In the Withaak's shade, Hugh reads in 2020 (part 3)

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In the Withaak's shade, Hugh reads in 2020 (part 3)

1hfglen
Mai 31, 2020, 8:03 am

... in which, at last, we manage to get both the right preposition and the right part number! (The previous one was part 2, not part 1)

2hfglen
Modifié : Mai 31, 2020, 8:07 am

This week's picture is of an unnamed creek near Sinamwenda on Lake Kariba.



In the course of my reading this week I came across exactly the second ever reference I know of to this place, in a guide to (of all places) the Vredefort Dome. Apparently somewhere near Sinamwenda there's thought to be a small meteorite impact crater. You could have fooled me; and I'm sure nobody knew that in 1971.

3YouKneeK
Mai 31, 2020, 8:50 am

>1 hfglen: I had a part # incrementation failure near the end of 2018 and it annoyed me for months. I’m glad your part #’s are back on track!

4haydninvienna
Mai 31, 2020, 9:49 am

I have to find separate titles for each of mine. If I just numbered them I'd get that wrong for sure.

5hfglen
Juin 1, 2020, 6:38 am

Vredefort Dome. One of a series of relatively new (2006) guides to World Heritage Sites in South Africa (so there should be 7 or 8 in the series). This one is good, and written with a pleasing sense of humour. ("A shattercone is not what you get when you drop your ice-cream. Instead, it is a specific fracture pattern that spreads over the rocks as the shock wave passes through". There are attractive illustrations and a barely adequate map.
Some 2037-million years ago the Earth was hit by a rock some 10-15 km in diameter; a long time later the city of Johannesburg arose some 120 km roughly north-east of "ground zero". The resultant crater is about 300 km in diameter, and is at least one of the two largest and oldest on earth. In recent years the splash cone in the centre of the crater and part of its surroundings have been given some environmental protection, and an embryonic tourist industry was starting to form around it -- what Covid-19 has done to that heaven knows; probably as much damage as the impact did to the planet. On the ground it is possible to see hills and shattered and variously transformed rocks, all formed within about ten minutes of the impact. The "silver lining" to the apparent disaster is in fact golden; the impact buried the gold-bearing sediments that form the basis of the South African mining industry (and have yielded about half the gold that humans have mined, ever) and protected them from erosion. And that is why the most obvious relic of the outermost wall of the crater is a semicircle of major gold mines from Nigel in the north-east (anti-clockwise) to Welkom in the south-west. In all, surely a must-see for anybody interested in geology.
(Tourist note: there is a much smaller and more recent impact crater at Tswaing, north-west of Pretoria; seeing that makes the Vredefort Dome much more intelligible.)

6haydninvienna
Juin 2, 2020, 12:54 am

>5 hfglen: Hugh, you reminded me yet again of a science fact article called "Giant Meteor Impact", by one J E Enever, which was published in Analog magazine back when I was a subscriber (in March 1966, as it turns out). Enever considered the effects of a second giant meteor strike on the same scale as the one at Vredefort, but threw something new into the mix: since three-quarters of the earth's surface is covered by water, what would be the consequences of such a strike at sea? Turns out that they would be much more serious than a strike on land. To quote Enever's rather overwrought prose (as quoted by Greg Bear, on his website):
To begin with, the enormous heat of the impact will not only vaporize the mile or two depth of ocean at the bull’s eye, it will also vaporize the crystal rocks below, clear through the Moho, and blow out the surrounding rocks as well. Beyond the area where the mantle is laid bare, rifts will expose hot magma.
The crater is as wide as Vredevoort in South Africa. Though more power is absorbed in producing plasma at the kernel of the events than in a land strike--fearful energy is needed to convert water into a plasma and hydrogen and oxygen nuclei--water is less dense than rock. Despite its incompressibility and high latent heat of evaporation, it is easier to shift en masse than rock. So although the seabed crater is somewhat shallower than that on land, it is just as broad. A blazing wound scores of miles wide scars the sea floor.
A ring waterfall as high as the Alleghenies rushes in to quench it, its circumference that of a county boundary. The fiery furnace opened by this strike will not glow for weeks and months as it would on land; the torrents of ocean rush in, and change at once to pure steam. They stream up in a thin-walled sleeve which is as clear as air, as invisible as the gush of super-heated vapor which flays the flesh from men’s bones in a boiler-room catastrophe.
Here, the glass-clear gaseous water is sweeping up in a volume enough to cloud the planet’s atmosphere. The naked wound on the seabed glows white-hot through the walls of the frightful cylinder which encloses it. But inch by inch and foot by foot, the waters sweeping in win. The column of steam still rushes up to the ionosphere, still spreads out across the heavens, but it steadily contracts. Beyond the rim of the inferno, crustal rifts are already exuding sills of lava across the ocean floor. Convulsions and seisms mount in cataclysmic fury surpassing the power of any natural quake.
What I remember, but Bear didn't quote, is that the article continues to the effect that the world-wide forecast is "stormy" for the indefinite future. IIRC, he also describes the unfortunate sea creatures involved as becoming an "involuntary bouillabaisse".

The article by Enever was published before the Alvarez's published their hypothesis about the Chixulub crater, and also before Carl Sagan's book about the idea of a "nuclear winter". The article was republished in the Analog Science Fact Reader in 1974.

7hfglen
Juin 2, 2020, 4:56 am

>6 haydninvienna: David Fleminger does mention that a number of (tiny) meteorites land in the sea each year, with enough force to be picked up on a seismograph (but then, back when I was still in Pretoria the CSIR had a seismograph in an excavation in a ridge in an unfrequented part of the Botanical Garden; staff were warned to stay away from the entrance unless absolutely necessary, as the instrument picked up the footsteps of even the smallest and lightest of us). He also gives us enough geological history to note that the Late Heavy Bombardment, when Vredefort-size missiles were common, ended some 4000-million years ago. These days, there's a reason why here hasn't been a strike that size since then. Which is not to say it couldn't happen; just that it's unlikely next week. The other point that one could wish that Enever had taken into account but couldn't have at that date, is an experiment televised by the Mythbusters team a few years ago. They shot various missiles into a swimming pool full of water, from an air-rifle pellet to a high-velocity armour-piercing round. The pellet penetrated several centimetres and was recovered intact; as the size and speed of the bullet increased so the penetration decreased and damage to the projectile increased. And so the high-velocity round shattered on contact with the water, and the bits sank gracefully.

I deduce that an incoming Vredefort-size bolide landing in the ocean would probably shatter during a couple of kilometres (at least) of heavy braking and while Enever is almost certainly right in predicting some years of worldwide, dirty rain I wonder if the crater would be that large.

8haydninvienna
Modifié : Juin 2, 2020, 7:01 am

>7 hfglen: Coincidentally: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chicxulub-collision-earth-crust-hot-water-mi....

I'm not entirely sure the Mythbusters experiment is relevant. I grant that the rock would probably shatter, but of course it would do that anyway, and its not-inconsiderable kinetic energy has to go somewhere. As I understand it, when a high-velocity projectile hits an obstacle, the energy of the projectile sends a pressure wave through the obstacle which may punch a hole right through. The projectile doesn't necessarily go through but its kinetic energy does, and may produce a kind of "scab" off the other surface. (In the case of an armour-piercing projectile and the armour of a tank, the scab goes ricochetting around the interior: bad news for the crew.)

Anyway, we (most fortunately) cannot try it for real. All seems to agree that it would be Very Bad News. I've ordered (ETA: for the grand sum of £2.79 plus £2.80 P&P) a copy of the Analog reader mentioned in #5, so we will see how Enever dealt with the issue.

9hfglen
Juin 4, 2020, 4:37 am

Extraterrestrial Civilizations. The suck fairy hasn't been as active here as one might expect, considering that this is non-fiction written 40 years ago about cutting-edge science. As the LT review says, the search for extraterrestrial civilization is a convenient frame within which Isaac Asimov gets to write about the things he enjoyed writing about most. So we have a quick guided tour of cosmology, space travel and communications. He suggests that there may be as many as half-a-million civilizations at least as advanced as our own in our galaxy, but that's such a big place that with the best will in the world there is no way they could find us, nor we them -- even if we knew what to look for. A worthwhile re-read.

