Grand Tour Of Forfar

Before setting off on holiday I learnt my hairdresser was also going away at the same time. While she was heading to Mexico on a long haul flight, I would be heading to Forfar. For our own individual reasons we've both worked long summers, so agreed that we needed a holiday[3].

There is a lot to do in this part of Scotland, and rather than give you a break down of the top ten activities to put in your Dundee bucket list I thought I'd stick with what I normally do: write about books, music and things with 'pop culture' references and footnotes.

Info Freako. During my first trip to Dundee I found Groucho's Records tucked away. We'd visited the Discovery Centre and had been on the lookout for something to eat and there it was. This time round the plan had been to eat in Madigan's Food Emporium amongst the bountiful book supply (they do cakes as well), though they were shut for a private occasion[1].

No such problem with Groucho. I had a good look through the records and CDs and came away with Liquidizer by Jesus Jones. I've never owned this before, I've had copies and streamed versions, and there was a nice, takes-me-back-to-1990s-shopping-at-CEX offer for me to inspect my disc. I checked and it looked nothing like Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation.

Sadly I didn't bring my record player with me to listen, I'll wait until returning home. Next month is my birthday and I will be taking my player, along with a selection of lps[2].

Luckily the holiday cottage has a DVD player and I've been able to watch Star Wars Episodes IV- VI. I've also watched the final, official trailer. I am excited, though possibly I am embracing the dark side of caution too. My ticket for the big show is for Friday morning, enough time to comfort myself against any possibility of it being a dud film[4].

It was a galaxy far, far away. Both Star Wars and Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy put forward the idea of there being a duality of bright centre and dull to a galaxy. Both also forward the concept of a drive that could propel a craft across the width of the galaxy, though in H2G2 this is considerably more difficult that in Star Wars[5]. I will be spending more time considering galaxies as I bought John Gribbin's A Very Short Introduction: Galaxies in St Andrews's Topping & Co.

St Andrews is the birthplace for Scotland, though it is unlikely there will be a feature film featuring Jet Li extolling this fact. On a late October Monday university students were engaged in RAG activities, which involved foam and literary costumes (well, Lewis Carol playing cards and wizards of the Potter world). St Andrews is an interesting, university town overseeing the North Sea. There is history here, not the recent, coffee shop comings-and-goings of coming-of-age princelings[6], but longer, further back in time history. The coast around here, Northumbria northwards, is carved by the last ice age, the rise and fall of hill and mountain caressed and stroked by the movement of a retreating ice sheet. There is a tender seduction by the ice sheet, enveloping the landscape with a lingering embrace that leaves everyone changed afterwards.

From Toppings I also purchased Frank Furedi's The Power of Reading. This is part of a wider Ilkley Literature Festival experiment, with The Art of Asking also purchased (this one from Dundee).

Another ongoing experiment is examining intercontextualisations with Monkey: Journey To The East. Hermann Hesse wrote Journey To The East (purchased Bouquineste, Aberdeen), and having read Siddhartha and noticing similarities with Monkey, there's high hopes for Journey. Alongside these book versions, there's also the Enslaved: Journey to the East video game, Damon Alban's 'rock opera'. Where do these text diverge and where do they align? Aside from the central theme, what do they include?

Television is a visual medium where a lot of information has to be delivered quickly. It wasn't until I read a story featuring Jessica Fletcher that I realised her late husband was called Frank. I have two Jessica Fletcher books now, the first novel in the series and the sixteenth (my latest purchase). Unlike other series where I get a little (slightly impossibly over-the-top) obsessed about reading in order, because of the random nature I watch Murder, She Wrote I don't mind so much reading the books out of order.

Out there in a different universe there is a lot of disorder because of chaos. Sorry, because of the powers of Chaos. Warhammer 41k is universe of war, the playground for strategy games and stage for role-playing. I've never really played Warhammer, mostly because I am not great at miniature figure painting and because I don't know many gamers around Leeds. My engagement with it comes through books, and the books I enjoy the most have been written by Dan Abnett. I think this is more Abnett than Warhammer, having read his stuff in comic books, other stories, and 2000AD, there is a noticeable style to his writing. One almost wonders if, like the Pixar films that are self-referential, do Abnett's books across all universes interconnect? Would Eisenhorn come save the inhabitants of Wild's End[7]? Either way, I have a new Dan Abnett book (Xenos).

Notes
1 - If I lived up near Dundee I would not hesitate to have my private functions here as often as possible.
2 - I will be thirty nine, and plan to mark this birthday with a copy of the Beatles's White Album.
3 - There is a Franz Ferdinand lyric off their first album, one that I think is imprinted in my mind as a way to approach a healthy work/non-work balance. Also, my hairdresser had a few suggestions on how I could achieve a plan to dye my hair after my birthday.
4 - This is the same reason I am not seeing Spectre straight away, and (whisper it so the fanboys don't hear) why I've still not seen Avengers Age of Ultron.
5 - There is a very well-known instance in Star Wars where distance and time were mangled. I won't talk about that, I will though highlight scene in Episodes IV (where Han Solo discusses 'travelling the length of the galaxy' as a significant distance) and V (where a short period of time is said to have passed for the Millennium Falcon to be 'the other side of the galaxy by now').
6 - Princelings, next to younglings, all slaughtered by Vader's fair hand when he carried out Order 66. Of course in reality there is no way we would herald in a republic by trusting the generals of an elite of clones coming from the Eton system.
7 - As I have been waiting patiently to finish reading the first part of Wild's End, this eventuality might happen, and I so hope it comes about.

