Babcock spotted

A worrying development... he's gone corporate!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry | Sometimes a man has to blog, even when others don't

Here's a book you might fancy. You might not. Harold Fry... one unlikely pilgrim. I featured it on the Big Issue book pages the other week. You can read the review via this ere link.

(I have another book column out on the streets on Monday. It's on Running with Kenyans. It isn't a novel, its about an English guy who goes to Africa and, er, runs with Kenyans.)

I really enjoyed Harold Fry, which is one of the Waterstone 11. This, I am assured has nothing to do with The Twelve.....(Babcock... Babcock.....). Nor has it anything to do with Oceans 11 or indeed Catch 22.

Actually, I resisted liking Fry at first because of its sheer Radio 4ness. It really couldn't be more Radio 4-y if it had included a shipping forecast every ten pages. I try however not to be entirely prejudiced against everything on R4, a station I actually listen to most of the time. Of all the speech radio stations it is definitely up there in the top two. However, I do occasionally yearn for it to do something genuinely surprising. But then I think, what would that be? Would I be surprised if, say, they featured a poetry slam on The Archers? No, I say to myself, I probably wouldn't be.

All thoughts and postings on Radio 4, books, Harold Fry and the meaning of Babcock... most welcome.

Still no final pigeon of confirmation from George re the next meeting. But I suspect the previous Tuesday (was that the favoured option?) will be just fine...

True Grit | How the west (end) was won

Clearly we all just read far far too much. Of the (magnificent) seven who came, just one had failed to read the book. To the surprise of everyone, that one was not Thomas 'Poor Excuses' Quinn but Cathy 'Jugglin' Them Chillen' Norton.

What happened was this. We took them early in the morning. Their horses were lame. Their jokes were lamer. We had the upper hand. We had a magician. He completely fooled them with a trick involving a rattle snake and a spinning coin. Or it might have been a rattling coin and a spinning snake. Nobody was quite sure.

Personally, I thought True Grit was an excellent novel. I don't think beans were mentioned more than once. And well worth re reading, Arabella, should you manage to find a spare hour or two between running the Best Damned Dental Surgery In The West.

I really liked the narrator. She was full of purpose and you were never in any doubt what kind of person she was. I loved how she would fill in the narrative with tangents. I really thought it did what a good novel should always do. It gave a fresh perspective on a world we thought we knew. In this case: the lawless west. Plus, I never even imagined Indians might have owned slaves. The thought never occurred. I feel I need to research this more.

Mark, the book I mentioned was Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I have never read it but I had a friend once who did. He loved it. The fact we are no longer friends is neither here nor there. I never slept with his sister or stole his horse. Click on the coloured bit to find the wiki entry. Lonesome Dove was written in 1985 and was turned into a TV miniseries which featured none other than Robert Duvall, but only because John Wayne refused to be in the movie. Both the TV series and the book are available via Amazon and other book retailers. Be warned, it is 960 pages long. But at just £6.79 for the paperback I'd say that represents excellent value. Yeehaw.

Book piracy

Interesting blog from an author about confronting an online pirate.

Check it out....

Books and Twitter

I know that blogging itself is hi tech for some of you. But Twitter is where it is at. Sort of. In 140 characters or less.

140 Characters? Sounds like a Charles Dickens novel.

Funny article in the Telegraph which you can read by clicking here

True Grit | original cover

Some background on the novel... 

...and I love the idea that it is "like Cormac McCarthy but funny"... 

Ah...posting successful!