylised and used to illustrate the book - it really works very well and this technique of how she came up with the Ideas for the Book as she travelled around Greece is fully explained at the end of the Book.
This really is a superb Book - if you have not read any of her stuff before then it is a great way to start sampling her work and if you are already a fan then I am sure you will love it.
Cheers, WD.
Note: The Kindle Version is the link on the Right Hand Side.
I feel guilty writing this next bit but it is sort of important - although I feel that Victoria Hislop really is an outstanding Writer in her own right but of course mentioning that she is the wife of Ian Hislop immediately changes your perception of her !! More psychology stuff which you know fascinates me. Victoria Hislop has written quite a few books now and I have probably read all of them - she has a superb ability to create fiction but based in a historical context and capturing the ‘Romance’ and essence of the Countries she sets her stories in. ‘The Island’ was about a Greek Island that was used as a Leper Colony and ‘The Return’ is set in Spain and includes loads on Flamenco Dancing and the Spanish Civil War which really encapsulates how difficult such a time would have been for the ‘normal’ people. ‘The Thread’ is set in Turkey I think (it might be Greece, my memory is struggling) and concerns how Muslims and Christians used to live alongside each other but as always Politics got in the way and I think the Muslims were driven out (further down this page you should find links to her other books).
‘Cartes Postales’ is such a complex Story - it starts off with a young girl in London who has a tedious dead-end job selling Advertising Space and who lives in a Block of Flats, and she goes to her Mail Pigeon Hole and notices in one of the other Holes that loads of colourful Postcards have piled up. She ends up sneaking a look at them and they are all from a bloke in Greece and addressed to “S. Ibbotson” - I think the writer is called Anthony. The Postcards don’t get collected and she has no idea who the intended recipient is, so after a while she decides that the Postcards have so inspired her about Greece that she really wants to go on holiday there and see the wonderful places for herself - so she books a flight and off she goes. Well, just before leaving a big package comes for S. Ibbotson and she grabs it and takes it on the plane but doesn’t open it until she gets to Greece and is sat outside a Coffee Shop. She opens the package and discovers a Notebook which is basically this bloke Anthony writing to S. Ibbotson about all the places he has visited and what happened to him at them.
This is where things get even more complex - the Book now becomes a series of Short Stories that are all linked by them being Anthony doing his travels and talking to various Greek People (so say Greeks are notoriously friendly and welcoming and will talk to anyone like they have known them for years). I have no idea how many Stories make up the book but it might be as many as 15 or so - and they vary from sort of nasty stories (Vendettas and Murders) to more uplifting Stories about incredible Artists or Violinists, and Victoria Hislop even manages to weave the Icarus and Daedalus ‘flying too close to the Sun’ historical myth into the book in a wonderful and seamless way - although this is the only Story that she has not made up herself.
There is such a range of Stories - ones that spring instantly to mind are an old bloke uncovering an amazing Greek Statue in his Vegetable Patch; a Young Boy who becomes an ‘Organ Grinder’ and collects countless coins in his hat but never pays any Tax in all his life - with surprising consequences (I couldn‘t help thinking this had relevance to Greece‘s current Economic woes and helps explain why the Tax Take there was so bad); 2 Sons who are given an equal amount by their Father in order to decide who inherits his Hotel Business - only to end messily; A jilted man who holds a Vendetta all his life and finally takes his Revenge in a hail of bullets decades later……
Alongside these individual Stories which are outstanding on their own, we also get the Story of Ellie and her ‘journey’ and how her life changes and also we get the full Story on Anthony and why he is writing to S. Ibbotson and how it impacts upon him as he travels around Greece - and why he is really there. In addtion, the book has a visually appealing look to it with lots of Photographs which were actually captured when Victoria Hislop travelled around Greece with a Friend of hers and he took the Pictures and they have been stylised and used to illustrate the book - it really works very well and this technique of how she came up with the Ideas for the Book as she travelled around Greece is fully explained at the end of the Book.
This really is a superb Book - if you have not read any of her stuff before then it is a great way to start sampling her work and if you are already a fan then I am sure you will love it.
Cheers, WD.
Note: The Kindle Version is the link on the Right Hand Side.
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Dunkirk - The History behind the Major Motion Picture by Joshua Levine - I have always had a bit of a fascination with the whole WW2 thing - I think it is because my Uncles were involved in it via Desert Rats, Minesweeper in the Med and the D-Day Landings from a Navy perspective. My Dad was a little bit younger but he did National Service and narrowly avoided going to the Korean War (if he had, you might not be reading this because I might not be around to type it !!), and I got the feeling this was a high point of his life and he just loved the whole comradeship thing and the excitement as a young Country Boy (who worked on a Farm with Horses from 14) of being in a totally different world.
When I was a kid my Brother and I were regularly dragged around to various military shows and stuff and I particularly remember going to the Bovingdon Tank Museum and being amazed by the tiny Japanese Tanks - I am sure for years I had a stereotype that Japanese people were proper Midgets !!
Anyway, I have read a succession of excellent WW2 (and WW1) books in recent years and got a lot more understanding of what actually went on rather than the fairly limited knowledge I had before. The writings by Antony Beevor on D-Day and the fight for Berlin I found particularly insightful and Max Hastings on WW1 is superb (I think you should be able to find Links to some of these further down this page). I was in Tesco recently and I saw this ‘Dunkirk’ book and I remembered that the film has just been released and at the silly cheap prices Paperback Books are now, it was a total no-brainer to chuck it in my basket (that rather glosses over the reality for me - as a Wheelchair user I find Grocery Shopping can be tedious and I am sort of limited to 1 Basket load - so if I am shoving Books into my stash I am probably doing it at the expense of space for Food items !!)
I really liked this book - although there are a few things that detracted from it a bit. The main annoyance is that the Book is clearly very much tied in with the Film and there are loads of references to the Film in the Book which at times gets a little bit irritating - although on the flipside, I did find a lot of the information with regards to how they went about making the Film and the whole Production Process to be quite educational - in many ways I have been guilty of taking Films for granted and not really appreciating the considerable efforts and coordination needed to create them.
It is fair to say that what the Director and Production Team etc. produce in such a limited amount of time is truly remarkable - and I guess this applies to pretty much every film - especially those like Dunkirk which have massive Casts, complex Special Effects, demanding Locations, limited Budgets and the complications of Historical Accuracy (although if you read the book you will see there are several places where they bend the authenticity a bit - for instance, in the Film the ME109s have Yellow Engine Covers although in reality at that time, they would not have done. But it looks better in the Film and enables viewers to differentiate quickly between the Meschersmitts and the Spitfires.)
There is quite an eye-opening bit where they talk about creating the scenes of Troops waiting on the Beaches for Boats to pick them up but they only have a limited number of Extras and the necessary costumes and stuff - so they actually use a Painted Backdrop behind a small group of real people and they film in such a way that the viewer does not notice it is a static image - pretty amazing how they can do such tricks.
If you can screen out the occasionally distracting references to the Film, there is in fact a lot of really fascinating detail that I had not really appreciated about the whole Dunkirk thing. I guess most people just think of Dunkirk as a heroic rescue by the ‘Little Ships’ of our stranded and under fire Troops but there is just so much more to it. For instance, I had not really appreciated the difficulties the Brits had in retreating back to Dunkirk where they could be picked up and how many many Troops lost their lives defending a ‘Perimeter’ around the Town to enable the Troops on the Beach to escape. The blokes on the Perimeter were often told that was what they had to do and many volunteered for it - obviously this hugely reduced their own chances of survival and these guys really where the Heroes of the escapade perhaps.
Another thing I hadn’t realised was that when the Troops were getting bombed by the Luftwaffe on the Dunkirk Beaches, they were actually better off when the Enemy Bombs fell into the Sand and exploded - they would just throw up a big plume of Sand and this sort of absorbed the majority of the impact - it was only if there was a Direct Hit that the Soldiers were killed or wounded. Far worst was to be on the Concrete ‘Mole’ which was where the Troops mostly embarked into the Ships from - the problem here was that the Bombs would have their full effect and cause a lot of causalities. The psychological pressure of such vulnerability for these young men (and women sometimes) just cannot be imagine - it must have been just dire. In fact, many of them actually walked into the Sea and committed suicide when they just could not take any more.