Saga, saga

I wonder if there is a word that could describe one's attachments emotionally to a cultural artifact? Would it be a single word that conveyed all those human connotations and contradictions? Or maybe a phrase would be better, 'adding the total of one's life to the meaning of x'?

I have quite a few, some I am happy to talk about (well, by the end of this post you will see I am not happy) and others that I will never share. This weekend I went to Leeds Central Library and picked up Saga volumes one, two and three. I also picked up Adventure Time volumes one and two in Burley Library but I have no emotional ties to this. I mean, it's nice and okay.

I picked up Saga for a number of reasons. Mainly because I started reading Brian K Vaughan's We Stand On Guard this week, and figured it was time to get back on with Saga, but there's other reasons. It's a good story, told well, and not easily predictable.

I have read Saga before. Somewhere it my boxes of comic book issues there are the first three issues. I remember the day I bought them, a Friday, because that evening I learnt a friend had committed suicide.

Sylvain was a friend. We had known each other since about 1997, shared a very similar taste in music and cultural references. There had been two breaks when we stopped talking, both came to an end when Sylvain contacted me.

Having read the first volume of Saga I can see how the team set up the situation and the characters. The universe it is contained in is good, not a simple linear, good v bad universe, their universe is full of grey where people can disappear.

The second time Sylvain got back in contact was pretty amazing. The first time was awesome for me, but the second time I had worried too much time had passed. I had moved three times, out and back into and then out of London. In the back of my head there was the lost cord I couldn't connect. Sylvain was more intelligent than me.

Saga is about cultural differences. It starts with birth and violence, love and misunderstanding, and from there it just goes on. Why wouldn't you want your child to see the universe?

One morning before work Sylvain sent me a message on Facebook. We chatted and I said I needed to get to work, I was still in my probationary period. I said we'd talk again, soon.

Now, my memory is sketchy regarding the time line and I don't want to investigate it further. It's my memory, you see, and unlike Hazel in Saga I am an unreliable witness by choice.

The next message I had from Sylvain wasn't from Sylvain. It was from his partner informing me of what had happened. I didn't want to press her but from what I understood Sylvain had been very resolute in his determination. We shared a few words about Sylvain and that was that. I offered if she ever needed to talk I was a message away.

I miss Sylvain. There are a lot of things in life one can't explain or resolve, and I cannot resolve a lot of things about Sylvain without Sylvain's help. So, instead, aside from Saga, I shall share one of the other things that remind me of that dear dead Frenchman: "Wanna grow up to be, be a debaser, debaser."

Saga #1, #2, #3, Brain K Vaughan, Fiona Staples,
Leeds Central Library, Leeds

Where did I go...

A slight hiatus recently, though have still been reading and listening. Since I last wrote I've been listening to James and Brian Eno's Wah Wah, possibly my most favourite James l.p., and read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and The Game Of Thrones by George R R Martin.

A weekend was spent in Oxford for the Bookcrossing 2015 conference. Alongside the book swapping (there were a lot of books wild released on Sunday across Oxford). I managed to find Truck Store, purchasing the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1 and a secondhand Never Loved Elvis by the Wonderstuff. Truck Store is nice, small and friendly, though I was a little put off by the coffee shop side of the business. Coffee drinkers aren't necessarily the best vinyl listeners, and watching boys under the age of ten run around knocking CD cases off shelves wasn't my kind of shopping experience.

What is my most desired shopping experience? Why yes, a publisher selling all the titles in a series. Oxford is home to Oxford University Press, a fact that had been unknown to me in a physical sense until walking pass the shop front. I like the Short Introductions series, and came away with some rarer (to me) titles including Ethnomusicology (like being an existentialist seems that I share some key traits of an ethnomusicologist), dinosaurs, and a signed book on the ice age. I know, signed and about the ice age.

Norwich is a fine city and is home to Fine City Sounds. While flicking through the rather lovely sized collection (and reasonably priced too) I got to listen to some interesting thoughts from another customer about Joy Division. Obscure is the word, though batdodah is also descriptive.

Obscure in a more pleasant way is searching for rare records by bands long disappeared. The Joy Division *fan* found something I wanted. Luckily he returned Urusei Yatsura's Fake Fur 7inch single on white vinyl. 'Tis a Pavement- and Sonic Youth-referencing joy.

I can remember my first ever Urusei Yatsura gig in Lincoln when they toured with Mogwai. On my record shelf there's a signed split single from the tour, and it is next to another split single from Lincoln, Agebaby and Olivia Honey.

All of that is almost twenty years ago. And yet, with that magic that music has, it's all there fresh in the memory. The absolute way Frequency Dip "came into my life and stayed there for a while" (to paraphrase Honesty Joe off the same l.p.). The way bands like Urusei Yatsura live on in collections, why it's nice finding The Fall and Diana and Marvin unexpectedly.