10hfglen
Juin 4, 2020, 4:47 am

What the Victorians did for us. The book of a BBC2 TV series from about 20 years ago. The presence of a flock of bookmarks suggests I'd at least skimmed through the pictures, which are many and excellent, while looking for something else. But I don't recall the text at all, other than seeing (on TV or where?) the effect of looking out through the ripples in the handmade glass of the Crystal Palace. So this is an all-too-brief romp through Victorian technology, informative and most enjoyable. I can only imagine that the underlying series must have been a treat! Certainly the book is a very enjoyable read.

11Busifer
Juin 5, 2020, 7:15 am

>10 hfglen: I love industrial history, ie the history of clever ideas on machinery and stuff. My family has had to endure a lot of turn of the century (and then I don't mean this one) heritage sites, museums, and so on. And the Victorians, with their huge empire, wast resources (and lack of regard for human life) managed some impressive things.
I think I'll see if I can find that book.
(Watching the counter-weight on the Tower Bridge lift-mechanism in work has been on my list for a long time, even if it has continuously been bumped down it in favour of other things.)

12hfglen
Modifié : Juin 5, 2020, 10:53 am

>11 Busifer: According to the LT catalogue, Adam Hart-Davis has written several like that, on different periods. I'd happily look them all out.

ETA: And if you ever make it to Durban your family will no doubt be subjected to an exhaustive (and exhausting) guided tour of the Old Main Line to the interior, and the collection of trains and memorabilia held at Inchanga.

13hfglen
Juin 5, 2020, 10:56 am

Reading The Basque History of the World, I'm delighted as I would expect any fan of the late great Sir pTerry to be, to discover that the chief witch hunter of South-Western France in the 16th/17th century was one Pierre de Lancre. A nasty piece of work, it seems.

14Busifer
Juin 5, 2020, 11:00 am

>12 hfglen: I'd love to! As you might remember such a journey was once planned, but things conspired against us and it never came to be.

>13 hfglen: I love when such things pop at me in my reading!

15hfglen
Juin 6, 2020, 5:16 am

More from The Basque History of the World, this time for Tolkien addicts: the Basque name for the Spanish/Basque port of Bilbao is spelt and presumably pronounced Bilbo.

16hfglen
Juin 6, 2020, 2:58 pm

Thunder, flush and Thomas Crapper. All you never wanted to know about the history of the smallest room and the equipment therein. The book takes the form of an all-too-short encycloopedia, and is another delight from the pen (word-processor?) of Adam Hart-Davis. It would make a great bathroom read for MrsLee, among others.

17clamairy
Modifié : Juin 6, 2020, 5:20 pm

>16 hfglen: Oh, that sounds awesome! I see it's called an 'encycloopedia.' LOL

18haydninvienna
Juin 7, 2020, 1:10 am

>16 hfglen: I read your post and was suddenly visited by a vision of Adam's father, the aristocratic Rupert Hart-Davis, saying to him, "You wrote a book about what"?

19hfglen
Juin 7, 2020, 5:26 am

>19 hfglen: Indeed (LOL). Adam mentions in What the Victorians did for us that he is a first cousin five times removed of Queen Victoria. So I assume that Rupert Hart-Davis was a first cousin four times removed. Both sound pretty aristocratic to me.

20haydninvienna
Juin 7, 2020, 6:10 am

>19 hfglen: RHD was descended from William IV, who was Queen Victoria's uncle. RHD was a nephew of Alfred Duff Cooper, and John Julius Norwich (Viscount Norwich), the historian (and compiler of the Christmas Crackers anthologies), was Duff Cooper's son, so RHD and JJN were cousins. Vaguely related to your original post: in the first Christmas Crackers collection there's a story about a man blowing up a septic tank, which made me laugh harder than anything else I've ever read. Good luck googling it.

21hfglen
Modifié : Juin 7, 2020, 9:45 am

>20 haydninvienna: AHD explains that descent, mentioning the illegitimacy in the first generation after William IV. I see why you wish me luck with the John Julius Norwich -- the usual sources draw a blank.

22hfglen
Modifié : Juin 7, 2020, 2:21 pm

This week's picture is a hasty shot of a Crimson-breasted Shrike; I think I took it in Marakele (or possibly Mapungubwe) National Park, certainly in May2014.



No details, as I'm not a birder.

ETA: Neither Marakele nor Mapungubwe. Roberts Bird Guide tells me that this picture could only have been taken in the furthest northern Kruger Park, where it's a rare vagrant.

23clamairy
Juin 8, 2020, 9:34 am

>22 hfglen: It's lovely, but their eating habits are terrifying.

24hfglen
Juin 8, 2020, 11:27 am

>23 clamairy: The Crimson-breasted is quite reasonable; insects and small fruits. But the Boubou and Helmet-Shrikes are pretty revolting. (For those who don't know, one of the shrikes has the alternative name of Jackie Hangman, which is descriptive.)

25haydninvienna
Juin 8, 2020, 11:36 am

>24 hfglen: Like butcher-birds in Oz. They sing beautifully.

26hfglen
Juin 9, 2020, 6:46 am

>25 haydninvienna: That's another common name for the Jackie Hangman here. Would they be related?

27hfglen
Juin 9, 2020, 6:51 am

I've just heard Petroc Trelawny say on BBC Radio 3's Breakfast that part of the problem with restoring Notre Dame after the fire is that they were working on the spire (I dimly recall that's what started the fire in the first place) and so it was surrounded with scaffolding. And so they now have the problem of removing the 40 000 pipes that melted in the blaze. He said there's now a book on the fire and its aftermath, which would (one hopes) be an interesting if uncomfortable read.

28hfglen
Juin 9, 2020, 7:16 am

Reread of Will we ever speak Dolphin?. Back in the day when the library still got New Scientist I always enjoyed the "Last Word" page, and the books derived from the questions and answers there are, IMHO, totally immune to the suck fairy. This volume has a whole chapter on the perfect Martini, which will surely interest some Dragoneers.

29haydninvienna
Juin 9, 2020, 7:26 am

>26 hfglen: According to Wikipedia, the "Jackie Hangman" is a shrike. It also says: "Butcherbirds are the ecological counterparts of the shrikes, mainly found in Eurasia and Africa, which are only distantly related, but share the "larder" habit". The old world shrikes are Family Laniidae; the Australian butcherbirds (7 species in 2 genera) are in Family Artamidae, which also includes the Australian magpie and currawong.

30hfglen
Juin 9, 2020, 7:33 am

>29 haydninvienna: Thank you. Like I said, I'm in no way a birder.

31haydninvienna
Juin 9, 2020, 7:43 am

>30 hfglen: Neither am I, I just rely on Wikipedia. What did we ever do without it, I wonder.

32hfglen
Juin 10, 2020, 7:04 am

The Basque History of the World, mentioned briefly twice above. Is there anybody left who doesn't know that Euskara is the oldest language in Europe, and totally unrelated to any other surviving language? Here we have a history of the Basque nation from earliest times, with much attention paid to their sufferings under Franco, and their subsequent recovery. This is my third attempt to read this book, and the first time I have succeeded (don't know why). Seeing the author is the generally excellent Mark Kurlansky there are recipes; in this case they sound one and all revolting. The book is well written and minimally illustrated.

33hfglen
Juin 12, 2020, 9:15 am

Reread of Murder Must Advertise, inspired by and to accompany the BBC Radio 4-extra rebroadcast of the 1979 dramatisation with Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter / Mr Bredon. Is there anybody left alive who doesn't know, or at least know of, Ms Sayers's esteemed mysteries. One tiny point that I'd noticed before and enjoyed again, was Ms Sayers quoting herself: she (no less) devised the slogan "Guinness is Good for You", which gets the briefest of mentions in a pub scene. One I hadn't noticed before was the import of Lord Peter / Death Bredon being absent for half a sentence because he was with a Lady. This evidently places the story after Strong Poison and Have his Carcase but before Gaudy Night, if we believe the lady to be Harriet Vane.