The other thing that most people know about Dunkirk is that the RAF were nowhere to be seen and the Soldiers really resented this. In reality, it looks like this is largely untrue and the RAF were very much in action over the Beaches for the full period of many weeks - of course due to having to fly over the Channel first, they only had very limited time over the Beaches and they would often be flying at much higher altitudes and in cloudy skies the Troops would not be able to see them. The Germans had a big advantage in being able to launch their Air Power from much closer.
There is a great bit where the Book talks about how the Germans had put thousands of Magnetic Mines into the English Channel and fully expected this would make it very difficult for British Ships to pass through. In the event, only 2 Ships got blown up and this was because one of Churchill’s Boffins had invented a process of passing an Electric Current over a Ship using to huge Cables in a process called ‘Degaussing’. Simply doing this protected the Ship from the Magnetic Mines and would last for 6 months before needing the process again. Remarkable to think how many lives this must have saved and yet I suspect very few people know about this.
The book goes into full detail on the rescue of the Troops from the Mole and directly from the beaches etc. It is just horrific to think of how many must have been picked up from their predicament and then only to find that they are on a ship that gets bombed from above or sunk by a U-Boat - the dangers seemed endless until they actually got back home. On that topic, most of the Soldiers saw themselves as huge failures because of course the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had really achieved very little if anything and it was really a glorious defeat. However, the prevailing mood at Home was that these Troops were heroes and they were welcomed back with huge acclaim and glowing welcomes - this apparently caused a lot of confusion for the Troops.
It seems that the simple truth was that this rescue did in fact make the ongoing fight of the British against the Nazis possible as without saving these Troops there would have been no one to take the fight (obviously with massive efforts from the United States) to the Enemy for the rest of the War and Europe would look very different today. It was certainly a triumph of Propaganda that the British Government managed to paint the evacuation as a Heroic Victory and to invoke the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’.
Anyway, I hope that gives you a flavour of the book - I fully recommend it although you will have to put up with the odd Film reference that might grate a bit.
Regards, WD.
When I was a kid my Brother and I were regularly dragged around to various military shows and stuff and I particularly remember going to the Bovingdon Tank Museum and being amazed by the tiny Japanese Tanks - I am sure for years I had a stereotype that Japanese people were proper Midgets !!
Anyway, I have read a succession of excellent WW2 (and WW1) books in recent years and got a lot more understanding of what actually went on rather than the fairly limited knowledge I had before. The writings by Antony Beevor on D-Day and the fight for Berlin I found particularly insightful and Max Hastings on WW1 is superb (I think you should be able to find Links to some of these further down this page). I was in Tesco recently and I saw this ‘Dunkirk’ book and I remembered that the film has just been released and at the silly cheap prices Paperback Books are now, it was a total no-brainer to chuck it in my basket (that rather glosses over the reality for me - as a Wheelchair user I find Grocery Shopping can be tedious and I am sort of limited to 1 Basket load - so if I am shoving Books into my stash I am probably doing it at the expense of space for Food items !!)
I really liked this book - although there are a few things that detracted from it a bit. The main annoyance is that the Book is clearly very much tied in with the Film and there are loads of references to the Film in the Book which at times gets a little bit irritating - although on the flipside, I did find a lot of the information with regards to how they went about making the Film and the whole Production Process to be quite educational - in many ways I have been guilty of taking Films for granted and not really appreciating the considerable efforts and coordination needed to create them.
It is fair to say that what the Director and Production Team etc. produce in such a limited amount of time is truly remarkable - and I guess this applies to pretty much every film - especially those like Dunkirk which have massive Casts, complex Special Effects, demanding Locations, limited Budgets and the complications of Historical Accuracy (although if you read the book you will see there are several places where they bend the authenticity a bit - for instance, in the Film the ME109s have Yellow Engine Covers although in reality at that time, they would not have done. But it looks better in the Film and enables viewers to differentiate quickly between the Meschersmitts and the Spitfires.)
There is quite an eye-opening bit where they talk about creating the scenes of Troops waiting on the Beaches for Boats to pick them up but they only have a limited number of Extras and the necessary costumes and stuff - so they actually use a Painted Backdrop behind a small group of real people and they film in such a way that the viewer does not notice it is a static image - pretty amazing how they can do such tricks.
If you can screen out the occasionally distracting references to the Film, there is in fact a lot of really fascinating detail that I had not really appreciated about the whole Dunkirk thing. I guess most people just think of Dunkirk as a heroic rescue by the ‘Little Ships’ of our stranded and under fire Troops but there is just so much more to it. For instance, I had not really appreciated the difficulties the Brits had in retreating back to Dunkirk where they could be picked up and how many many Troops lost their lives defending a ‘Perimeter’ around the Town to enable the Troops on the Beach to escape. The blokes on the Perimeter were often told that was what they had to do and many volunteered for it - obviously this hugely reduced their own chances of survival and these guys really where the Heroes of the escapade perhaps.
Another thing I hadn’t realised was that when the Troops were getting bombed by the Luftwaffe on the Dunkirk Beaches, they were actually better off when the Enemy Bombs fell into the Sand and exploded - they would just throw up a big plume of Sand and this sort of absorbed the majority of the impact - it was only if there was a Direct Hit that the Soldiers were killed or wounded. Far worst was to be on the Concrete ‘Mole’ which was where the Troops mostly embarked into the Ships from - the problem here was that the Bombs would have their full effect and cause a lot of causalities. The psychological pressure of such vulnerability for these young men (and women sometimes) just cannot be imagine - it must have been just dire. In fact, many of them actually walked into the Sea and committed suicide when they just could not take any more.
The other thing that most people know about Dunkirk is that the RAF were nowhere to be seen and the Soldiers really resented this. In reality, it looks like this is largely untrue and the RAF were very much in action over the Beaches for the full period of many weeks - of course due to having to fly over the Channel first, they only had very limited time over the Beaches and they would often be flying at much higher altitudes and in cloudy skies the Troops would not be able to see them. The Germans had a big advantage in being able to launch their Air Power from much closer.
There is a great bit where the Book talks about how the Germans had put thousands of Magnetic Mines into the English Channel and fully expected this would make it very difficult for British Ships to pass through. In the event, only 2 Ships got blown up and this was because one of Churchill’s Boffins had invented a process of passing an Electric Current over a Ship using to huge Cables in a process called ‘Degaussing’. Simply doing this protected the Ship from the Magnetic Mines and would last for 6 months before needing the process again. Remarkable to think how many lives this must have saved and yet I suspect very few people know about this.
The book goes into full detail on the rescue of the Troops from the Mole and directly from the beaches etc. It is just horrific to think of how many must have been picked up from their predicament and then only to find that they are on a ship that gets bombed from above or sunk by a U-Boat - the dangers seemed endless until they actually got back home. On that topic, most of the Soldiers saw themselves as huge failures because of course the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had really achieved very little if anything and it was really a glorious defeat. However, the prevailing mood at Home was that these Troops were heroes and they were welcomed back with huge acclaim and glowing welcomes - this apparently caused a lot of confusion for the Troops.
It seems that the simple truth was that this rescue did in fact make the ongoing fight of the British against the Nazis possible as without saving these Troops there would have been no one to take the fight (obviously with massive efforts from the United States) to the Enemy for the rest of the War and Europe would look very different today. It was certainly a triumph of Propaganda that the British Government managed to paint the evacuation as a Heroic Victory and to invoke the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’.
Anyway, I hope that gives you a flavour of the book - I fully recommend it although you will have to put up with the odd Film reference that might grate a bit.
Regards, WD.
