Question What are you reading?

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finished Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train last night-Enjoyable but curious how little of the book made it into Hitchcock's film.No question that PH was much more interested in guilt than Hitch. though.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Ah - I haven't read that one yet; I think that it's probably more of a "dipper-inner".

Nah, It's an interesting read.You can apply the pricincple of London's lost music venues to In the City which is what I did.Got the same tally for both books pretty much I think.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Read Allan Clarke-His Fulham Years 1966-68 yesteday.This was the era when we were playing Friday night games and I was playing regularly in the yoof League.Still managed to see Alan Clarke in his Fulham prime a few times though.Wonderful player and probably the best striker Fulham have ever had apart from perhaps Louis Saha.

 

[GrumpyBlue]

Read Allan Clarke-His Fulham Years 1966-68 yesteday.This was the era when we were playing Friday night games and I was playing regularly in the yoof League.Still managed to see Alan Clarke in his Fulham prime a few times though.Wonderful player and probably the best striker Fulham have ever had apart from perhaps Louis Saha.

Just started this - so far so good

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just started this - so far so good

Yeah it's a good read.Was about to order When Fulham went to Wembley on the strenght of it but see that's now just sold out. ?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finished Charles Davis's The Measure of The World lat night.Have to fess up that I know CD.Even if I didn't this would still be a good read though.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Currently reading Barack Obama's A Promised Land.It's a good read.Don't think I'll bother with the 45th President's memoirs.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Just finished this tome by Owen Jones. Although it was published in 2014, and before the seismic political development here in dear old Blighty subsequently, it still has huge relevance in its deconstruction of how the power elite function. Well-written and extensively researched, it's an all too salient reminder of how 'The Establishment' is an inter-linked network that is able to perpetuate its self-interest at the top branches of our societal tree ... and how that power is hugely well-rooted too. It's not a feelgood, escapist book but it's certainly a thought-provoking and informative one.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just finished this tome by Owen Jones. Although it was published in 2014, and before the seismic political development here in dear old Blighty subsequently, it still has huge relevance in its deconstruction of how the power elite function. Well-written and extensively researched, it's an all too salient reminder of how 'The Establishment' is an inter-linked network that is able to perpetuate its self-interest at the top branches of our societal tree ... and how that power is hugely well-rooted too. It's not a feelgood, escapist book but it's certainly a thought-provoking and informative one.

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His new book (2220) This land :The struggle for the left is well worth a look at too.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Just finished this tome by Owen Jones. Although it was published in 2014, and before the seismic political development here in dear old Blighty subsequently, it still has huge relevance in its deconstruction of how the power elite function. Well-written and extensively researched, it's an all too salient reminder of how 'The Establishment' is an inter-linked network that is able to perpetuate its self-interest at the top branches of our societal tree ... and how that power is hugely well-rooted too. It's not a feelgood, escapist book but it's certainly a thought-provoking and informative one.

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I would say writing for The Guardian is pretty establishment.

I suspect Owen Jones would disagree.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I would say writing for The Guardian is pretty establishment.

I suspect Owen Jones would disagree.

Ha! I think you'll find Owen Jones no longer writes a weekly column for the Grauniad.More's the pity!

 

[Mad Cyril]

Ha! I think you'll find Owen Jones no longer writes a weekly column for the Grauniad.More's the pity!

He did as of yesterday.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

He did as of yesterday.

The right condemns China over its Uighur abuses. The left must do so too | Owen Jones

Western hawks are playing global power games. But that shouldn’t stop all of us who care for human rights speaking out, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones

www.theguardian.com

My apologies.(Don't normally bother with articles about China).

 

[Mad Cyril]

The right condemns China over its Uighur abuses. The left must do so too | Owen Jones

Western hawks are playing global power games. But that shouldn’t stop all of us who care for human rights speaking out, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones

www.theguardian.com

My apologies.(Don't normally bother with articles about China).

Neither does Owen Jones.

I remember him being pretty big on Venezuela though.

 

[Benfleet A1]

So how many lost London music venues have you visited?My total was in the high single figures IIRC.

Is this book about the big venues or the smaller places or a bit of both?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Is this book about the big venues or the smaller places or a bit of both?