34haydninvienna
Juin 12, 2020, 9:55 am

>33 hfglen: Best bit in the book: the cricket match, where "Bredon" is persuaded to play and has to hide his real skill (in the book's reality, Wimsey was a star batsman at university). Of course he plays incompetently only until he gets hit by an oafish, over-aggressive fast bowler, and then says to himself (I paraphrase) "blow this for a game of soldiers", and proceeds to take the oaf apart, winning the game in the process. And gets recognised as who he really is by one of the onlookers. It just occurred to me that the book was published in 1933, right after the "bodyline" Test series.

35hfglen
Juin 12, 2020, 10:52 am

>34 haydninvienna: Read that bit this afternoon, and enjoyed! I hadn't connected the date of publication with the bodyline controversy.

36pgmcc
Juin 12, 2020, 12:14 pm

>33 hfglen: I really enjoyed that book. It is in that book that Wimsey is described by one of the characters as a Bertie Wooster type.

I read the bit at the start of the book about it being fictional and none of the characters representing any living persons. When I read that I though, "Oh! Oh! This is based on a real story." It was only after doing some research I discovered Sayers had worked in advertising and she obviously did not want any of her former colleagues suspected of murder.

I believe she was also responsible for the Toucan in the Guinness advertisements.

37hfglen
Juin 12, 2020, 12:22 pm

>36 pgmcc: I have long believed that to be true. And cannot look at a picture of a Toucan without getting a thirsty craving :-)

38hfglen
Juin 12, 2020, 3:24 pm

>34 haydninvienna: >36 pgmcc: And then there's the "car race" scene where Lord Peter's Daimler carries all before it. YouTube has a clip of what I believe to be an almost-twin of the Wimseymobile in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SM5RCYCid4&list=UUBOvLotQ-mXc2w9C88vZz4w&am...

39clamairy
Juin 12, 2020, 5:31 pm

>32 hfglen: Fascinating! Which dead languages is it related to, then?
(I'm not sure it's fascinating enough for a whole book about it to hold my attention.)

40Busifer
Juin 12, 2020, 6:20 pm

>39 clamairy: If memory serves me right no one exacly know, as if there ever were written versions of the indigenous languges no samples has survived. Presumably some were still spoken in Roman times, but as the Visigoths took over their bastardised version of the language of the bureaucracy became the main languge of the area. Except in Basque.
See ”paleohispanic languges”. There’s some, like Aquitane, but most are speculation, it seems.
There’s some in other regions of Europe as well, like Etruscan and Minoan. In my neck of the woods no evidence of pre-Indo European languages exist, though presumably people communicated with each other as they fell off of the ice sheet as it withdrew ;-)

41pgmcc
Juin 12, 2020, 7:45 pm

>38 hfglen: Your mention of Murder Must Advertise and the Ian Carmichael adaption prompted me to dig out our DVD set and start watching it. So far I have watched the first three of the four episodes. My wife slept through episode three so I sent her to bed and will re-watch that episode with her tomorrow.

One thing I found to be a massive coincident was seeing the wall calendar display the date in Episode 1: Friday, 12th June. I was watching it on Friday, 12th June. It struck me all the more because this was the first anniversary of my brother's death and I was painfully aware of the date all day.

I think the Lord Peter Wimsey stories are great fun and Ian Carmichael is perfect in the role. He was a brilliant Bertie Wooster in Jeeves with Dennis Price.

Thank you for prompting this sojourn into the world of Wimsey.

42hfglen
Juin 13, 2020, 4:49 am

>41 pgmcc: My pleasure. Sympathy on the anniversary.

43hfglen
Juin 13, 2020, 5:36 am

Re-read of How to make a Tornado, a New Scientist collection of reports of the alarming things scientists get up to when unconstrained by common sense. Just as entertaining as the first time around.

44hfglen
Juin 13, 2020, 5:39 am

>40 Busifer: Many thanks for this answer, which is far more eloquent and detailed than anything I could manage.

45Busifer
Juin 13, 2020, 8:18 am

>44 hfglen: Thanks. I thought that maybe I shouldn't answer a question that wasn't directed at me personally, but once I started I decided to press "Post" when I had finished.
It's a topic that I've spent some hours on in earlier years, as I find it interesting.

46hfglen
Juin 14, 2020, 11:29 am

Did I ever show you-all this picture of a Black-backed Jackal? I saw the animal at Golden Gate National Park (makes a change from Kruger, doesn't it!) in May 2014.



The good news of the week is that SANParks are starting to re-open their reserves, at the moment to day visitors only. Lockdown regulations mean that they are only accessible to residents of the province they're in, which means that we kn KZN and the good people of Gauteng lose out. But it's a start, and so we can celebrate with Mr Jackal.

47Sakerfalcon
Juin 16, 2020, 7:43 am

>46 hfglen: He's very handsome!

48hfglen
Modifié : Juin 16, 2020, 9:02 am

In other news, the weather forecast for the next 24 hours includes snow for "parts of Gauteng". Presumably they mean the high-altitude bits of Observatory and Northcliff ridges in Johannesburg (about 1800 m altitude) and an unspecified amount of the lower parts of town. If so, that would be the first snow there since 1964 to the best of my memory. (It's often cold enough in a Johannesburg winter, but usually very dry at this time of year; to have cold and moisture is very unusual.)

ETA: Better Half reminds me that it snowed in Johannesburg in 1981, while we were stationed overseas.

49hfglen
Juin 18, 2020, 5:34 am

I am delighted to see in The Origin of English Surnames that the surname of Hilaire Belloc, held up by generations of parents , maiden aunts and teachers as the very epitome of all that is Victorian, prim and proper (and so a Good Thing), is a close derivative of the good English word bollock. Nuff said.

50hfglen
Juin 19, 2020, 2:09 pm

Inspired by a throwaway comment Pete made near the end of this post (#100), and seeing it's Father's Day this weekend, I opened a bottle of Alvi's Drift Cabernet Sauvignon to have with dinner. Only had one glass, which might be as well, as the kittens are developing ever more devious ways to snag food from their hoomins' plates.

51pgmcc
Juin 19, 2020, 2:15 pm

>50 hfglen: Enjoy!

I find our cat is getting cleverer at frustrating my efforts to put him in another room when we are eating.

52MrsLee
Juin 19, 2020, 6:10 pm

>50 hfglen: and >51 pgmcc: I am once again reminded how grateful I am that neither of the 2 strays we adopted have any interest in human food at all.

53pgmcc
Juin 19, 2020, 6:16 pm

>52 MrsLee: I think they just have not completed your training. You will learn.

54haydninvienna
Juin 20, 2020, 2:06 am

>50 hfglen: So what did you do with the rest of the bottle? Did Rene and Melissa have a very, very good dinner?

55hfglen
Juin 20, 2020, 5:17 am

>53 pgmcc: agreed.

>54 haydninvienna: Saved it for tonight.

56Busifer
Juin 22, 2020, 2:52 pm

I'm starting to suspect that I'd be viewed as a cat bully ;-) No one of my cats, or my parents' cats, has ever been allowed near food meant for humans, at the table. They have all been fed on the floor, and has promptly been shoved down if they try to get up on a table when there's food on it.
I am very skilled at hissing like a cat, showing off my teeth, and have been known to scare stray cats away from birds' nests and so on. I am the bigger cat, after all ;-)

(Not to say that the cats haven't got human food, but the have always had to wait for scraps. Though I still think it a waste when I don't have a cat to feed trimmings of fish and meat to when I cook. Throwing it away feels like such a waste...)

57pgmcc
Juin 22, 2020, 3:29 pm

>56 Busifer: Our cat is not allowed on the table. Bank robbers are not allowed to rob banks.

