Don't talk, put your head on my shoulder

This month I started a course at work. The induction required me to bring along an item that was "me".

I had about four months to consider this, and it wasn't until early August I actually decided on something. Some things were good items but not completely me: my trusty guitar (typically me, it's too awkward); running shoes (too recently me).

Eventually I picked my best of the Beach Boys lp (see image). I will have to talk about it, what follows are some of the things I might mention:

• I have been listening to the Beach Boys since I was about six. I had two cassette tapes of Best Of volumes 1 and 2.
• At primary school I was told that I shouldn't listen to 'old stuff' like the Beach Boys but popular current pop music. This warning didn't stop me.
• Music has been a part of my life from a very early age. At most times of the day I will be thinking of a song lyric (my favourite lyric is included on one of tattoos) or melody. Most likely having said this either On The Radio or Fidelity by Regina Spektor have popped into my head.
• When I proposed to my wife I used a series of song lyrics as my speech. For our wedding party my two brothers and I performed Beach Boys, Buddy Holly and Super Furry Animals covers under the name Super Furry Beach Buddies. They are three most favourite acts.
• I collect vinyl. My original collect was destroyed in a flood in 2012, and the first replacement record was yellow vinyl issue of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. Probably my favourite Beatles song is It's Only A Northern Song, written as a throw away song by George Harrison. The hardest records to replace seem to be lo-fi Glasgow band Urusei Yatsura.
• I write a blog about finding book and record shops. I started it earlier in 2014 after spending a year experimenting with ideas.
• I use music a lot when I run. I don't tend to listen to music but keep songs in my head. Pace wise, Autobahn by Kraftwek is a 9 minute mile, Gold Mother by James is 8 minutes 30 second mile, Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly is 8 minute mile, and No good For Me by Prodigy is a 7 minute 30 second mile pace. I haven't worked out either 7 minute mile pace or quicker.
• When I think I can get away with it I will sing out aloud.

Postscript. Two weeks later and I still don't quite remember what I said.

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.

Clearing music playlist

I took part in my employer's Clearing process today, acting as the front line for telephone calls from 7:46am in the morning. I had some interesting calls; some not particularly pleasant ones; and some that were just nice.

Throughout the day I made a note of all the songs and song lyrics I thought of, and here they are though not in order (except for the very first lyric):

• You stole the sun form my heart
• I want to be a superhero's sidekick
• High-five, more dead than alive
• Everyday
• I'm so tied, I'm feeling so upset
• It really doesn't matter what clothes I wear
• True happiness lies beyond your fries and happy burger
• Stop me if you think you've heard this one before
• Whatever you want to do, do now or pay later
• To speak to you is a beautiful thing, beautiful thing
• I've been making plan for the future, I feel so unnecessary
• But only for a short time
• What's her name? Virginia plane
• Don't you people ever go to bed
• Hunting tigers out in Indiah
• I've got the skills to pay the bills
• So you go there and you stay there and go home alone
• He knew not what band he mixed
• Call any vegetable, call it by name
• She asked him, why can we not be together, why is it we must part?
• Kicker, kicker conspiracy
• I feel like I am the hunchback of Notre Dame
• This is the end, my friend the end
• As he walks from the grave no one was saved
• I am he who is X, Y, Zee, I carry no card my life is cheap
• I've got a bike you can ride it if you like
• Listen to me, listen, listen
• Wake the town, every one is sleeping, shout, shout it loud
• Bang, bang, knock on the door, another big bang and I'm down on the floor
• I will call my mother and tell her, mother, I am never coming home because I appear to have left a small part of my brain in a field in Hampshire
• My brother knows Karl Marx, he met him eating mushrooms in the peoples park
• Dedicated, dedicated, dedicated
• Fag, cut-throat, you dirty switch, you're on again, all night
• We have the technology to create a new kind of bogey
• I open my curtains at 7am just so you think I'm out with the rest of the men

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