To bring all this up to date, while in Oxford I let something go for it to be returned to me differently. Mort by Terry Pratchett has many personal memories and experiences. I released the second copy of the paperback in Oxford (with some very life changing moments linked to it) and replaced it with a new hardback edition with silver leaf on the cover (I think it's silver leaf, could just be expensive tin foil).

One of my uncles introduced me to Discworld. I have nephews, I know my course of action.

James,Wah Wah
Jumbo Records, Leeds.
Urusei Yatsura, Fake Fur single, The Fall, This Nation's Saving Grace
Fine City Sounds, Norwich
Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, Diana And Marvin
Vinyl Vault, Holt
Various, Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1, the Wonder Stuff, Never Loved Elvis
Truck Store, Oxford
A Very Short Introduction To: Dinosaurs; Ethnomusicology; the Gothic; Ice Age; Landscape; Happiness
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Terry Pratchett, Mort, Simon Sylvester, The Visitors
Waterstones, Leeds

Postscript. You should read The Visitors, it was recommended to me by a friend who also agreed the Brass Fastening was an MC from Detroit in the 1880s. Seriously though, read The Visitors.

Books baked well

BECT is a community trust that supports Bakewell and Eyam. They have a bus, and I saw it while watching rugby in a pub in Youlgreave (I'm naming no names as the regulars engaged in the dullest golf clubhouse chat ever). They need an extra, new bus.

To support their fundraising they opened a bookshop in Bakewell, the Book End, on Bridge Street. There's some nice titles, and it's freebie February so all books are three for the price of two. I came away with A Singular Man by JP Donleavy.

There were other bookshops in Bakewell, the eponymous Bakewell Bookshop (very nice range of books and sections for local authors and "set in Derbyshire") and a rather odd one that proclaimed itself open and locked the door. Seemingly this was a use of the word open that I am unfamiliar with.

JP Donleavy, A Singular Man
The Book End (BECT), Bridge House, Bridge Street, Bakewell, Derbyshire

Note: "It's only golf clubhouse banter, chat, jokes-". 

No, it's utter crap, it's men (predominantly) using language to create an Other they can be superior to. Yes, it's terrible your wife is having trouble getting a job due to her age, but it's even more terrible you said the French rugby player Mathieu Bastareaud was a gorilla (what, you thought none of the non-locals heard?). 

Equality does not work in unequal societies, the equality needed to support your wife is the same equality that does not look at Bastareaud and view him as a lesser human.

Not taking a Bath

I am not an expert on Dylan Thomas. You might name your favourite poem to me and I will be as unable to place it as you might my favourite lines from Under Milk Wood. So, it is with some excitement that I found a new-to-me title.

When I first saw it I didn't know it was Dylan Thomas. The spine just said Thomas and Davenport, and as such was just a curiosity that I had every intention of returning to the shelf when I had ascertained who had actually write the book, Who Killed The King's Canary?

A book that I would like to write is How Soon Should A Writer Update Their Second Edition? Herbert Read is a writer I am rather fond of, and in the same Oxfam Books in Matlock that I found Thomas I found Read's second edition of Contemporary British Art. The first edition  'came out six years after the second World War', so the revised second edition followed in the mid-to-late Sixties (it is packed in a bag somewhere and I can't check just yet). There are colour plates, and one of the black and white plates is of Peter Blake. I have so far not read Why Your Five Year-Old Could Not Have Done That, I assume it takes the more celebrating aspect of Read rather than the sneer of contemporary newspaper writers.

Two interesting reads to come.

Herbert Read, Contemporary British Art (2nd Edition), Dylan Thomas and John Davenport, The Death of the King's Canary
Oxfam Book, 70 Dale Road, Matlock, Derbyshire

Barter at Barter

Travelling back from Edinburgh felt like racing sleet and snow, it was in front, behind, at the same time all the time. When it wasn't snow it was idiots trying to live out their misguided Top Gear fantasies and overtake in inappropriate places (it's a fallacy, Top Gear is a controlled environment and very far removed from reality like all rom-com sitcoms are).

After the driving came the pleasure, arriving at Barter Books in Alnwick. Stopping here is a tradition, an institution. If travelling North of Newcastle I implore you to make it a stop-off point. A wide range of pleasure can be sought at Barter Books, food, words and music. If your pleasure does not involve one of these in some way, I am not sure I understand you or why you are reading this blog. Maybe one click too far has brought you to this oasis and you are currently contending with the unfamiliar desire to discover a book.

Or a record.

Or a fantastic slice of flapjack.

I didn't start off with a list. I had a couple of authors and titles in my head that I thought I'd like to look for, and upon finding nothing available on said 'not-list' I mooched around and wandered.

I wandered far and wide, among Christian mythology and Northumberland folktales, across dead desert and dessert to dye for, from Jonathan Strange to Strange Fruit. And I found her. Jessica Fletcher. In book form. There's a co-author, someone called Don, but the book I walked away from the scene of the crime with a Murder, She Wrote book. I might just have to read it next.

Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, Gin and Daggers
Barter Books, Alnwick Station, Northumberland

Postscript. Another tradition, and another I suggest you try out, is drive along the A1 around Newcastle. Say, Whickham, as if he's betrayed your younger sister for money. It will help you feel better.