58ScoLgo
Juin 22, 2020, 4:22 pm

>57 pgmcc: In both instances, they do keep trying though! ;)

59tardis
Juin 22, 2020, 8:01 pm

Newt's full name is Newton Thou-Shalt-Not-Put-Thy-Feet-On-The-Table Pulsifer Starchak, and Amy's is Amelia Get-off-the-Table Pond Starchak.

Neither of them has ever lived up to their names.

60hfglen
Juin 23, 2020, 3:56 am

>57 pgmcc: >59 tardis: Seems our kittens aren't unique. We love them dearly, anyway.

61Busifer
Juin 23, 2020, 6:50 am

>60 hfglen: Well, of course you do! I loved my cats even when they deliberately pushed flowerpots over the ledge at 3 AM :)

62hfglen
Juin 27, 2020, 6:51 am

The other day our tenants indicated a shortage of reading matter and that they didn't know of Ursula le Guin, so I lent them a copy of The Earthsea Quartet, which they are evidently enjoying. That caused me to find and reread my copy of The Other Wind, which is immune to the suck fairy and still very enjoyable. What else to offer? Guy Gavriel Kay maybe? Rereads of both parts of The Sarantine Mosaic ensued, and gave pleasure. Terry Pratchett is a must: I thought I'd start them off on Nation before letting them loose in Discworld. But for myself, I re-read Going Postal, and I'm sure I caught more of the humour this time round. Currently busy with re-reads of Tigana (wondering how you'd make blue wine in this world) and Making Money. And am chuckling at an all-too-accurate quote I read in the latter last night, which would annoy the hell out of a noted architect I know from a society here: "It would be hard to imagine an uglier building that hadn't won a major architectural award." He could have added that those condemned to live or work in the award-winners also know them to be grossly dysfunctional, on the whole.

63hfglen
Juin 28, 2020, 11:46 am

I think the travel restrictions of our lockdown are getting to me. I can't help wishing I was here (don't you?)



An African Ivory Route rest camp in the lowveld of Limpopo Province. The nearest town of any size is Giyani, but even that is some distance away. The camp is accessible to high-clearance non-4x4s, but only if you drive the last bit with considerable care. It's self-catering, bring your own bedding and don't ask questions about the plumbing.

64catzteach
Juin 29, 2020, 9:04 am

>63 hfglen: rustic, but looks peaceful.

65Busifer
Juin 29, 2020, 11:01 am

>62 hfglen: A good deed! I've been meaning to reread The Sarantine Mosaic but there's always some new book pressing for attention!

>63 hfglen: I long to be able to travel again, though I'm starting to think that will never happen.
Meanwhile, thank you for allowing me/us to travel though your images.

66haydninvienna
Juin 29, 2020, 11:25 am

>63 hfglen: I also long to be able to travel. I’ve been realising how much I miss being on an aeroplane, which is actually just a bit weird. And I second Busifer’s thanks.
As to not asking about the plumbing, I take it that the answer would be, there isn’t any.

67hfglen
Juin 29, 2020, 11:31 am

>66 haydninvienna: IIRC, they have long-drops and iffy drinking water. Like you and >65 Busifer: I long to travel, but I think I'd rather go in our truck than by plane.

68hfglen
Juin 29, 2020, 11:34 am

In the June thread, jillmwo asked for pictures of the kittens. Difficult, as they don't enjoy holding still for anything, portraits almost least. However, here they are, watching "kitty TV".

69haydninvienna
Juin 29, 2020, 12:03 pm

>68 hfglen: What adorable little terrorists.

70pgmcc
Juin 29, 2020, 12:06 pm

>68 hfglen: Super picture.

71Busifer
Juin 29, 2020, 2:01 pm

>68 hfglen: Adorable!

72YouKneeK
Juin 29, 2020, 4:06 pm

>68 hfglen: LOL, they are so cute. And it's great that they have shared interests! ;)

73Narilka
Juin 29, 2020, 7:28 pm

>68 hfglen: Looks like they are having lots of fun :)

74Sakerfalcon
Juin 30, 2020, 5:04 am

>68 hfglen: So cute! They are clearly plotting.

75pgmcc
Juin 30, 2020, 5:28 am

>74 Sakerfalcon: I thought they were picking out their dinner.

76hfglen
Juin 30, 2020, 6:31 am

>69 haydninvienna:-75: Thank you all!

>75 pgmcc: They'd love to, but the horrible hoomins have closed the top of the tank, having no desire to fish drowned kittens out of it. So they eat kitten-food between eyeing the fishies and drooling.

77clamairy
Juin 30, 2020, 3:23 pm

>68 hfglen: Adorable!

78jillmwo
Modifié : Juin 30, 2020, 8:23 pm

>68 hfglen: I am charmed. (That said, I can imagine when those sharp kitten claws snatch at a bare foot, there's likely blood on the carpet.) It's such fun to pounce!!!

79hfglen
Juil 5, 2020, 11:37 am

>77 clamairy: >78 jillmwo: Thank you both. Yes indeed, they love pouncing practice. And DD tells me that when she went to the doctor a week or 2 ago, he took one look at her hand and said "You have a kitten".

>75 pgmcc: Some new characters in the kitty-TV soapie were supposed to arrive today but didn't make it (crowds in the pet shop).

80hfglen
Juil 5, 2020, 11:44 am

Today's picture is of a rather tardy European Bee-eater. They come from the Northern Hemisphere in spring (October, according to the Book of Words) and leave in autumn, supposedly March-April. But this one was still in the Kruger Park in May 2014.

81Karlstar
Juil 5, 2020, 12:06 pm

>80 hfglen: Great, picture! Thanks for the kitten pictures too.

82hfglen
Juil 8, 2020, 2:16 pm

>81 Karlstar: Thank you, Jim!

83hfglen
Juil 8, 2020, 2:30 pm

Very interesting letter from an Irishman called Sean Sheridan in today's Mercury. This unfortunate has been stuck in Durban for the full 100 days of lockdown, and is evidently developing a form of what I believe is called "Stockholm Syndrome". The letter is headed All tourism roads should lead to KZN; it's wonderful here. The bit I like (which is more-or-less factual) goes "... your definition of 'winter' is one that defies description. Each morning the sun rises, the sky is azure blue and the temperatures, on average are in the low to mid-twenties {Celsius; I fear the cold front coming this weekend may give our visitor a wake-up call}. This is a winter that Irishmen and women would give their eye teeth for ..."

Well yes Sean, this immigrant from the Highveld also loves it, and would love to offer pgmcc and his family some hospitality. But today's main headline also needs a moment's attention: "Schoolgirl, 12, raped going to fetch mask". Sadly, an all-too-common occurrence: not everything is perfect in our earthly paradise.

84hfglen
Juil 11, 2020, 9:17 am

And in all this I haven't noted any reading for ages. So to come more-or-less up to date:

Re-reads of Going Postal, Making Money, Sailing to Sarantium and Tigana all richly enjoyed.

Currently busy reading Today's News Today, the centenary history of the Argus Group (mainly the Cape Argus and the Star of Johannesburg) -- IIRC my father bought this when it came out in 1957. I may have read it once before, a long time ago, but don't recall it at all. Thinks: must look out the sesquicentennial version when the libraries re-open.
Also The Purple and the Gold, a cheerful (1965) account of Johannesburg and Pretoria illustrated with the author's own drawings. The sad bit is looking at the pictures and considering how few of the subjects are still there 50 years later. Again, found in the family archives.

85hfglen
Juil 11, 2020, 2:22 pm

Can one of the USAnian Dragoneers enlighten me please?

John Hays Hammond was a leading mining engineer in Johannesburg in the 1890s, and an even more leading member of the Reform Committee who were the Johannesburg branch of the (failed) Jameson Raid in 1896. After the dust from that settled he went back to the United States, where in due course (according to a book I read this afternoon) he eventually became Vice President. So questions: Who was the President he served under? When?

86Narilka
Juil 11, 2020, 4:00 pm

It does not appear he ever became Vice President. He was a candidate for Taft but did not receive enough delegates. They remained friends and he served as an ambassador a couple times. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hays_Hammond

87hfglen
Juil 12, 2020, 11:29 am

Thank you, Narilka. One hopes he made a better job of the ambassadorships than of the Reform Committee.