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Worms to Catch by Guy Martin - What a superb read - I really enjoyed this. I am aware of Guy from his Motorcycle Road Racing exploits and in particular both his successes at the Isle of Man TT Races and the extreme injuries he has had from some truly horrific crashes. Others may know him from his continual stream of TV Programmes that are making him look like a modern day Fred Dibnah (you know, that Steeplejack bloke from the 70s/80s who did all the Industrial Revolution and Traction Engine type stuff). Having said that, his recent ish ‘Speed’ Series where Guy did something like 6 different attempts to gain World Speed Records from things like Highest Speed on a Push Bike, Fastest Sledge, Furthest distance on a human powered plane, etc. are perhaps more of a nod towards Top Gear.
This book is actually very little to do with his Motorbike Racing although it gives a lot more detail ‘behind the scenes’ on his TV exploits since his last book, which I think was called ‘When you dead, you dead’. I actually thought I had read that book but I noticed tonight on the WD Website that it was actually his Autobiography which I had read - that was a great read as well and much more about his Bike Racing - which of course I found utterly fascinating with a particular emphasis on the psychology of someone who is daft enough to ride at speeds approaching 200mph on the Isle of Man (remember this takes place on public roads where there are walls and manhole covers and kerbs etc., not like on a super smooth purpose-built racetrack).
One bit that really stood out in this Book was the Chapter on Guy’s Live TV attempt to do the highest speed ever on a ‘Wall of Death’ - I think they were hoping for 80mph. The Wall of Death is something you might see at a Classic Car Show or something (they had one at the NEC in November a couple of years ago I recall) and it is that almost Circus Act where some loons on small-engined motorbikes (I think they use old Honda CB200s and Indians) ride around inside a sort of Wooden ‘Barrel’ thing at probably around 35mph and the centrifugal force sticks the bike to the Wall and they do tricks like riding with one hand and suchlike.
For Guy’s record attempt they made an enormous ‘Barrel’ which was housed in an old Hanger and he used a Bike that he actually made himself and he was working on it right up to the event. This is one of the amazing things about him, his work ethic is insane and although he is a reasonably well-known Motorcycle Road Racer and now TV Personality, he still works full time as a Truck Mechanic and is remarkably down to earth and shuns the crowds and fame. From what I understand he went to College and learnt his Truck Mechanic skills there but the thing that stands out is that not only does he have unbelievable drive and determination, he is also highly intelligent - although if you ever see him on TV or being interviewed after a Bike Race you would probably get a totally different impression. One thing that really surprised me along this line was that he reads a huge amount and he talks about PG Wodehouse books. To show his dedication and intelligence, whilst making the Bike for the Wall of Death attempt, he decides that he wants to make the Top Yolk for the bike himself out of a solid chunk of aluminium (a billet). Of course he could just buy a Top Yolk (this is the sort of triangle-shaped piece of metal at the top of the Bike’s front forks) or get someone to machine one for him, but no, he has to buy a CNC Machine which he then has to attend a Course on so that he can design the Yolk and then programme the machine to create it - what a lot of work !!
The actual attempt at the Wall of Death is bonkers - Guy has to learn how to ride the small bikes on the normal size ‘Circus’ Wall of Death and it takes a while because Riders tend to get dizzy and there is a big risk of blacking out - that clearly gives a view of how daft this is. Anyway, on the big Wall and with Guy’s home made Bike, he talks about how he has to accelerate up towards 80mph and as he crosses the sort of Start/Finish reference line on the inside of the Wall, he starts to go blind and it is only as he completes about half of the circuit and starts to back off the throttle that he gets his sight back !! This didn’t get mentioned during the TV Programme and it is hard to imagine how he does this.
The absolute best bit of the Book though is when he talks about the ‘Tour Divide’ Mountain Bike ‘race’ in the US. I might have the details wrong, but back in the 1990s or something a bloke cycled the ‘Tour Divide’ which is a sort of huge Natural Basin which runs down from Canada to Mexico cutting though the Wilderness, Mountains and Deserts etc. It is around 2750 Miles and the bloke wrote a Guide Book about it and he said you should take around 45 Days to complete it. Anyway, in more recent times a bloke did it in 22 Days which totally surprised everyone and Guy decided he wanted to do it in under 20 Days. Believe it or not, the new Record is something like 13.5 Days which is just unfathomable.
People go on about those ‘Tough Mudder’ things and that ‘Paris LeSables’ Desert Race (or whatever it is called) but having read about what Guy had to do in this Tour Divide I get the impression that it is very hard to find something that is more physically and mentally demanding. Having said that, after completing this remarkable event, Guy is talking about doing something in Kazakhstan and nearby which is pretty much the only bigger challenge he can think of.
The sheer feat of endurance is just something I cannot even imagine. Guy was cycling in the order of 18 hours a day and sleeping in ditches, Campsite toilet blocks, and even an old Covered Wagon like you see on Bonanza and often for just 3 hours a night. Due to the crazy distance and exertion, the key is to eat constantly and it is essential to eat whenever there is the opportunity - I think the biggest gap between Food Sources was 120 miles when Guy was cycling through a Desert during the night (when it was cooler). The amount Guy has to eat is crazy - at one point he goes into a McDonalds and orders pretty much everything on the menu.
An extra complication is that because he is cycling on his own in the Wilderness, he has to carry all sorts of stuff on the Bike which adds to the weight. Guy observes that the bloke who set the new record, who he actually cycles with for about a day or so, had a much lighter Bike and carried less gear - he told Guy that he had done the Tour Divide a couple of times before and it is this previous experience which helps plan your approach to the ride. At one point Guy’s pedal falls off and he has to cycle for a day or so with a pedal missing - and bear in mind this is not on Roads much and it is ‘As the Crow flies’ mountain biking where he just cycles across whatever is in his path. A couple of times he gets stuck at Rivers and had to take quite a detour to find a place to cross. At another time his gears go wrong and he is stuck in one gear which is not much help if you are going up and down mountains !!
It really is crazy - Guy’s biggest worry is that he will get an injury or an infection - at the end of the ride his bum is red raw and he has to keep adjusting his Saddle position to try to relieve the pain - some Riders even use Pain Killers to overcome these sorts of issues. Anyway, I am sure you get the picture - and I haven’t even mentioned the potential dangers from Grizzly Bears and their Cubs.
In addition to the fascinating Tour Divide stuff (I didn’t even mention the mental aspects and I cannot imagine the mental strength needed to do such an endurance event on your own) Guy also gets involved in a World Record attempt for the Fastest Motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats and he also takes part in a rather weird Car Race where the aim is to complete the Course in as close to 150mph as possible - the winner was almost spot on after several hours. Only thing is, Guy did it in a specially build Transit Van.
Blimey, this ‘review’ is going on a bit so I will close it off there - this book is totally excellent and I can’t wait to get another of his Books.
Regards, WD.
Please note - in this case, the Kindle version is the more expensive one.
This book is actually very little to do with his Motorbike Racing although it gives a lot more detail ‘behind the scenes’ on his TV exploits since his last book, which I think was called ‘When you dead, you dead’. I actually thought I had read that book but I noticed tonight on the WD Website that it was actually his Autobiography which I had read - that was a great read as well and much more about his Bike Racing - which of course I found utterly fascinating with a particular emphasis on the psychology of someone who is daft enough to ride at speeds approaching 200mph on the Isle of Man (remember this takes place on public roads where there are walls and manhole covers and kerbs etc., not like on a super smooth purpose-built racetrack).
One bit that really stood out in this Book was the Chapter on Guy’s Live TV attempt to do the highest speed ever on a ‘Wall of Death’ - I think they were hoping for 80mph. The Wall of Death is something you might see at a Classic Car Show or something (they had one at the NEC in November a couple of years ago I recall) and it is that almost Circus Act where some loons on small-engined motorbikes (I think they use old Honda CB200s and Indians) ride around inside a sort of Wooden ‘Barrel’ thing at probably around 35mph and the centrifugal force sticks the bike to the Wall and they do tricks like riding with one hand and suchlike.