Post-postscript. I have a particular fascination with Jessica Fletcher and Murder, She Wrote. This has resulted in me watching the same episode more than once on TV during the same day. To paraphrase the shopping trolley from Bo Fowler's Scepticism Inc, I was mad then, I'm much better now, I only named a central character in a story after her (see Coming Soon).

An Armchair Confession

I need a soundtrack for this blog post. Something suitable. As it was cold out in Edinburgh I thought maybe Belle & Sebastian's Winter Wooskie, but that doesn't quite get the mood of this confession.

What works is Been Caught Stealin' by Jane's Addiction. It works very well.

There are some places that one knows like the back of their hand. I am fairly capable of making my way around central Edinburgh, and that includes some of the cutty-across-streets and bridges that crop up. Near the Grassmarket there's a couple of bookshops and other curiosities. It's Sunday, so a little hit and miss that smaller independent shops are open, and it's not a problem if they are closed, but sometimes it's worth having a look to see if that book shop last seen in 2009 is still there.

It is, along with a few others down the road from the College of Arts Library. The strip-club has gone, but the only people that lament the closing of a strip-club unfortunately will find another way for the sexual objectification of others. The others are closed but Armchair Books is open.

And how, so many nice books ordered in fairly useful descriptions. Literature, Poetry, Warhammer, Art Net. Easily a considerable amount of time was spent among the shelves, and deep inside I found a copy of Wisden's 2008. I decided against this as I don't remember much happening in cricket in 2007 (or at least I don't remember anything I would want to remember at a later date).

What I did come away with was Herman Hesse book (Knulp), Alastair Reynolds's Absolution Gap, and Asterix and the Banquet. The last two books are good finds, Armchair's windows proudly show of the invitation to find Asterix inside. As for Absolution Gap I had been standing in Waterstones Princess Street not three hours earlier contemplating whether I should buy this and end the Revelation Space trilogy.

Now, my confession. Armchair Books have a small selection of Richard Brautigan books. I even asked if there may be some others elsewhere in the stock. So, these five titles of Brautigan were almost technically in the right area but not together. I helped, I rearranged them and the next person looking for Brautigan will find them all together after Melvyn Bragg and before Brooker.

Asterix and the Banquet ("Text: Goscinny. Drawings: Uderzo"), Knulp, Hermann Hesse, Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds
Armchair Books,
72-74 West Port, Edinburgh

It is hard to see from the inside

I'm currently reading Richard E Feist's A Darkness at Sethanon. The whole Riftwar trilogy ends with this book, and I've bought all three from secondhand bookshops. About a year ago I set out to read something other than A Dance of Dragons so had a couple of names in mind, Feist, Jordan, Giddings, Hobb, all sourced off the internet with no real indicator of whether I would like them or not. The Magician was the first book I found and read, next up was Jordan and I didn't take to it, so I continued to read through the Riftwar saga.

Sometimes it is difficult finding a particular book in secondhand bookshops. I like reading in order so waiting for The Magician seemed to be a difficult task. When eventually I bought it I immediately started finding copies everywhere, including one to read at the Youth Hostel at Boggle Hole. But then that's part of the joy of discovery, sometimes it's not the thing you are looking for that you will find.

Having said I like reading in sequence I have broken another fantasy series. At the mobile library in Kirkstall I picked up Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls. This is book 13 in the Warhammer series, though I am sufficiently confident that it will not deviate too much from the formula that has seen Gotrek seek his doom and Felix chart his saga. The last book I read was book 7.

While we scanned the books at the mobile library we were told that there was some rotation of stock though the non-fiction books we returned would not stay with the library. I guess fiction is only for the outer rim, nearer the galactic centre they can deal with facts. Galaxies are notoriously difficult to see from the inside, whatever shape or form they take is beyond our current capabilities. There are patterns, a doppelganger is never good in fantasy, the quarreling strangers will be lovers at the end of the movie, yet mysteries.

Josh Reynolds, Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls

Mobile Library, Kirkstall Morrisons, Leeds

Postscript. Did you know that Leeds Libraries renews library cards every three years?

I've got my fringe unfurled: Birthday month reading

The intention was to collect together as much Richard Brautigan as possible then read it all after my birthday on 22 November. When I started hoarding the books I had five, there were another seven or so that I had identified as targets before my birthday, though the tendency might be to push it as far as I could. Richard Brautigan had appeared on record in the 1960s.

When I started this I thought the books that I would have most difficulty in purchasing were The Tokyo-Montana Express and Willard and His Bowling Trophies. This was confirmed by a not overly scientific search online and only from one source. Anyway, that was the plan, a list was drawn up in my diary, ticks for the books I already had, small dots for the ones I had to purchase. As I said, the tendency is to push things as far as I could and if this meant buying a collection with a book I already owned then so be it.

That was the plan. I purchased some books, got An Unfortunate Woman from the Headingley Library (Leeds Library should have a full Brautigan stock, no exceptions), everything was running smoothly.

As smoothly as a red Chevy convertible heading full-tilt from LA to Las Vegas.

I figured that as I was building up to Brautigan towards the end of the month I would stop reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I had reached the tricky bit just after the rise of the 'primitive' Christian church and found it harder going than last time. I flicked a few pages of Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, learning about Rupert, before settling on a real plan. This time it would work, this time no one would get nailed to anything.