88hfglen
Juil 12, 2020, 11:32 am

And this week's picture. Which, come to think of it, should have been last week's (apologies for that slip).



A Wahlberg's Eagle, seen in the Kruger Park in September 2015. (A change from the African Fish Eagle, which looks exactly like the American Bald Eagle.)

89hfglen
Juil 13, 2020, 9:34 am

Started a re-read of Sea Safari with Professor Smith, which differs from most self-published books in being readable. It's the story of an expedition undertaken by J.L.B. Smith the ichthyologist to whom the first coelacanth was reported, his wife and a then-young journalist/photographer/cinematographer named Peter Barnett, the author of this book, up the coast of Mozambique from Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) to Moçímboa da Praia (just over 200 km south of the Tanzanian border) -- a total of some 3000 km -- in 1951. The book itself seems to have been written some 10 years after the event. Prof. Smith rarely if ever made any concessions to convenience or comfort, and comes across as more than somewhat of a martinet. It seems that in between illustrating newly-discovered species of fish, Mrs Smith must have spent considerable time pouring oil on troubled waters. The book is (by the standards of the time) profusely illustrated with excellent photos -- black-and-white, unfortunately -- and this time round I can't help wondering what became of the movies Mr Barnett took; maybe a little asking-around among Grahamstown friends would be a good idea.

Re-read temporarily suspended while Better Half reads the book. We both met Mrs "Fishy" Smith in the early '70s, when she made a habit of attending botanical conferences. We remember her as an immensely kindly lady with the best sense of humour in South African biology.

Note for haydninvienna: LT tells me that Peter Barnett went on to become a highly respected Australian journalist. I'd suggest that no subsequent assignment could possibly have been as tough as coping with Prof. Smith on this one.

90haydninvienna
Juil 13, 2020, 11:53 am

>89 hfglen: The name rings a bell. A quick Google shows that he was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's chief foreign correspondent. No Wikipedia page, but there'a a few copies of his autobiography, Foreign Correspondence on LT.

91Sakerfalcon
Juil 20, 2020, 8:00 am

>88 hfglen: That is a very majestic looking eagle. Great photo!

92clamairy
Juil 22, 2020, 2:27 pm

>88 hfglen: Oh, that's glorious. I'm a raptor fan! Looks like they're roughly the size of our Red Tailed Hawks.

93hfglen
Juil 29, 2020, 11:44 am

94hfglen
Juil 29, 2020, 11:58 am

It's not that I've been off-planet or not reading, just trying to do too many things at once and some of them have fallen down the cracks.

Re-reads continue with the Earthsea series, and various books for information towards keeping the Railway History Society Chronicle afloat. So I have enjoyed renewing acquaintance with Lawrence G. Green's Where Men still Dream, Full many a glorious Morning and Harbours of Memory.

Also read Runner and Mailcoach by Eric Rosenthal and Eliezer Blum. This book is in two essentially independent parts. The first, by Eric Rosenthal, is a summary of the postal history of southern Africa. Detailed but entertaining for the four colonies that made up the Union of South Africa, but becoming sketchier later; by the time he reaches Mozambique he omits not only everything one might reasonably want to know, but almost everything else as well. To an extent one can sympathise; trying to get information out of the Portuguese authorities was often closely akin to squeezing blood out of a stone. Eliezer Blum's section is essentially a catalogue minus the pictures but with extra words. If that sounds deadly dull and dry dry dry, it is.

95libraryperilous
Août 3, 2020, 3:20 pm

>89 hfglen: re: coelacanths I read A Fish Caught in Time several years ago. The author recounts a delightful anecdote. A "schoolchild, in response to the question posed in a German magazine article, 'Why is it worthwhile living this week?' replied that 'coelacanths still exist.'"

96hfglen
Août 4, 2020, 4:40 am

>95 libraryperilous: Beaut! Why don't I recall that story? What I do remember from reading that book is discovering that the author is the daughter of a lad (a noxious individual IMO) who was in the year ahead of me at school.

97katylit
Août 4, 2020, 8:21 am

It’s so lovely to look at your wonderful pictures Hugh. And on the reading front, I’m like Busifer, I want to revisit G.G. Kay’s books again, but there’s so many new ones calling to me. I do enjoy listening to all the Earthsea stories on audio though, they never get old.

98hfglen
Août 4, 2020, 11:58 am

Thank you, Katy! In that case, I'm inspired once more to dig into the archives and find a nice picture.



It's a herd of eland, seen at Kagga Kamma (Western Cape, middle of nowhere) in September 2014. Eland are our largest antelope, and farmers who attempt to keep them soon find out the hard way that an eland can jump an eight-foot fence from a standing start without any run-up. The San hunter-gatherers regarded them as sacred, and painted them more often than any other species.

99katylit
Août 4, 2020, 2:14 pm

Beautiful!

100hfglen
Modifié : Août 14, 2020, 7:18 am

Finished The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry at last. Not a whodunit, but a very heavily learned document interpreting this famous piece of needlework. Suffice to say that the author believes there's more politics here than meets the eye. He makes the case that although the Tapestry was made for "the Normans" (itself a claim with complications), it was made in Canterbury by an Anglo-Saxon group who were easily bright enough to fill the imagery with double meanings, and didn't need their Norman masters at all. And in the preceding sentence I enclosed "the Normans" in quotes, because the Norman in question was Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who spent most of his life embroiled in a running feud with his half-brother William. Yes, that William. So there's another layer of multiple meanings; and we learn that Harold Godwinson (as in 'Arold got an arrer in 'is eye) wasn't exactly as pure as the driven snow, either. So there are at least four ways of reading the story of the Tapestry, at least three of them less than complimentary to William. A fascinating story, but every now and then the writing style became a cure for insomnia. Pity.

101Bookmarque
Août 14, 2020, 8:45 am

I had my eye on a different Bayeux Tapestry book, but haven't read it. Maybe will stick to that one after your snore-fest mention.

102hfglen
Août 19, 2020, 11:21 am

Found this while looking for something else



Its a Gemsbok, and I saw it either at Mountain Zebra National Park or at Karoo National Park -- I didn't keep notes (blush).

103clamairy
Août 19, 2020, 1:22 pm

>102 hfglen: Lovely!

104Sakerfalcon
Août 20, 2020, 8:33 am

Very handsome!

105pgmcc
Août 20, 2020, 10:29 am

>102 hfglen:
Very impressive. Thank you for posting.

106pgmcc
Août 20, 2020, 10:38 am

>100 hfglen: I have known of the Bayeux Tapestry for many decades but have never looked at it in detail. When we go on our debriefing missions to France we pass through Bayeux but have always been in such a rush we have never stopped to view the tapestry.

Your post is fascinating but your final comment may prevent my following up on this particular book.

Your comments reminded me of The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey that I only became aware of in January of this year when I was given a copy as a gift. It is an interesting police procedural investigation of the belief that Richard III was an evil man and that he had killed his two nephews, a proposition that is widely accepted by members of the public. The book reveals that the material giving rise to this particular belief is suspect and that a wider review of materials available would contradict this belief and point the finger at another person, a person who was in a position to influence the development of the material that points towards Richard.

"Whatever you believe, believe nothing."

I think that could be coined as a phrase to describe the message in the totality of Umberto Eco's works.

107hfglen
Août 26, 2020, 3:02 pm

Just reading a leaflet for a luxury train in Queensland, before cataloguing it in Railwaysoc's collection. Came across a sentence (or part thereof) that stopped me in my tracks: "... complemented by an extensive list of Queensland's finest wines." Huh?! Surely the great wines Australia all come from states south of there?

108pgmcc
Août 26, 2020, 4:44 pm

“Queensland’s finest wines” does not necessarily mean the wines in question are actually any good. (Sorry, Richard; I am only making a point about interpretations of the words used.). Does the pamphlet go on to say that Queensland’s finest wines are good? They could be dreadful and still be Queensland’s finest wines according to the sentence you quoted.