For Guy’s record attempt they made an enormous ‘Barrel’ which was housed in an old Hanger and he used a Bike that he actually made himself and he was working on it right up to the event. This is one of the amazing things about him, his work ethic is insane and although he is a reasonably well-known Motorcycle Road Racer and now TV Personality, he still works full time as a Truck Mechanic and is remarkably down to earth and shuns the crowds and fame. From what I understand he went to College and learnt his Truck Mechanic skills there but the thing that stands out is that not only does he have unbelievable drive and determination, he is also highly intelligent - although if you ever see him on TV or being interviewed after a Bike Race you would probably get a totally different impression. One thing that really surprised me along this line was that he reads a huge amount and he talks about PG Wodehouse books. To show his dedication and intelligence, whilst making the Bike for the Wall of Death attempt, he decides that he wants to make the Top Yolk for the bike himself out of a solid chunk of aluminium (a billet). Of course he could just buy a Top Yolk (this is the sort of triangle-shaped piece of metal at the top of the Bike’s front forks) or get someone to machine one for him, but no, he has to buy a CNC Machine which he then has to attend a Course on so that he can design the Yolk and then programme the machine to create it - what a lot of work !!
The actual attempt at the Wall of Death is bonkers - Guy has to learn how to ride the small bikes on the normal size ‘Circus’ Wall of Death and it takes a while because Riders tend to get dizzy and there is a big risk of blacking out - that clearly gives a view of how daft this is. Anyway, on the big Wall and with Guy’s home made Bike, he talks about how he has to accelerate up towards 80mph and as he crosses the sort of Start/Finish reference line on the inside of the Wall, he starts to go blind and it is only as he completes about half of the circuit and starts to back off the throttle that he gets his sight back !! This didn’t get mentioned during the TV Programme and it is hard to imagine how he does this.
The absolute best bit of the Book though is when he talks about the ‘Tour Divide’ Mountain Bike ‘race’ in the US. I might have the details wrong, but back in the 1990s or something a bloke cycled the ‘Tour Divide’ which is a sort of huge Natural Basin which runs down from Canada to Mexico cutting though the Wilderness, Mountains and Deserts etc. It is around 2750 Miles and the bloke wrote a Guide Book about it and he said you should take around 45 Days to complete it. Anyway, in more recent times a bloke did it in 22 Days which totally surprised everyone and Guy decided he wanted to do it in under 20 Days. Believe it or not, the new Record is something like 13.5 Days which is just unfathomable.
People go on about those ‘Tough Mudder’ things and that ‘Paris LeSables’ Desert Race (or whatever it is called) but having read about what Guy had to do in this Tour Divide I get the impression that it is very hard to find something that is more physically and mentally demanding. Having said that, after completing this remarkable event, Guy is talking about doing something in Kazakhstan and nearby which is pretty much the only bigger challenge he can think of.
The sheer feat of endurance is just something I cannot even imagine. Guy was cycling in the order of 18 hours a day and sleeping in ditches, Campsite toilet blocks, and even an old Covered Wagon like you see on Bonanza and often for just 3 hours a night. Due to the crazy distance and exertion, the key is to eat constantly and it is essential to eat whenever there is the opportunity - I think the biggest gap between Food Sources was 120 miles when Guy was cycling through a Desert during the night (when it was cooler). The amount Guy has to eat is crazy - at one point he goes into a McDonalds and orders pretty much everything on the menu.
An extra complication is that because he is cycling on his own in the Wilderness, he has to carry all sorts of stuff on the Bike which adds to the weight. Guy observes that the bloke who set the new record, who he actually cycles with for about a day or so, had a much lighter Bike and carried less gear - he told Guy that he had done the Tour Divide a couple of times before and it is this previous experience which helps plan your approach to the ride. At one point Guy’s pedal falls off and he has to cycle for a day or so with a pedal missing - and bear in mind this is not on Roads much and it is ‘As the Crow flies’ mountain biking where he just cycles across whatever is in his path. A couple of times he gets stuck at Rivers and had to take quite a detour to find a place to cross. At another time his gears go wrong and he is stuck in one gear which is not much help if you are going up and down mountains !!
It really is crazy - Guy’s biggest worry is that he will get an injury or an infection - at the end of the ride his bum is red raw and he has to keep adjusting his Saddle position to try to relieve the pain - some Riders even use Pain Killers to overcome these sorts of issues. Anyway, I am sure you get the picture - and I haven’t even mentioned the potential dangers from Grizzly Bears and their Cubs.
In addition to the fascinating Tour Divide stuff (I didn’t even mention the mental aspects and I cannot imagine the mental strength needed to do such an endurance event on your own) Guy also gets involved in a World Record attempt for the Fastest Motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats and he also takes part in a rather weird Car Race where the aim is to complete the Course in as close to 150mph as possible - the winner was almost spot on after several hours. Only thing is, Guy did it in a specially build Transit Van.
Blimey, this ‘review’ is going on a bit so I will close it off there - this book is totally excellent and I can’t wait to get another of his Books.
Regards, WD.
Please note - in this case, the Kindle version is the more expensive one.
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Parting Shots: Undiplomatic diplomats - the ambassador’s letters you were never meant to see by Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson - Up until a few years ago, when an Overseas Ambassador for a UK Embassy left their post, they wrote a Letter called a ‘Valedictory’ which got sent to the Foreign Secretary and was copied to various Senior Civil Servants in the Foreign Office, which strangely seems to have been entirely up to the discretion of the writer. These then got photocopied and circulated widely around which often caused some embarrassment and trouble for the Government which is probably why the practice ceased in 2006 under the Blair Government.
Nearly always the Valedictory would thank the Wife (or occasionally the Husband) of the Ambassador but they often included derisory comments about the Locals, about the government of the Country concerned (hence a lot of embarrassment) and very often about how the Foreign Office was being run and how things had invariably got worse over the years !!
These Letters are Classified and hence the Authors had to obtain copies of them by putting in Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests and quite often it was pure guesswork based on who the particular Ambassador was (they tended to put in Requests for the Valedictories from Ambassadors who had written amusing or controversial Despatches in the past) and many requests would be refused for Security reasons or often they would receive back a Letter that had been heavily redacted. However, they have managed with much effort to get together a collection of these Valedictories and although some of them are not particularly entertaining there are many in the Book which really are quite funny or more often very insightful with regards to what a particular Country was like at a particular time or the kind of conditions that the Ambassador and his/her spouse had to endure - including death threats and hostage situations. It is notable how many Embassies seem to have been run very much on a shoestring and invariably the hard work of a Spouse was entirely unpaid and very demanding - clearly this is one of the main reasons why departing Ambassadors so often have praised and thanked their other halves.
I can’t say this is the best book I have ever read - there are bits of it which I found very hard going and it was probably not until I got into the Chapters which related to the Cold War stuff from Ambassadors to Russia and East Germany and similar places that it gets really interesting, with various comments about the spying activities of the Host Country. Similarly there are loads of bits about the Middle East and that can be really eye-opening as well.
The thing I really found interesting here was when the Letters dated from probably the 1970s onwards so that it was more the history that I have actually lived through - those bits are really good and help to understand the events that I remember taking place from a rather different perspective. If you have an interest in Current Affairs and Politics then I suspect you will find this a pretty decent read. You may have heard something similar on Radio 4 because the Authors say the Book has arisen after a one-off Radio programme.
Cheers, WD.
NOTE: The Kindle Version is the much cheaper one here.
Nearly always the Valedictory would thank the Wife (or occasionally the Husband) of the Ambassador but they often included derisory comments about the Locals, about the government of the Country concerned (hence a lot of embarrassment) and very often about how the Foreign Office was being run and how things had invariably got worse over the years !!