In November I would read books in my collection that could be loosely clubbed together as 'counter culture'. As genres are ill-definable I best set out my stall. Books with a high degree of substance abuse, marginalisation or that stray from the trend of acceptable social interaction: any book that would read the poster for the Trainspotting film and say, "no".

First up is Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I've read this before (though my recollections of the first time were mangled up with memories of seeing the film adaptation), though what has surprised me in this read is the speed of delivery, observations fire quickly, get distracted by one aspect and miss another one totally. This is the come-down from the end of the 1960s, as Hunter suggests, no one wanted mind-expansion in the early 1970s, they wanted to disconnect from reality.

There isn't a great deal of music in Fear and Loathing, though there's one notable seen including Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. I don't own this lp yet, though it seems the US version is the one I'd prefer to get as it includes White Rabbit.

The second book of this odyssey through drinks and drugs is Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith. I've always been a bit of a Fall fan when I've heard them on the radio; the two CDs I own are compilations. Whenever I think of the Fall I am reminded of the John Peel quote; whenever I think of Mark E. Smith I kind of imagine some kind of drunk genius poet who just happened to have a backbeat.

Unsurprisingly there's a lot of music mentioned in Renegade, so rather than picking out an lp I'll mention that Totally Wired by The Fall is a song that I think about when I want to run a mile pace under 8 minutes. This usually mashes well with Night Vision by Super Furry Animals, though mostly when I run it is one section repeated.

The last book for being an outsider was Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse. This is a wonderful book on feeling outside of the normal society and having little care for the things that bring other people joy (about as much care as they have, actually). Hesse has done a fantastic job of fitting so many ideas into the book that it simply screams 'reread me', and it would be difficult to try to capture too many of them. Instead I will include one that chimed a lot with me, that wars are started by countries that do not wish to look inwards and resolve their own problems.

I finished my month starting Acceptance, which is not the tale of a man entering his 39th year with a few white hairs in a beard and a desire to run a 7:00 minute mile 10km.

In the back is the gateway to Narnia

Visiting Horncastle in Lincolnshire on the chance there might be 'one or two bookshops'. I spent most of my teenage years in Lincolnshire (tend to think of it as my hometown and where I grew up) and yet there are a number of places I know very little about: Louth, Market Raisen, Retford...

And Horncastle. It's kind of in the middle of the fens, on the way to the coast and Skegvegas (or "so eggs gas" as predictive and ever-so-helpful text would have it), so you kind of need a car or the patience to use public transport. Once there you need patience to use the public car parks, East Lindsey District Council being helpful in not highlighting there locations, but there's so many rewards for making the effort.

First up was Jabberwock Books on St Lawrence Street, packaged with books. Unfortunately nothing caught my eye aside from a handful of Maigret books I already own. The market was in town while we had lunch, then it was visits to Age UK, Sue Ryder (where I almost bought a record until it fell apart on me) and the Red Cross.

Then we headed out along West Street. On the drive in looking for a car park we'd spotted a likely looking shop, West Street Books. How right we had been, the woman shopkeeper welcomed us with a description of the shop "and through the wardrobe to Narnia you'll find another room of books. Shout if you need anything."

"Or need help back from Narnia," my wife replied.

There is a treasure trove of books in the West Street Books shop, over many subjects. I saw two different versions of the book I am currently reading (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and spotted some nice literature and poetry titles. In the end I plumped for Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, a book I hadn't really paid much attention to until now. 1960s counterculture literature appeals to me though I had been searching for Richard Brautigan.

With plenty of antique and collectibles shops, as well as three other booksellers we weren't able to visit, I think it won't be long before we're here again.

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
West Street Books, 9-11 West Street, Horncastle, Lincolnshire

Postscript. There is a large collection of Charlie Brown and Snoopy books in the West Street Books, and everyone will agree with me Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest of counterculture antiheroes

Wailing in Whitby

Like a dud note played in a simple melody, there is something not quite right about returning to work on a grey and wet Monday morning having spent Sunday lunch time eating fish and chips in the sun overlooking Whitby bay. I almost took my jumper off yesterday; today I am wearing a running jacket and a hat that is trying to  keep the rain off my face.

It was a whistle stop tour of Scarborough and Whitby. The weather forecasts last week predicted rain and 'the end of the Autumnal warm weather'. They had been wrong, the rain when it came was early and not quite as heavy. We didn't arrive in Scarborough until afternoon because of a meeting in Leeds, so the visit was a bit rushed. First stop was Taylor's Cafe and Books for lunch and a copy of Jim Dodge's Stone Junction. Down in the Market Vaults there's Revolution Records and nearby Mrs Lofthouse's Book Emporium.

Revolution Records was rather nice, there's a good selection of music (I only looked at the vinyl though there's CDs and a couple of second hand books) and the prices were reasonable. I foolishly passed up purchasing 'Now That's What I Call Quite Good' by the Housemartins as well as '200 Motels' by Frank Zappa (though it might have been listed as The Mothers).

Heading back through the town centre towards the car we also popped into Revival Records, again, a short visit so that we could also visit the Mojo Music Café. I thoroughly recommend this place, the coffees were lovely, staff friendly, and the business seems to do a lot to promote the local music scene.