109haydninvienna
Modifié : Août 26, 2020, 11:10 pm

>107 hfglen: >108 pgmcc: Might depend how old the pamphlet is. I believe there used to be some wine grown around Stanthorpe in the hills in the extreme south, but I don’t know how good the product was nor whether there is still wine grown there.

ETA a quick google shows that the Granite Belt (centred on Stanthorpe) is having a minor revival. There is a small production there and some of it is apparently decent. It always was a major fruit-growing area, being up in the hills and less humid than Brisbane. I used to know the area because my mother grew up in Warwick, an hour’s drive north.

110hfglen
Août 27, 2020, 5:09 am

>108 pgmcc: True ... you remind me of a brew called Windhoeker Katolischer, which some monks in Windhoek used to make as Communion wine. Being the only wine made in Namibia (for the rest they made and still do make superb beer), it could be described as "Namibia's finest". But when I asked the locals (some 50 years ago!) what it was like I was given somewhat forcefully to understand that apart from the red colour it bore a closer resemblance to paint stripper than any known wine. It was, apparently, made of grapes the monks grew themselves. In that climate (more desert than semi-) one can only wonder what the grapes were related to.

>109 haydninvienna: Thanks! The pamphlet looks quite recent, though the donation is from a deceased estate. (It does include two magazines and a Rovos Rail pamphlet all dated 2019.)

111hfglen
Août 27, 2020, 5:27 am

Seeing we were talking of grapes and their relatives in Namibia, here is one.



It's Cyphostemma bainesii, seen at Friedenthal, Windhoek dist. (about 100 km from town -- Namibia is sparsely populated and spread-out) on 6 February 1979. The fruits are full of calcium oxalate crystals, and therefore not edible. It's not that they are poisonous, but the crystals have edges like razor blades and so do "grievous bodily harm" on the way down.

February is the peak of the summer rainy season in Namibia.

112pgmcc
Août 27, 2020, 9:25 am

>110 hfglen: You are reminding me of the anti-freeze wine scandal some decades ago. I hadn't realised you could use paint stripper too. ;-)

113pgmcc
Août 27, 2020, 9:34 am

>111 hfglen: Nice picture. As you might suspect, I was drawn to the rocks below the plant.

For the past week I have been planning to pose a botanical question to you but have not had the time to put up the post containing the relevant pictures. I will be putting up a number of photographs of large red begonia flowers we have in the garden. I will put that post up on my own thread and let you know when it is there.

My question relates to the anthers and stigma. There appear to be flowers on the same plant that have a different configuration in the centre. I was wondering if these were the same thing at a different stage of development or if the begonia plant produces flowers of, for want of a better term, different sexes.

I may be wrong, but some of the flowers appear to have no reproductive organs at their centre.

114pgmcc
Août 27, 2020, 5:34 pm

Hi, Hugh. I have posted the pictures I mentioned in the above post. I look forward to your words of wisdom.

https://pics.cdn.librarything.com//picsizes/e3/b8/e3b825f0658bdc2636f552f7677434...

115hfglen
Sep 4, 2020, 7:51 am

Partial re-read of Storm over the Transvaal, which discusses the decade or so of run-up to the (second) Anglo-Boer War. Heavens, what a load of crooks infested Kruger's ZAR! I was researching the background to the South African Railways' "Round-in-Nine" tours, which took punters to the Lowveld for nine days at a time, starting in June (winter, here) 1923. The train spent one night parked on a siding of the Selati Railway in the middle of nowhere (which describes virtually the whole line). Surprisingly, this was the most popular stop on the tour, and resulted in the development of a pressure group that lobbied successfully for the passing of a National Parks Act in 1926 and the creation of the Kruger National Park, in the face of opposition from land companies and the agriculture lobby.

And where do the book and the crooks come in? Well, Kruger's government "organised" development by handing out concessions (monopolies) for various allegedly worthy activities. When the railway line from the coast reached the Mozambique border and entered ZAR territory, it didn't take a genius to realise that it would be relatively cheap and easy to run a line from Komatipoort (on the border) to the Leydsdorp goldfield (there's a good reason why you have never heard of this one; it failed to pay its way for a few years and then faded away). So one B.J. Vorster persuaded the Volksraad (parliament) to grant him the concession, which he promptly -- before the ink was fully applied, let alone dry -- sold it on to one Eugène Oppenheim, who with his brother and a lawyer floated a company called Compagnie Franco-Belge de Chemin de Fer du Nord de la République Sud-Africaine with headquarters in Brussels, as there were more loopholes in Belgian company law than in the French model. Oppenheim negotiated with Kruger a deal that when the company's capital of £500 000 was fully subscribed the government would pay him 4% interest on this amount. (He took the precaution of bribing Kruger and virtually the whole Volksraad handsomely first.) He raised the money by charging the government £1.848 million to build the line, then subcontracting an engineering firm to build it for £1.348 million, and cooking the books. When the line reached the point where it was supposed to cross the Sabie River the money ran out, the engineers downed tools and Oppenheim fled to Brussels. By that time the Leydsdorp goldfield had collapsed. In a rare moment of efficiency, the ZAR Auditor-General brought a prosecution in Brussels and the Oppenheims and their lawyer spent the next few years in jail.

Bulpin has a fund of good stories which he tells well in this book. He also gives evidence of having met and listened to many of the Lowveld pioneers.

116haydninvienna
Sep 4, 2020, 8:43 am

>115 hfglen: Somewhere I have a book called The Looting Machine, which i must get around to reading one day. (Haven't done so because it's definitely a book that would make me angry. I'm angry enough as it is.) Seems like the plundering has been going on for centuries, back to the days when Arab slave traders were operating along the east coast of Africa.

117hfglen
Sep 4, 2020, 9:39 am

>116 haydninvienna: Indeed, our present crooks do seem to be heirs to a longstanding tradition. In an item of slightly more positive news, Escom today suspended managers of four power stations for allowing breakdowns that should never have happened, and hence forcing the country into load-shedding ... again.

118hfglen
Sep 12, 2020, 6:58 am

Dr. Johnson's London describes everything you'd want to know and a lot you'd probably be happier not knowing, about roughly the third quarter of the 18th century. Being a first-rate historian who writes more-than-readably is Liza Picard's second career, started after she retired from being a lawyer. She has a delicious sense of humour, and the combination of this with her writing reminds me of our own Haydninvienna, which is far from being a handicap. The humour is mostly but not exclusively to be found in the endnotes, hidden among the numerous references to the voluminous primary and other sources she consulted in writing this book. Here one often finds comments on her own life; and so in a footnote to the conduct of law courts in 18th-century London one finds a wry (but amusing) comment on appearing as a junior lawyer in a court in Dar-es-Salaam -- in full British-law regalia. (Even by African standards, Dar is hot, sweaty and sticky.) Come to think of it, that points to almost the only point that she hasn't considered: Europe was in the grip of a "Little Ice Age" in the period she describes, which no doubt contributed to making 18th-century London a good place to stay away from. Nonetheless, this was a good and worthwhile read, and I shall now go and search out Ms Picard's other books on periods in London's history.

119Busifer
Sep 12, 2020, 8:39 am

>115 hfglen: That story reminds me of an incident in northern Sweden, in the late 1860's. What really happened has not been fully uncovered but before the railroad was built ore from the mines had to be shipped to the processing plants at the coast by carts and boats. The rivers up there were mainly wild whitewaters, and so a project to dig a system of canals were suggested. It was run by an English company and as per standard back then workers could buy groceries and stuff against the promise of payment when they got paid themselves. But the company never paid, and eventually declared bankruptcy. The government was involved in this one, as well.
Crooks are everywhere.

About 20 years later the Iron Ore (railway) Line was inaugurated; another 10 years later and it was fully electrified. No one needed the canal, but the ditches, or possibly trenches - they are certainly 6-8 metres deep and 20-30 metres across - are still there. One segment is very close to our cabin, which is why I know the story.