These Letters are Classified and hence the Authors had to obtain copies of them by putting in Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests and quite often it was pure guesswork based on who the particular Ambassador was (they tended to put in Requests for the Valedictories from Ambassadors who had written amusing or controversial Despatches in the past) and many requests would be refused for Security reasons or often they would receive back a Letter that had been heavily redacted. However, they have managed with much effort to get together a collection of these Valedictories and although some of them are not particularly entertaining there are many in the Book which really are quite funny or more often very insightful with regards to what a particular Country was like at a particular time or the kind of conditions that the Ambassador and his/her spouse had to endure - including death threats and hostage situations. It is notable how many Embassies seem to have been run very much on a shoestring and invariably the hard work of a Spouse was entirely unpaid and very demanding - clearly this is one of the main reasons why departing Ambassadors so often have praised and thanked their other halves.
I can’t say this is the best book I have ever read - there are bits of it which I found very hard going and it was probably not until I got into the Chapters which related to the Cold War stuff from Ambassadors to Russia and East Germany and similar places that it gets really interesting, with various comments about the spying activities of the Host Country. Similarly there are loads of bits about the Middle East and that can be really eye-opening as well.
The thing I really found interesting here was when the Letters dated from probably the 1970s onwards so that it was more the history that I have actually lived through - those bits are really good and help to understand the events that I remember taking place from a rather different perspective. If you have an interest in Current Affairs and Politics then I suspect you will find this a pretty decent read. You may have heard something similar on Radio 4 because the Authors say the Book has arisen after a one-off Radio programme.
Cheers, WD.
NOTE: The Kindle Version is the much cheaper one here.
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Books I Read Recently.......
Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon by Buzz Aldrin - The start of this book is worth the ticket alone - it covers Buzz’s experience of the Apollo 11 Mission from where he is getting kitted up in the Spaceman Suit; and on to the Takeoff from Earth on the biggest machine man has ever made; and then the trip to the Moon and the landing with Neil Armstrong and becoming the ‘2nd Man on the Moon’ - an epithet that goes on to haunt him all his life.
I found the bits about the Landing and the opening of the door on the Lunar Module (LEM) utterly fascinating - such details as how the original Mission Plan (devised by Buzz and Neil) was to park the Lander and after a few checks (another big thing I had not realised was that once they landed they had to straightaway prepare the LEM to takeoff again - this was because nobody knew what the surface of the moon was like - they had to be ready just in case the LEM started to sink) they were due to have a sleep for a few hours (they hadn’t slept for a long time and would have been pretty trashed I guess). In the event they were so excited and pumped with adrenaline that there was no way they could sleep so they had some food quickly and then got straight on with getting out of the LEM and onto the surface (it’s not as fast as it sounds because doing anything in those Spacesuits was clearly very cumbersome and there was a big risk of damaging the LEM interior - as Buzz actually did).
If like me you find the whole Space Race thing fascinating (I am a child of my time !!) then you will love this book - in fairness the early bits are probably the best from that point of view and then the book really goes on to Buzz’s battle with Alcohol and his fights against Depression and how he largely managed to overcome them later in life. As a sign of the times, no one connected his drinking with the Depression until much later - Booze was just such a normal thing to do.
It is quite humbling to see how somebody who has achieved so much in their life (bear in mind that Buzz was a Fighter Ace in the Korean War and made a major contribution to the exploration of Space when he mastered the art of Spacewalks after NASA’s original attempts had been a disaster - and that is without even adding his Doctorate in Docking of Spacecraft) can struggle so much with the weight of it all and with the sense of drift and listlessness once you have achieved such great things. It often strikes me that Sports Stars must face this problem as they usually achieve so much wealth and celebrity at such young ages and are in effect on the scrap heap in their mid to late 30s. Bear in mind that Buzz was nearly 40 when he walked on the moon.
In later life Buzz seems to have got his life much more on track and this seems to be largely down to meeting his second wife, Lois, who has clearly been devoted to him and focused on helping him through his demons. After reading the hard bits in the middle of the book it is very welcome to read the Happy Ending bits where Buzz gets involved with Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear, book writing and with his work on further Deep Space Exploration projects and Mars Missions etc.
As I said earlier, for Space Buffs this is really all about the first part of the book and then it becomes more of a psychology/self-help kind of book - but on the whole it is very enjoyable and an easy read - with quite a few funny bits as well.
The link here is for the Kindle version and it doesn’t seem like Amazon have a Hardback or Paperback version from new - but if you click the link there do appear to be some used copies kicking around.
Cheers, WD.
I found the bits about the Landing and the opening of the door on the Lunar Module (LEM) utterly fascinating - such details as how the original Mission Plan (devised by Buzz and Neil) was to park the Lander and after a few checks (another big thing I had not realised was that once they landed they had to straightaway prepare the LEM to takeoff again - this was because nobody knew what the surface of the moon was like - they had to be ready just in case the LEM started to sink) they were due to have a sleep for a few hours (they hadn’t slept for a long time and would have been pretty trashed I guess). In the event they were so excited and pumped with adrenaline that there was no way they could sleep so they had some food quickly and then got straight on with getting out of the LEM and onto the surface (it’s not as fast as it sounds because doing anything in those Spacesuits was clearly very cumbersome and there was a big risk of damaging the LEM interior - as Buzz actually did).
If like me you find the whole Space Race thing fascinating (I am a child of my time !!) then you will love this book - in fairness the early bits are probably the best from that point of view and then the book really goes on to Buzz’s battle with Alcohol and his fights against Depression and how he largely managed to overcome them later in life. As a sign of the times, no one connected his drinking with the Depression until much later - Booze was just such a normal thing to do.
It is quite humbling to see how somebody who has achieved so much in their life (bear in mind that Buzz was a Fighter Ace in the Korean War and made a major contribution to the exploration of Space when he mastered the art of Spacewalks after NASA’s original attempts had been a disaster - and that is without even adding his Doctorate in Docking of Spacecraft) can struggle so much with the weight of it all and with the sense of drift and listlessness once you have achieved such great things. It often strikes me that Sports Stars must face this problem as they usually achieve so much wealth and celebrity at such young ages and are in effect on the scrap heap in their mid to late 30s. Bear in mind that Buzz was nearly 40 when he walked on the moon.
In later life Buzz seems to have got his life much more on track and this seems to be largely down to meeting his second wife, Lois, who has clearly been devoted to him and focused on helping him through his demons. After reading the hard bits in the middle of the book it is very welcome to read the Happy Ending bits where Buzz gets involved with Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear, book writing and with his work on further Deep Space Exploration projects and Mars Missions etc.
As I said earlier, for Space Buffs this is really all about the first part of the book and then it becomes more of a psychology/self-help kind of book - but on the whole it is very enjoyable and an easy read - with quite a few funny bits as well.
The link here is for the Kindle version and it doesn’t seem like Amazon have a Hardback or Paperback version from new - but if you click the link there do appear to be some used copies kicking around.
Cheers, WD.
Carrying Albert Home:The Somewhat True Story of a Man, his Wife and her Alligator by Homer Hickam - I just finished reading this extremely quirky but enjoyable and uplifting book. I read so many serious Financial Books and History and suchlike but it is so nice sometimes to pick up something that is so ‘leftfield’ and unrelated that it is a real breath of fresh air.
It is a fictional story that is sort of very loosely based on perhaps a smidge of truth about the Author’s parents and how his mum used to own an Alligator called ‘Albert’ back in the 1930s in a Northern US coal mining town (everyone in the book thinks it’s a Crocodile). The essence is that his Mum and Dad decide that Albert has grown too big and they set off in an ancient 1920s Buick to take Albert home to Florida where he came from originally. From out of nowhere a Rooster appears and I didn’t really get the significance of this - my suspicion is that this is largely a Love Story and somehow the Bird is a metaphor for that emotion or something. Hey, I’m a bloke, don’t ask me what it means !!
In addition to the relationship between his parents changing over the trip, Homer starts off really resenting and distrustful of Albert but by the time they get him back to Florida, they are truly close travelling companions.