Mainly smaller ,pubs etc

London's Lost Music Venues: Amazon.co.uk: Paul Talling: 9781916232709: Books

Buy London's Lost Music Venues by Paul Talling (ISBN: 9781916232709) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

It's a good read.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Neither does Owen Jones.

I remember him being pretty big on Venezuela though.

Ha! The left does have a few blind spots when it comes to Venezuela (or Nicaragua in the past).Being able to speak Spanish certainly helps to recognize tin-pot South/Central- American dictators when you hear them though.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Stuart Christie was very much his own man though his Granny's values did inspire his own moral code. From his fractured young family life in Glasgow of the 1950s to his teenage political activism as the 1960s arrived, he was jailed in Madrid when only eighteen for his complicity in a plot to assassinate General Franco in 1964 and was known as the "kilted bomber" (or whatever the Spanish phrase is) amongst his fellow inmates. Released in '67, he returned to the UK and worked as a gas-fitter but was himself fitted up by the Special Branch in 1971 on charges of conspiring to cause explosions with seven other defendants (who constituted 'The Stoke Newington 8') associated (mistakenly in some cases) with 'The Angry Brigade'. Christie was acquitted but had to move out of London following a police tip-off that they'd "get" him the next time. This fascinating memoir ends in late 1975 with the death of Franco and the writer's "profound sense of relief and satisfaction on the fact that I at least had no-one's blood or conscience on my hands - not even Franco's."

A cracking read. And thanks once again (belatedly) to 'Tangled Up In Blue' for putting it my way a few years ago. Thanks to the lockdown and working part-time now, I finally got around to finishing it this time.

Just discovered that Stuart Christie died last year. > Stuart Christie obituary | Politics | The Guardian

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Kerri ni Dochartaigh's Thin places.A haunting.poetic and moving memoir of growing up in the Bogside of Derry during the Troubles.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Another one to thank 'Tangled Up In Blue' for - and thanks to the lockdown, I finally got around to completing it. I hope that you're sitting comfittybold and here's my review, darling: -

Iain Sinclair moved to Hackney in 1968 and has lived there since. He wrote this book as the construction of the Olympic Village was well underway and he was concerned as to the effect that this would have on the area. Sinclair’s work is described as ‘psychogeography’ and ‘documentary fiction’ though he concedes that the content here is factual when it “needs to be”. It reads like a detective story with initially seeming streams of consciousness style prose that connects the various scenes and stories linking the different chapters and territories of this weighty tome (of over 580 pages in length).

This is a highly unusual book which I’m not sure will resonate for many people who don’t know Hackney and its constituent districts. But Sinclair’s travels around the borough certainly brought back a lot of memories for me – especially for when I lived in Stoke Newington, where I saw the riot in ’81 kick off in the High Street on a Friday night and had my first ever sight of a burnt-out car by Rectory Road station during that following week-end. The nearest pub where me and my flat-mate used to sup, The Manor Tavern, was boarded up for a while after. Like me, Sinclair is very fond of the area in Clapton where the River Lea runs through and I still like to find my way down there when I have time to return on increasingly infrequent trips.

There are some colourful characters who Sinclair tracks down and interviews, including ‘The Mole Man’ - who excavated deep into his property before he was evicted from it by the Council - and Dr Swann (‘Swanny’), supplier of treatment and medicines to the Krays and their associates. There are snapshots of Jean-Luc Godard and Orson Welles and their forays into Hackney, and also an interview with Sinclair’s filmic collaborator, Chris Petit, too. This is a nice link (via Petit’s film ‘Radio On’ and the ‘Free Astrid Proll’ graffiti in its early scenes) to Sinclair’s final interview with Astrid Proll (an erstwhile resident of Hackney in the 1970s whilst she was on the run from the West German state after jumping bail pending trial on charges associated with her activities as a getaway driver for the Red Army Faction) which takes place at the café in Springfield Park in Clapton and on a walk down by the Lea.

It’s a fascinating read and Sinclair’s style is certainly different, but alluring. If you do read it, make sure that you have a dictionary nearby as there were many new words for me that I needed to look up.