(I write "were" regarding the rivers: they are all jammed up with hydropower plants by now, so not that much whitewater left.)

120haydninvienna
Sep 12, 2020, 1:19 pm

>118 hfglen: Aw shucks [blushes]. Thanks High, I'm taking that as a compliment. Never know, I might have to start a second career soon. As to the Little Ice Age, I wonder if London with 1780's living conditions and 2020's climate might closely resemble Dar-es-Salaam.

121hfglen
Sep 12, 2020, 2:01 pm

>120 haydninvienna: I suspect that Dar in 1780 was probably warmer than London in 2020. But London in 1780 stank, literally.

122hfglen
Sep 13, 2020, 10:26 am

I can't find the comment where somebody (I could have sworn it was -pilgrim-) said they liked the pictures of scenery I post from time to time, but would find seasons around here trying. And sure enough we have endured a Berg wind all day, with grit and baking heat as predicted. It means that the next cold front is on the way, so I expect tomorrow to be cold (relatively; I'm sure Trisweather would disagree with that adjective applied to an expected maximum of 22 °C!) and grey.



So to cheer up the weather here is some scenery with literary connections. It's "Jock's Road" in the southern Kruger Park, taken almost exactly 5 years ago. And yes, the name commemorates Jock of the Bushveld, because this is the route that Percy Fitzpatrick and other transport riders used between Lourenço Marques and Lydenburg. The far eminence on the left is a major landmark on the route, called Ship Mountain because it looks so much like a ship-turned-turtle.

123hfglen
Sep 27, 2020, 5:28 am

Restoration London. Enjoyable as much for the author's asides about her long life as a lawyer both in London and Dar es Salaam as for the copious detail on the avowed subject. This one looks at London from 1660 to 1670, with nods to events outside that decade where they shed light on the subject being discussed. Fascinating reading, but I'm glad the period is beyond our visiting, much less living there.

124hfglen
Sep 27, 2020, 5:40 am

Reread of The Taste of Conquest. How Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam made and lost fortunes in the spice trade. One suspects that a considerable amount has been omitted from this book, but what we have is eminently readable. Some of the curiosity aroused and questions raised are answered, at least partly, by frequent references to Cozinha Indo-Portuguesa, and I suspect that it won't be long before the family are subjected to a Goan caril or xacuti (different kinds of curry to non-speakers of colonial Portuguese; I'm still trying to figure out a generic difference). Still need to find some medieval Venetian recipes to try, but for Amsterdam one need look no further than the works of Hildagonda Duckitt, Hilda Gerber or any Cape Malay book. Although Michael Krondl doesn't mention the fact specifically, the VOC is the reason why the term "Cape Malay" has meaning. Recommended to anybody who enjoys spicy food, or the story of how spices came to be there.

125pgmcc
Sep 27, 2020, 6:29 am

>122 hfglen: I'm sure Trisweather would disagree with that adjective applied to an expected maximum of 22 °C!) and grey.

We had a lovely mild day on Thursday. It was grey and the temperature was 17C. We had a real scorcher last weekend. It reached 23C in some places.

:-)

I think I might be aligned with Trisweather on your use of adjective "cold".

126hfglen
Sep 27, 2020, 7:00 am

>125 pgmcc: Maybe. Friday was undeniably hot, at 35°C. Today's maximum is 14 with rain, and Tuesday is forecast to reach 11 with rain. Might as well be in Ireland! :-)

127pgmcc
Sep 27, 2020, 7:58 am

>126 hfglen:

We have a northerly breeze; skies are clear and there is beautiful sunshine. Temperatures have been forecast as: Low 3C High 11C. A beautiful autumn day.

128haydninvienna
Sep 27, 2020, 2:03 pm

>126 hfglen: >127 pgmcc: Oh dear. Max 37, min 27 or thereabouts. Humidity close to 100%. Welcome to beautiful autumn in the Persian Gulf.

129clamairy
Sep 30, 2020, 9:40 pm

>126 hfglen: You ricocheted from 35 to 11 in a couple of days? 0.0

>127 pgmcc: Your weather is much cooler than I would have thought.

130hfglen
Oct 1, 2020, 3:09 am

>129 clamairy: Most of the drop took only an hour or two when the wind changed from coming-down-the-escarpment (various teachers tried valiantly to explain adiabatic heating when I was at school -- only made sense when I moved here) to off-the-South-Pole.

131Karlstar
Oct 1, 2020, 4:26 pm

>122 hfglen: I like the pictures of plants and scenery that you post!

132-pilgrim-
Oct 1, 2020, 4:29 pm

>130 hfglen: Nothing beats a really practical demonstration!

133hfglen
Oct 4, 2020, 10:48 am

>131 Karlstar: Thank you, Jim! So maybe you need a change from endless pictures of the Kruger Park. So this week's is a lot closer to home (for me) -- just over 100 km, rather than between 700 and 1000 km.



This is the Tugela mouth north of Durban -- you can just see the line of surf in the distance. The left bank is Zululand, the right the former Natal Colony. The road on the bridge is the arterial N2, which goes on towards Swaziland and Mpumalanga.

134SylviaC
Oct 4, 2020, 7:05 pm

>133 hfglen: That's a lovely view! I really missed your photos while I was on my hiatus.

135hfglen
Oct 8, 2020, 3:39 am

>134 SylviaC: Thank you, Sylvia! It's good to have you back with us.

136hfglen
Oct 8, 2020, 3:52 am

Mercator. Would you really want to live in the Low Countries in the 16th century? Not I. Between wars, invasions, crime and disease life was mostly "nasty, brutish and short", though Gerard Mercator survived for 82 years. In that time he coped with poverty, religious persecution, multiple long-distance moves and much else. And invented the famous "Mercator's Projection" that is still much used for all kinds of maps. I found long ago that this projection is relatively mathematically simple, and indeed the only one I ever managed to program in BASIC for a long-since-obsolete desktop computer. The book is meticulously researched and footnoted, and far from badly written. To be recommended to anyone who likes maps and history.

137hfglen
Oct 9, 2020, 7:50 am

Binoculars, gravel road & map. Hands up those who spot "homework" reading before a potential Kruger Park holiday! This is a relatively new guide, published only five years ago, and is aimed at the first-time visitor, with frequent looks over the shoulder at past visits -- evidently the Rautenbachs have been Kruger addicts about as long as the longest of the Glen memories. It is explicitly a guide to be read before any serious planning, and hardly at all when one is there. The author is an advocate with a fund of good Kruger stories, and writes engagingly, with a delightful sense of humour. For example, in one chapter he explains why one leaves the camp as soon as the gate opens, fortified by only a cup of coffee and a rusk (to see large, nocturnal predators at the end of their "shift"). Some four or five hours later, one makes for one of the picnic spots where one can get out of the car legitimately. He explains: "I should add that by this stage you'll be so hungry you'll seriously consider becoming a predator yourself, and unless you have the capacity of a desert elephant you'll be grateful for the chance to let off steam too, if you get my drift." Highly recommended to all Dragoneers who aspire to visit the Kruger Park; to be read as soon as you conceive the idea!

138SylviaC
Oct 9, 2020, 11:33 am

>137 hfglen: One can only hope that this is a precursor to many beautiful photographs and some fascinating travel tales.

139hfglen
Oct 9, 2020, 11:55 am

>138 SylviaC: Hear, hear! We have a slight delay with the taxman, but hope to be away for much of February. Please hold thumbs for us!