Saturday night was spent in the best youth hostel in the world*, Boggle Hole. Aside from spilling a pint and a glass of red wine I am sure the staff were glad to have us there. With the tide receding we went for a walk, south first towards Ravenscar then northwards towards Robin Hood's Bay; this place is one of the most beautiful and relaxing I've ever been to. 

Sunday was a trip to Whitby and the aforementioned fish and chips. As it is October and there's not nearly as many people around we bought them from one of the 'award winning' fish and chip shops and cafés along the quayside. I can't remember which, though Magpie seems to spring to mind (though that might just be the sight of one on the wreck of the roof on the Majestyk opposite my office window). 

During previous visits to Whitby one of the record shops there always seemed to be closed. Luckily Folk Devils was open and I picked up a copy of Siouxsie and the Banshees's singles collection, Once Upon A Time. The shop is lovely and worth the wait.

Jim Dodge, Stone Junction,
Taylor's Cafe and Books, 14 Bar Street
The Book Emporium, 2 Queen Street
Revolution Records, Market Hall
Revival Records, 6 Northway,
All Scarborough

Siouxsie and the Banshees, Once Upon A Time,
Folk Devils, 16 Sandgate, Whitby

Notes

*This come from a survey of two people in the age bracket 29 - 39.

My reading habits...

In November I will be 38. My parents-in-law bought me a gift of a Reading Spa from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. Prior to attending I had to submit an email on my reading habits.

This is what I wrote:

I like well written, well thought out books. I tend to think of all fiction as speculative, I'm not a fan of genre as a means of picking books to read. I don't mind it being lengthy if the author wants to take me somewhere the long way around (Les Miserables, Night's Dawn trilogy, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), though being concise is also appreciated (Georges Simenon, Richard Brautigan, Francois Sagan, the Foundation trilogy). I like unlikable characters if they are well thought out (Johannes Cabal, Walker Percy/Confederacy of Dunces). I also like writers who can make illogical narrative leaps which actually make perfect sense when they are explained (Richard Brautigan, Hunter S Thompson). I suppose one could say I prefer older crime (Maigret, Poirot as characters, John Dickson-Carr as a writer), though time of writing is no guarantee I'd enjoy reading it (Len Deighton and Harry Palmer are a turn-off, le Carre's Smiley on the other hand is rather approachable). I like speculation, escapism (some times in the guise of a Warhammer book or Alistair McClean, Peter Temple off the radio), though realism (Trainspotting) or autobiographical work is interesting (Moab Is My Washpot, Down and Out In London and Paris, Girl With A One Track Mind). I like horror, especially HP Lovecraft, and have recently started to enjoy more gothic novels and stories (Castle Otranto). Douglas Adams's Hitch Hikers Guide has to be one of my most read books (I probably quote/paraphrase from it daily). I read graphic novels (Judge Dredd, Usagi Yojimbo, Scott Pilgrim) though I am not looking for a recommendation. I like a bit of poetry though mostly this comes down to buying the Forward Prize every year. I read Wisden yearly. I am not a fan of overly promoted books, I am not likely to want to read something if a newspaper columnist says I 'have' to read it. I like intercontextuality, 'mash-ups', and pop culture references (as perfected in the Simpsons).

The premise of a reading spa is quite simple. One talks for about thirty minutes, an hour, about the books they have liked and the disliked, and one of the staff at Mr B's then goes off and picks some recommendations. The gift comes with a voucher for books, so you will leave the shop with new books to read.

And my, did I. I had six from Mr B's, I found another in Hay-on-Wye a couple of days later. I won't list the titled that were recommended, just say that going along to Mr B's Emporium is certainly an experience I would recommend.

Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights,
14/14 St John's Street, Bath

Postscript. Okay, I will talk about one book I was recommended. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is a very good read, the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy. It is sketchy with the facts, the narrator is an unreliable witness, and there is a creeping dread with just about every single page turned. It is fantastic and imaginative, and I devoured it as if I was the vanguard of an alien invasion force. Or am I.

Yes, but what is the murderer's demographic?

Recently I've been trying to write a brief outline of my reading habits. There's a shop in Bath that offers a book recommendation service based on this and a chat in store, it will be interesting to see what they recommend for me.

While I tried to be as concise and clear as possible one thing I was very, very definite about: I like reading books in sequence. I find it very hard picking up book number two in the series, or that the book in my hand that seems really good is actually is the sequel to something the author wrote five years previously. 

It is rare for me to read something out of sequence, even when the book is a freebie (I have a review copy of Peter F Hamilton's Judas Unchained, I bought and read Pandora's Star before looking in it). The only exception seems to be when the book in question is out of print or impossible to find, like Georges Simenon's Maigret series. There's some 75 novels for Maigret alone*, even when they appear in shops it won't necessary be in sequence (I know, why can't secondhand bookshops plan to stock only the books one is looking for, right?), or the title is the revised title. Gladly, Penguin is republishing the books in (a kind of) sequence, so today I bought third in the series from Waterstones in Leeds.

I didn't check this time, there's a corner of the shop that I've never been a fan of. 'Cosy crime' as a genre-definition is truly horrible. The only true cosy crime is the orange and purple number sometimes found in certain tea shops and charity shops. 'Cosy' crime is supposed to bring together Marple and Poirot and Hamish Macbeth and Maigret, yet when one actually reads them the crimes aren't 'cosy', the motives and the reasons are plain human nature, and human nature is messy. 