The book is nuts really - on the way they bump into John Steinbeck (prior to his ‘Grapes of Wrath’ days) and Ernest Hemmingway and a famous American Poet (I have forgotten his name !!) and Homer’s Mum & Dad get involved in making a Tarzan movie, get caught up in a Bank Robbery, play Professional Baseball and are mistaken for leading members of a Depression era Workers Union with a penchant for blowing up Factories.
As you can tell from this short overview, the book is truly insane but I really enjoyed it and if you fancy something entirely different then I am sure this is the book for you. There is absolutely nothing ‘heavy’ about this book and it is really refreshing to read something so effortless.
cheers, WD
This is another unfathomable situation where the Kindle Version is the slightly more expensive one.
It is a fictional story that is sort of very loosely based on perhaps a smidge of truth about the Author’s parents and how his mum used to own an Alligator called ‘Albert’ back in the 1930s in a Northern US coal mining town (everyone in the book thinks it’s a Crocodile). The essence is that his Mum and Dad decide that Albert has grown too big and they set off in an ancient 1920s Buick to take Albert home to Florida where he came from originally. From out of nowhere a Rooster appears and I didn’t really get the significance of this - my suspicion is that this is largely a Love Story and somehow the Bird is a metaphor for that emotion or something. Hey, I’m a bloke, don’t ask me what it means !!
In addition to the relationship between his parents changing over the trip, Homer starts off really resenting and distrustful of Albert but by the time they get him back to Florida, they are truly close travelling companions.
The book is nuts really - on the way they bump into John Steinbeck (prior to his ‘Grapes of Wrath’ days) and Ernest Hemmingway and a famous American Poet (I have forgotten his name !!) and Homer’s Mum & Dad get involved in making a Tarzan movie, get caught up in a Bank Robbery, play Professional Baseball and are mistaken for leading members of a Depression era Workers Union with a penchant for blowing up Factories.
As you can tell from this short overview, the book is truly insane but I really enjoyed it and if you fancy something entirely different then I am sure this is the book for you. There is absolutely nothing ‘heavy’ about this book and it is really refreshing to read something so effortless.
cheers, WD
This is another unfathomable situation where the Kindle Version is the slightly more expensive one.
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The Churchill Factor - how One Man made History by Boris Johnson - I have always had a bit of a fascination with Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill - probably the main reason is that all my life I have been reminded by my parents (well, my Dad really because my Mum was busy at the time) that I was born on the Day that Winston Churchill was buried. In addition, when I was a kid my Parents took me to Blenheim Palace and somehow a Postcard I had of Winston ended up blu-tack’d to a wall presumably as a “this is what we did in the Holidays” kind of thing. Well, it got really exciting as a kid because there was a break-in and somehow blood ended up on my Winston Postcard and it must have been from the burglar when he smashed the glass of the School Hall…….
Sadly my illusions were cruelly shattered when I saw footage of Winston’s Boat thing floating down the Thames with his Coffin on it - all well and good you might think, trouble is, it was in Black & White - yes, I am that old…..(While working on a final edit of this text, by sheer coincidence there is a Documentary about Winnie on Discovery History and I have finally seen some colour footage of the day - see, I’m not totally ancient !!)
I really enjoyed this book; despite my lifelong interest in anything to do with The Great Man, I have never read a specific book about his life - which sort of surprises me really. I guess for people of my advanced years, Winston Churchill is such a legend and we have sort of spent our lives surrounded by him - he is largely part of the British Culture that I was brought up fully exposed to. I guess it is also because my Dad (and his brothers) were all involved in the Armed Forces although my Dad was slightly too young to be in the War itself - my Uncles were all involved with my Uncle Jim being a Desert Rat (and having some cool shrapnel damage in his knee) and Uncle Bill on a ship for the D-Day Landings. Winston Churchill was very much seen as a Hero by people of their generation who were survivors of the terrible struggle of WW2.
The thing that probably hit me more than anything about this book is how Boris obviously tries to model his whole Political Life on Churchill - it is clear from early in the Book when Boris talks about seeing pictures of him as a kid etc. The career of Journalism, the craving for fame and the jovial / humorous Character feel very much like a Tribute Act to Churchill (I’ll let you decide how good the Tribute band actually is.)
On the whole I felt the book was pretty well written and the interjections from Boris were only annoying on odd occasions - although there were a few times when I felt Boris was trying to be needlessly funny and it probably detracted from my read - I hope I have not now ruined it for future readers.
Probably the key bit that hit me about Churchill’s Life was how perhaps his key achievement was getting the United States under President Franklin Roosevelt to enter the War and fight against Hitler - despite their battle arguably being with the Japanese after Pearl Harbour. It is apparent from the book that Churchill set out deliberately to get the US involved as early as 1940 and he employed various means, including charm, to get his way. I am not sure of the true historical accuracy of this but it seems plausible - however, of course it is possible that this was a slant put on things by Boris.
There are some interesting bits about an apparent recklessness in battle - it is almost as if the young Churchill craved being at the forefront of armed combat and taking enormous Risks - such things as riding horseback along Trenches with a pistol in the face of Machine Guns and daring escapes from prison. It is also argued that later in life he still had this fascination of the cut and thrust of Battle and King George VI even had to order him not to be present on a Ship during the first day of the D-Day Campaign. Apparently Churchill was hugely disappointed and made sure he was on the scene as soon as he could after the Landings.
There is some really top quality humour in the Book - of course the anecdotes and merry quickfire quips from Churchill are legendary, as are the stirring War Time Speeches, but it turns out many of the famous ones might not actually have been said by him. As an aside, something I only found out recently was that many of Churchill’s great Parliamentary Speeches did not actually take place in the House of Commons - it was closed at the time being repaired from Bomb damage.
Another standout is Churchill’s immense energy and prolific work-rate - it is quite astonishing what he achieved simply if you were to measure it in terms of Magazine Articles for example - but it you throw in all the Books he wrote and things like the Paintings he produced, it is probably rarely eclipsed by any Human. To enable this remarkable output, he had an army of Secretaries and suchlike and the stories of him dictating from his bathtub are really classic. This is even more impressive if you then consider that he was probably half-pis*ed for most of every day with an unbelievable ability to consume alcohol and of course despite his infamous Cigar habit, he lived to a ripe old age (90 I think). He even survived being hit by a car on a trip to the US.
Apparently the Paintings aren’t great though, so maybe they don’t count !!
The book is full of many surprising things really - such as how Churchill can be seen as an important Social Reformer despite his Upper Class roots and how he must have been one of the most badly behaved Schoolboys ever (one Teacher said something like “this awful boy has no abilities whatsoever”). Despite the Leadership he gave in WW2 which has sort of established his legendary status in the British psyche, he was actually a serial failure with many major Political decisions - he even once said “Many people say I was the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that Britain every had - and they are right !!” The most famous screw-up was the WW1 Campaign in the Dardanelles - this was shown in the film Gallipoli and involved the deaths of thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops - all to a plan and initiative created by Churchill.
Anyway, in summary it’s a great book and well worth getting a copy.
Cheers, WD.
Sadly my illusions were cruelly shattered when I saw footage of Winston’s Boat thing floating down the Thames with his Coffin on it - all well and good you might think, trouble is, it was in Black & White - yes, I am that old…..(While working on a final edit of this text, by sheer coincidence there is a Documentary about Winnie on Discovery History and I have finally seen some colour footage of the day - see, I’m not totally ancient !!)
I really enjoyed this book; despite my lifelong interest in anything to do with The Great Man, I have never read a specific book about his life - which sort of surprises me really. I guess for people of my advanced years, Winston Churchill is such a legend and we have sort of spent our lives surrounded by him - he is largely part of the British Culture that I was brought up fully exposed to. I guess it is also because my Dad (and his brothers) were all involved in the Armed Forces although my Dad was slightly too young to be in the War itself - my Uncles were all involved with my Uncle Jim being a Desert Rat (and having some cool shrapnel damage in his knee) and Uncle Bill on a ship for the D-Day Landings. Winston Churchill was very much seen as a Hero by people of their generation who were survivors of the terrible struggle of WW2.