My relationship with crime fiction has slowly changed, moving from the sensationalism to the exploration and speculation on human nature. My relationship with Doctor Who has changed to, from the scary, behind-the-sofa Urbankans, to a more enjoyable, not-so-scary-but-still-a-little-bit speculation on human nature (again, I wonder where all this speculation is coming from?).

Ten Little Aliens, Stephen Cole, The Late Monsieur Gallet, Georges Simenon,
Waterstone's Leeds

* There's some 400 Simenon books. Maigret is possible his most famous work (it has been translated across the world, there's even a rather nice sounding Japanese series from the 1970s, Michael Gambon played Jules Maigret in ITV's 1990s version). More information here.

Not that Slightly Foxed, but a slightly foxed

I took my time, I circled around, read the contemporaries, made myself aware of some of the stories via radio and TV, eventually I got a MR James book.

The trip out of Scotland was fun. The rain was heavy and I managed to mishear a direction that resulted in a drive through in Edinburgh and Leith, but arriving in Berwick meant a trip to our regular chip shop (Canon, Castlegate). There's lots of books to be found in Berwick, with a couple of secondhand bookshops and charity shops. Berrydin Books is always worth a look, and I came away with an Ursula le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. I'd never read much beyond the four Earthsea novels (there are four, I know most people know it as a trilogy but there's a fourth and it's the best in the series) [I haven't just stuck my tongue out in defiance, honest], so this will be a welcome addition to the growing 'to read' pile by my bed.

A trip through various charity shops and a market stall named Slightly Foxed but not the Slightly Foxed of London. Mysteriously I can't remember where, it might have been the heart-stopping British Heart Foundation, the blood-red Red Cross shop, or the plain and not very chilling Shelter, but I found a collection of MR James stories. I knew about James for a while, he's been mentioned by a couple of authors I like, and I've seen some Christmas TV adaptations, so this volume will be another good addition to the pile by the bed.

The rain held off. The old bridge looked fantastic against the new one. The ghostly closed shop frontages where slightly scary (in a broken-down, world economy way).

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula le Guin, Collected Stories, MR James
Berrydin Books, Castlegate, Berwick
Canon Fish and Chips, Castlegate, Berwick

Almost a disaster

After much walking-past-the-front-of-the-shop-to-see-if-the-owners-were-in I spotted one of them. I knew what I wanted to ask, I'd seen the book four days earlier and really wanted to add it to my collection, and yet when I was last in the shop my wife and I were the only people around. No one to pay money to, no one to say what a lovely bookshop we were in.

The book was The High Girders, John Prebble's account of the Tey River Disaster of 1879. I had heard of the disaster though didn't know much. The book's wide claim of the decline of British engineering will be interesting to see if Prebble can demonstrate his argument. Though I think the desire to buy the book is down to two things.

I was in Dundee earlier in the week.

And, I was thwarted in my efforts to purchase the book earlier this week.

The High Girders: The Tey River Disaster 1879, John Prebble
Callander secondhand bookshop

Europa!

I have only been to Stirling once, to visit the castle during the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986. I don't recall it much, a vague impression of a long and cobbled road leading up towards the castle lined with antique shops with porcelain in their windows.

Almost thirty years later and only part of my recollection is incorrect. Stirling is a good wandering town, once you find your sense of direction. There's an art gallery underneath the castle mount that has a good history of the area (and there is a lot of history bound up in that part of Scotland).

Sadly though it was a bit of a whistle stop visit. Lunch, a couple of bookshops and record stores, then on to the next destination.

While we were in Stirling I also bought The Man With The Golden Arm (Stirling Books) and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Oxfam).

Leggy Mambo, Cud, Wake of the Flood/From The Mars Hotel, Grateful Dead, Big Bang!, We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Going to Use It, Southside, Texas
Europa Records, Stirling

The most friendliest of librarians [not in the Fahrenheit 451 sense]

There is a place in Scotland where I was able to do something I never, ever thought I would do. I touched while reading a first edition version of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. It was a kind of of a good feeling. It is also an odd feeling, the book is worth a lot of money (certainly more than I am accustomed to when handling books), and yet the Faerie Queen was practically thrust into my hands to read.

Where was I? This was an unusual sensation for me, very unusual. Aside from the Queen I was told I could read through parts of an English language bible that predates the King James Bible. I passed up on this for the Discovery of Witchcraft. The first few wild sentences of that book, published in the 17th century, more than made up for it.

Anyway, where was I? The Library at Innerpeffray, which was set up during the Enlightenment to lend books to the public. At the time, the most welcoming of staff informed us, literacy was at close to 75 percent of the Scottish population, with England at less than 50 percent (I am a little sketchy on this, so don't quote me in a dissertation or other academic journal). The Library is situated near a bend in a river, not far from the St Andrew's Golf Course, and was lending first editions to the public from 1680 to the mid-1960s.

I suggest you visit and see for yourself.

Also, on the travels today I bought the Brightonomicon (PDSA in Callander) and Renegade by Mark E Smith (British Heart Foundation Scotland). Renegade is the second book I own relating to the Fall, though this is about Mark E Smith himself (speaking for himself) rather than a collection of stories based on the stories in Fall songs. I was put on to Renegade by a former colleague who put me on to the best ever remix of a James song (Sabres of Paradise's Jam J, forty minutes of absolute dub heaven), so this book will be good.

Shipping containers and their drivers

With some bookshops and record stores one has a pretty good idea where their focus lies. They might have a theme; only sell antiquated first editions; have the largest collection of romance in Cumbria. They may also have a pretty clear business plan in that over 95% of their sales are online so therefore their retail space is primarily to support this with occasional visits from the public.

• 

Secondhand books and records sell well on the internet, and the possibilities of finding that elusive record or book increase once one goes online. Out of print Brautigan? Why yes, those collected editions of the novels are online waiting for your card details. James’s One Man Clapping record which will not be reissued according to the band? It is there, on CD or vinyl, and tape if you want to go that far*. The internet connects people, sometimes the people charge a little too much or expect a low price automatically, and if one wanted to they could amass a library of word and sound from the comfort of their arm chair.

Over the Grand Depart weekend in Yorkshire we found ourselves the other side of the Pennines with only a trip down and around Manchester to get home. Sharston Books is in Manchester and we’ve been meaning to go for years. They sell online and have books upon books upon books in a warehouse and shipping containers, so it seemed there would be a lot of choice. Sharston Books is based on an industrial estate just off the M60, near Manchester Airport (I think, the only reason I have for this is passing the rather dated looking Airport Hotel near the junction for said motorway), and easy to find. It is a warehouse and there are shipping containers, though everything is relatively well organised. To me it gave off the impression of being a store for their online operation that one was able to look around – this is no big thing though.

I came away with the second volume of Robert Graves’ Greek Myths (a much better looking edition than my first volume), the first in the Vampirates series, and Douglas Adams’s The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. My wife also found Mary Poppins Comes Back (see above) amongst other titles, and we were impressed with the price. Might not be rushing back though if I’m driving by again and have a little spare time will pop by.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Robert Graves, Greek Myths Volume II, Vampirates
Sharston Books, Wearlee Works, Longley Lane, Manchester

*Tape is a terrible format, my original copy of One Man Clapping was on tape and it warped in a car stereo never to sound the same again.

We are all children of the Revolution

Another Sunday afternoon trip to a library, this time Horsforth. I’ve never really been around Horsforth, the part nearest to where I live seems disconnected to the main part near the park, so this trip is something we’ve put off.

The library is nice, a big airy space for books and information. I didn’t check, I think the building had a dedication to the Brownlee boys and their trainer. At first there didn’t seem many books though the room seems to widen towards the back, with chidren’s books almost furthest from the entrance. This is the second time I’ve actually noticed this, why are children’s books in the back and ‘romance’ nearest to the entrance? Doesn’t matter really, there’s a reading space and lots of books (again, I didn’t check though I assume there is an Artmis Fowl book or two, there had better be, children need to learn the truth about fairies and criminal masterminds, read early and read often).

I came away with Scott Westerfeld’s Behemoth and Peter F Hamilton’s Great North Road. Behemoth because when I was reading the first book in the series, Leviathan, Westerfeld pulled a fantastic trick on me, in the last few chapters I went from not caring what happened to the two characters to I must know the very end or I will not sleep. Westerfeld’s books are steampunk and mostly young adult, though if genre really matters to you there is also revolutionary politics and gender equality. The point I am making is that it is a good read regardless of being steampunk, young adult, or anything else.

I picked up Great North Road because I got excited about seeing it in the library.

Peter F Hamilton, Great North Road, Scott Westerfeld, Behemouth,
Horsforth Library

I have never been more ready to do this write now

One of the reasons I wanted to start writing about book and record shops was the difficulty I have found in finding up-to-date information on them. While researching this trip to York I found one BBC student guide to the record shops from 2004 (including a good write-up for Borders) and a list of booksellers in York the majority of which appeared to be private homes where one had to request a catalogue before arranging a visit. The list of booksellers turned out to be doubly useless when the first entry on it turned out to have closed.

Rather than going through the twenty odd shop names I pulled out, here is where we wandered and shopped. The first bookshop we visited was Fossgate Books, which had lots of books though nothing to tempt us. After that we found some books in an antique centre around the corner (I didn’t check the name, they had about 400 records at £2 each if you fancy finding it). Then it was our first crossing of the city centre, via the Shamble Market to Goodramgate.

On Goodramgate there are a number of decent charity shops with both books and records. There was also a man who checked every hardback copy he could find to see if it was a first edition. Uncharitably we thought he was trying to find something to sell on at profit. From Goodramgate, across the river to Micklegate, where there were a lot of race goers. There is also a very nice Oxfam with a little cubbyhole of records in the back. And then off towards the minster, for Minster Books.

We came away from York with about ten books. Unfortunately I didn’t make a note of which came from where, though all the prices seemed fairly reasonable. Particularly in Fossgate Books, staff were happy to offer advice and see if there was something we were looking for. What I did come away with was a reason to continue exploring the city for its literary treasure.

Fossgate Books, Fossgate

Books for Amnesty, PDSA, British Heart Foundation, Oxfam, Goodramgate

Oxfam, Micklegate