The thing that probably hit me more than anything about this book is how Boris obviously tries to model his whole Political Life on Churchill - it is clear from early in the Book when Boris talks about seeing pictures of him as a kid etc. The career of Journalism, the craving for fame and the jovial / humorous Character feel very much like a Tribute Act to Churchill (I’ll let you decide how good the Tribute band actually is.)
On the whole I felt the book was pretty well written and the interjections from Boris were only annoying on odd occasions - although there were a few times when I felt Boris was trying to be needlessly funny and it probably detracted from my read - I hope I have not now ruined it for future readers.
Probably the key bit that hit me about Churchill’s Life was how perhaps his key achievement was getting the United States under President Franklin Roosevelt to enter the War and fight against Hitler - despite their battle arguably being with the Japanese after Pearl Harbour. It is apparent from the book that Churchill set out deliberately to get the US involved as early as 1940 and he employed various means, including charm, to get his way. I am not sure of the true historical accuracy of this but it seems plausible - however, of course it is possible that this was a slant put on things by Boris.
There are some interesting bits about an apparent recklessness in battle - it is almost as if the young Churchill craved being at the forefront of armed combat and taking enormous Risks - such things as riding horseback along Trenches with a pistol in the face of Machine Guns and daring escapes from prison. It is also argued that later in life he still had this fascination of the cut and thrust of Battle and King George VI even had to order him not to be present on a Ship during the first day of the D-Day Campaign. Apparently Churchill was hugely disappointed and made sure he was on the scene as soon as he could after the Landings.
There is some really top quality humour in the Book - of course the anecdotes and merry quickfire quips from Churchill are legendary, as are the stirring War Time Speeches, but it turns out many of the famous ones might not actually have been said by him. As an aside, something I only found out recently was that many of Churchill’s great Parliamentary Speeches did not actually take place in the House of Commons - it was closed at the time being repaired from Bomb damage.
Another standout is Churchill’s immense energy and prolific work-rate - it is quite astonishing what he achieved simply if you were to measure it in terms of Magazine Articles for example - but it you throw in all the Books he wrote and things like the Paintings he produced, it is probably rarely eclipsed by any Human. To enable this remarkable output, he had an army of Secretaries and suchlike and the stories of him dictating from his bathtub are really classic. This is even more impressive if you then consider that he was probably half-pis*ed for most of every day with an unbelievable ability to consume alcohol and of course despite his infamous Cigar habit, he lived to a ripe old age (90 I think). He even survived being hit by a car on a trip to the US.
Apparently the Paintings aren’t great though, so maybe they don’t count !!
The book is full of many surprising things really - such as how Churchill can be seen as an important Social Reformer despite his Upper Class roots and how he must have been one of the most badly behaved Schoolboys ever (one Teacher said something like “this awful boy has no abilities whatsoever”). Despite the Leadership he gave in WW2 which has sort of established his legendary status in the British psyche, he was actually a serial failure with many major Political decisions - he even once said “Many people say I was the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that Britain every had - and they are right !!” The most famous screw-up was the WW1 Campaign in the Dardanelles - this was shown in the film Gallipoli and involved the deaths of thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops - all to a plan and initiative created by Churchill.
Anyway, in summary it’s a great book and well worth getting a copy.
Cheers, WD.
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The Road to Little Dribbling (More Notes from a Small Island) by Bill Bryson - this is Bryson's latest book and he wrote it largely as an excuse to revisit many of the places he went to something like 25 years ago in 'Notes from a Small Island'. I have read several of his books now (but strangely not the original 'Notes from..' book) and this follows his usual format of funny stories about his travels and lots of comments on the quirkiness of the UK. He is clearly a lot older these days and much of his writing relates to the human condition as we age - he is becoming the classic whinging old git - but in a very funny way. I loved this book and it got off to a particularly good start when he came to Windsor (where I live) and did classic things like 'The Long Walk' down to the 'Copper Horse' which I had similarly done just a few weeks before I read his comments. He goes all over the UK and I am sure most Readers will have been to at least one of the places he mentions and it is certain that Brits will be able to relate to his partly independent views (he's a Yank but has lived here forever) of our peculiarities. As ever he discovers some fascinating facts and it is a very easy and relaxing read.
Note, the Kindle Version is the more expensive one (yes, I know that makes no sense !!).
Note, the Kindle Version is the more expensive one (yes, I know that makes no sense !!).
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The Revenant by Michael Punke - this is the book that the recent Leonardo Dicaprio film was based on (I have not seen the film but I get the impression the stories are quite different). I don't want to give too much away (don't worry, I'm not) but when I got to the end (I have to admit the end was a bit sort of 'flat') it turns out that it is largely based on a true story about a Trapper bloke in the early 1800s who got mauled by a Grizzly Bear and left for dead by his 'comrades'. It is a pretty decent yarn and I sort of wish I had known it was based on true events when I read it - maybe a lot of the action etc. might have been more poignant. I guess you could call it a sort of Wild West adventure book (an earlier version of Shane?) and I did find the bits about the various Indian Tribes and their behaviours with regard to the White Man well worth reading. The story is really about the main character trying to chase down the men who abandoned him and get his revenge - but perhaps the strongest impression I got from the book was just how vulnerable humans were at this time and the challenges of working as a Fur Trapper, both from a food point of view but also because many of the Indian Tribes were not exactly friendly. There is no way I would say this is a high quality literary piece of genius work, but it is a fun read and quite accessible.
Note - the Kindle Version is the slightly more expensive one.
Note - the Kindle Version is the slightly more expensive one.
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My Autobiography by Guy Martin - I have just finished reading this and loved it. However, I really think it is more suited to people with an interest in Motorcycle Racing and if that is your thing then you will love it. There are some superb insights into the mind of someone who regularly rides a 1000cc Superbike at speeds up to around 190mph on twisty Isle of Man TT roads and in the Irish Road Races. There is a lot about bike setup and it really struck me how Guy is able to ride a bike that is clearly not setup correctly and he will just overcome the problems - even at such extreme speeds. The chap is clearly wired quite strangely and I guess that is essential to be able to take such risks - it's a very entertaining read though. Please note, the Kindle Edition is the more expensive one (which is unusual).
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One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson - I loved this book. It was one of those I picked up in Tesco not really knowing what it was about and got totally immersed. It essentially starts off about Charles Lindburgh and the incredible feat of crossing the Atlantic solo but then slips seamlessly into areas such as Herbert Hoover, Prohibition (that is amazing), Babe Ruth, Bloke who sat on a Flagpole, Inventor of TV etc. If you enjoy Bill Bryson then it's a no brainer - engrossing, enlightening and very funny.
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The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel - this was another wonderful surprise - it sounds a bit 'girlie' and stuff but what a superb book. If you are fascinated by the Space Race (let's face it, if you are of a Certain Age then you will be) it is a new look at an amazing period of Human Achievement. This gives real insight into the pressures facing the Wives and the challenges the men with 'The Right Stuff' had to face.
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Who I am by Pete Townshend - I am a huge Who fan so utterly biased. Anyway, for Who fans it is a must - extremely well written and gives full details on the Creative Force behind the band - and the pressures Townshend faced. Also puts his side of the Legal accusations from recent years. If you enjoy 60s, 70s, 80s Rock music then it is a Must Read - Townshend was mates with stars such as Bowie, Clapton, Hendrix, Harrison, Paige, Jagger, etc.
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The Book of the Dead by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson - I was given this by my brother as an Xmas Present last year - what a cracking book. It is really very funny but also very educational on various Historical Characters. It is sold under the 'QI' banner but not really much to do with the TV programme - but brilliant anyway. The stuff on Napoleon's willy is classic !!
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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden - I really enjoyed this book. It is a great story of a young girl from a Fishing Village being taken to the City to become a Geisha. All the detail about the Tea Serving rules is fascinating. It's a great story and stuff happens all the time.
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Memoirs of a Geisha Film - this is one of those extremely rare occasions where the Film is a very good representation of the book. The thing that really hit me was the sheer colour and beauty of the Cherry Blossom scenes (I think the term is 'Cinematography'). If you like the book, this is a great follow up.
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Jack Reacher (One Shot) by Lee Child - this is part of the extensive Jack Reacher series. This was the first one I read and I was very impressed. I get a bit bored with all these Detectives and Murder books (they are all the same) but I liked the complexity of the story and the girls will love Mr Reacher !!
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Two Brothers by Ben Elton - this is a revelation. I had previously read many Ben Elton books but they are mostly a bit funny. This is a very serious book which really gets the Reader into the terrible conditions Jews had to live under during the Nazi Reign. I have never read anything so informative about the pre-Concentration Camp stages of abuse - and it's a cracking storyline as well.
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D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor - I guess the author is probably the foremost historical writer on WW2 following his acclaimed 'Stalingrad' and 'Berlin'. I love books like this that take something we all know about, D-Day, and actually gives us the real, detailed, facts. Lots of superb anecdotes from the guys on the ground as well as the strategic stuff. Unbeatable for WW2 history.
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Past Caring by Robert Goddard - I think this is quite an old book which I found in a Charity Shop - but what a great read. It's a proper love story where the main character is an MP around the time of the Suffragettes - anyway, he falls for one of them and it all goes very badly wrong. Spans time right through his life to more modern times. It sounds pants but is a cracker.
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The Island by Victoria Hislop - this is the first book that Victoria Hislop wrote (yes, she is Ian's wife) and it is a great start - although The Return and The Thread are arguably better. This one is about an Island where people with Leprosy were expelled to and takes the Reader through to more recent times and how cures were found and attitudes changed - it is historically pretty accurate I think and a great story.
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The Return by Victoria Hislop - this is a wonderful historical drama type thing set in the early and later stages of the Spanish Civil War - utterly superb and the first book of hers I read. Great story and an informative setting. Again, we have all heard about the Spanish Civil War but this gives real detail in an enjoyable and accessible way.
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If you like Victoria Hislop's stuff, you can find more books here:
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Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft ruled the World by James Hamilton-Paterson - this is a must read for anyone who remembers or is fascinated by the Post War Jet Age and Britain's leading role within it. Concentrates to a large extent on the Test Pilots who were the dashing Celebrities of their time.
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Catastrophe: Europe goes to war 1914 by Max Hastings - I only just finished this and it is real class - as you would expect from Mr Hastings. We all think of the Trenches and Britain's part in WW1 but many misunderstand that Europe was scrapping it out for months before we even bothered to turn up. This covers up until Xmas 1914 and the reasons for the start of the War. Forget the media nonsense and read this and actually Learn something !!
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1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke - this is a very funny book that pokes fun at 'the French' and is a must read for any warm-blooded Englishman. Goes through various historical events and pulls them apart - usually with a slant of the English are Brilliant and the French are to be laughed at. We don't mean it - honest !!
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The Untold Story of the United States by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick - I found this surprisingly interesting and thought provoking. It totally confronts Conventional Wisdom that the USA has been a force for good in the world, and clearly makes the case that the opposite is probably true. Will fan your prejudices if you are a Leftie and for Rabid Right Wingers, it will question your beliefs - well worth reading.
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Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett - Spy Drama set in WW2 with a German killer on the loose in the UK - really enjoyed this, but I suppose the author's reputation makes most of his books worth reading.
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Playing the Moldovans at Tennis by Tony Hawks - this is by the BBC Radio Comedy bloke who did 'Round Ireland with a Fridge'. I love his books - all very funny and quite absurd. In this one, Tony gets bet by Arthur Smith that he can't beat each member of the Moldovan National Football Team at Tennis - so he sets out to do it !! Truly daft.
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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - this was the first book I read by the author, very well written and a great story. Set in Afghanistan it tells the story of a girl born into an Ethnic Minority who is abused by Elderly Husband following arranged marriage. Sounds depressing but a cracking read.
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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - this was his first book and you may have seen the film. Story of a young boy (the Kite Runner !!) who is raised in a Rich household and ends up fleeing to the US after the Russian occupation of Kabul. Really enjoyable and well written.
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Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks - this is a quality read - it sort of has everything - drama, action, love story, historical insights, etc. Key bit about soldier in WW1 who is sent into the Tunnels under the German Lines. Recently made into a TV effort but I thought that was pretty naff - don't let that put you off !!
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Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K Dick - this is a collection of short stories written by a the Sci Fi Legend. I have read lots of his stuff and love the way he combines Futuristic ideas with the banality of 1950s America. Dick was the inspiration for Bladerunner (Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?) and Total Recall.
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Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - This book has had huge acclaim and is something I will hopefully read soon. It is currently being dramatised on TV and is supposed to be very good - unfortunately I have been too busy to watch it !! It is a Fictional story based on History, I copied this text from Amazon: 'England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor.'
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Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile by Geraint Anderson - this is another Reader Recommendation by Simon (@el_moncho on Twitter), that I have not read myself. It is a fictional account I believe about how a young analyst starts life in the City and explores the life of Egos, Drugs, Huge Bonuses, Dirty Tricks etc. Apparently very funny and explores the culture within major Investment Banks.
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WheelieTunes
Brave - The Shires - I love this band, they have a Country sound but are from Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. It's a girl and a bloke and they sing so well together - her voice really standing out against his guitar. The album is short by standards of late but there is no filler and it is a great mix of fast, slow, rocky, ballads etc. I heard them first on Local Radio with the single 'Friday Night' (note the lyrics on the album are different - don't worry, they are not rude, just not PC in this day and age !!). However, it was the second single 'State Lines' that really made me take notice. I have tickets to see them in Basingstoke at the Anvil later in the year which is a tiny venue and I am well excited. I got the CD on saturday and it has been played everyday since - love it.
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Some Weird Stuff that WD Readers might find useful
Car Battery Jump Box - I just bought one of these from Amazon about a week ago (I bought the more expensive one because my car is a 6 cylinder 2.2ltr and I felt it was worth spending a little more for the extra punch). I own a BMW z3 Roadster which is my second car for summer but to be honest although I love it when the Sun shines it is a nightmare for most of the winter. Last year I had awful problems with leaks where water was getting in past the Hardtop but the problem I have most years is that I just do not drive it enough and the battery goes dead over winter. Luckily the Battery is in the boot and easy for me to get to and I was reading Autocar the other day and they were testing these 'Jump Box' things and they were saying how good they were. So I decided to give it a try and I am really impressed. My Box is claimed to do 20 starts on a full charge and so far I have started my z3 at least twice and it also started my Neighbours old Golf GTI 16v from a totally dead battery (not even enough power to light up the dash !!). It charges on a USB cable (I use a plug from my fone) and so say you can use it to power Mobile Fones, Tablets, Laptops etc but I have not tried this. Something I must mention is that mine is really small - it is probably a bit bigger than a Smartfone and about 3 times as thick - and really heavy which is obviously the battery pack. It is small and portable though - I drove to Sainsburys the other day and kept the Jump Box in my boot in case I needed it.
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FLEXIBLE EXPANDABLE HOSE PIPE LIGHT WEIGHT NON KINK WATER SPRAY NOZZLE. (Blue, 25 to 100 ft) - I bought one of these last summer and it is amazing. I am a Wheelchair User and I found watering the garden and washing the Car (stop giggling - although I will admit my Neighbours do get intrigued when they see me out washing the z3) difficult with my old Hoselock Hose thing (mainly because it weighed a ton). One of the Neighbours showed me his Hose like this (he said it was £30 so chuffed to find it on Amazon for this price) and it is wicked because it is feather light, doesn't kink and sort of expands itself as you turn the tap on and shrinks as the water runs out of it. Lifechanging !! You need to choose the length of hose you want.