140hfglen
Modifié : Oct 12, 2020, 9:45 am

Between Woodbush and Wolkberg. Further reading towards the outing adumbrated by >138 SylviaC:. I would say that this book is of no conceivable interest to any other Dragoneer, being a transcript -- not always verbatim, thank goodness -- of Edith Awdry (so spelt) "Googoo" Thompson's reminiscences as recorded by Brigitte Wongtschowski. Googoo Thompson was, at the time, about the oldest inhabitant and last surviving pioneer of the village of Haenertsburg, which is situated in the most scenic part of Limpopo province. There are no great people making seismic shifts in history to be found in this book; rather a large number people not overly blessed with the world's goods, doing the best they can to make their neighbourhood a reasonably decent place, and being acted upon by the great tides of history. (Sounds rather like MrsLee's book, doesn't it?) The attraction to me was the number of people I knew, or at least knew of, who were touched by Mrs Thompson's essential goodness, and so I frequently found myself reading a sentence or two to Better Half in a "Good heavens, I never this person did that" tone of voice. When I was a student at Witwatersrand University, our taxonomy lecturer often brought material for us to see and learn about that she'd grown "at Haenertsburg" -- on the neighbouring farm to "Googoo" Thompson's, it transpires. And "Mrs D" often mentioned some prize rarity grown by a semi-legendary green-fingered lady called "Box" Thompson. Who turns out to have been "Googoo"'s daughter, and who lived on the farm on the other side of Mrs D. Alas, all now passed away, which makes the world a darker, poorer place. But fortunately "Box" Thompson's garden is still there, now a tourist attraction, and her azaleas still bring delight to many. And her nephew ("Googoo"'s grandson) still makes organic CHEESE on the original farm. Add in a nearby forestry plantation which is famous for having the world's tallest cultivated trees (almost 90 m / 300 ft!) and you see why this is a compulsory stop on the way.

And the Old Lady's nickname? The best her grandchildren could do with a widespread African word Goqo, which means "grandma".

ETA: Edith Awdry Eastwood, later Thompson, was named after a Bishop William Awdry, who served in Japan in the latter part of the 19th century. He was the uncle of Rev. W. Awdry of Thomas the Tank Engine fame. This book is full of connections like that.

141MrsLee
Oct 12, 2020, 11:38 am

>140 hfglen: That is exactly the sort of book I enjoy reading about our local history in. No earthshaking news, just a picture of people living their lives in a time we can only visit through their words.

142hfglen
Oct 14, 2020, 7:19 am

>141 MrsLee: Fortunately we can still go to Cheerio Gardens (though for you it would be a long journey). And then to Wegraakbosch Farm, almost next door. The nursery is a continuation of Box Thompson's, and in addition to the CHEESE operation they still grow fresh vegetables, just like Googoo (grandmother of the present owner) did. I have every intention of raising a Wegraakbos radish and a glass of the craft beer made on a neighbouring farm in salute to the family and friends.

143hfglen
Oct 14, 2020, 7:29 am

A picture for Karlstar and SylviaC. Thank you both very much for your kind words.



This is the MV Erica, the only way of getting to Sinamwenda on the Zimbabwean shore of Lake Kariba, where (as I have mentioned several times in this pub) I had the privilege of going for a 4th-year (Honours) field expedition in 1971. Clearly, although it was almost winter, it was not exactly cold: winter there is the dry season, when the temperature fails to make 100°F three days in a week.

144pgmcc
Oct 14, 2020, 7:50 am

Nice boat.

145SylviaC
Oct 14, 2020, 11:10 am

>143 hfglen: That led me into a rather shallow rabbit hole of Google research. There is remarkably little online about Sinamwenda, beyond research papers about the crater, weather forecasts (warm), and a couple of your own photos posted on LibraryThing.

146hfglen
Oct 14, 2020, 11:32 am

>145 SylviaC: There's remarkably little anywhere about Sinamwenda, mainly because there's not much to say. It was a tiny research station, shared between University of Rhodesia and Witwatersrand U., on the shore of Lake Kariba, at the mouth of a dry river bed (Mwenda River on the few occasions when it flows) on the boundary of a game reserve. You couldn't get there except by boat, and it was destroyed during the bush war. I think our group was about the last to go there in anything resembling safety. And if you did get there, the only thing doing was ecology of a piece of unspoilt Africa -- absolute heaven in the right company. But Heaven help you if anything went wrong!

147hfglen
Oct 15, 2020, 6:22 am

This gorgeous quote from a book I'm reading at the moment (Shaping Kruger by Mitch Reardon) is too good not to share:

" 'Lions are supremely good at doing nothing' Craig Packer and Anne Pusey discovered while researching the Serengeti's lions. 'To the list of inert noble gases, including krypton, argon and neon, we would add lion.' "

So here's a picture of lions engaged on typical daytime "activity"



At night it's a different story, and the book goes on to a gruesome account of one particular pride and a procession of Mozambican refugees.

148pgmcc
Oct 15, 2020, 6:58 am

>147 hfglen: Another great picture and an interesting quote.

Stark warning about night time lion activity.

149Sakerfalcon
Oct 15, 2020, 9:24 am

>147 hfglen: Love the quote and the photo!

150hfglen
Oct 17, 2020, 2:05 pm

Thank you, >148 pgmcc: and >149 Sakerfalcon:.

I have now finished Shaping Kruger, and would unhesitatingly recommend it to any Dragoneer who wants to know how Nature really works, and how all the bits fit together. Mr Reardon doesn't only draw on Kruger, but quotes examples from all over sub-Saharan Africa. Each chapter looks at a different important animal (elephant, impala, zebra, wildebeest, roan antelope, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog and hyaena), and tells how they affect and are affected by the others, and the effects they have on the vegetation in an endlessly varying physical environment. Which is not at all the book one might have deduced from the main title, thank goodness! It would be a bit difficult to apply the book in, for example, North America (where several of the key species were hunted to extinction some 10 000 years ago), but nevertheless there is plenty of food for thought wherever you are. And the package includes engagingly written, well supported text illustrated with pictures far better than mine. Find a copy and enjoy it.

151Bookmarque
Oct 17, 2020, 2:59 pm

Sounds like a good one. I love the intricacies of nature.

152hfglen
Oct 18, 2020, 12:39 pm

In a recent post, Richard (Haydninvienna) mentioned a discussion I once had with him (and now can't find) where I mentioned the Vredefort Dome. The Dome is the remnant of what is said to be the world's largest -- about 300 km across -- and oldest (about 2037-million years old) meteorite impact structure. Having spent two days some years ago being shown the place by the Botanical Society, I find it utterly fascinating.



Here is a scene in a quarry near Parys (Free State, but the quarry is across the Vaal River). Look at how the pale squiggle above and to the left of the man's head has been whacked to one side, and how the rock to the left of that has been crumpled like a skidded-on carpet. That was done in less than ten minutes.

153haydninvienna
Oct 18, 2020, 1:21 pm

>152 hfglen: https://www.librarything.com/topic/320919#7176766. Turns out that the LT search function can search Talk posts!

154hfglen
Oct 18, 2020, 1:41 pm

>153 haydninvienna: Thank you! Maybe I should have mentioned, for pgmcc's benefit, that IIRC the rock that got scrunched is granite (it's older than most sediments) and this is already some 15 km as the crow flies from "ground zero".

155pgmcc
Oct 18, 2020, 2:31 pm

>154 hfglen: I know people who take everything for granite.

156MrsLee
Oct 18, 2020, 7:58 pm

>152 hfglen: Is it just me, or does anyone else see a large hand in the lower front face of that rock? A rock hand which appears to be photo-bombing by displaying its middle finger prominently?

157hfglen
Oct 19, 2020, 4:02 am

>156 MrsLee: *snork* Water drips on the rock, I assure you! I hadn't noticed it before.

158SaraRawson
Oct 19, 2020, 6:34 am

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159hfglen
Oct 24, 2020, 12:36 pm

I don't recall having read Bad Ideas before, but my catalogue assures me that I have. It's a history of science and technology, emphasising the negative consequences. That said, the author (evidently a medic) devotes three chapters to a description of the National Health Service that seems to come from a different planet to the one Pilgrim has to battle with. I suspect that reading those chapters would make her blood boil, and she may wish to quote Dorothy Parker's review of some or another disaster: "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

160SylviaC
Oct 24, 2020, 11:39 pm

>159 hfglen: I had Bad Ideas in my bookcase for several years, but I must have decided that I would never get around to reading it, because it is no longer there. Apparently I'm not missing much..

161hfglen
Oct 26, 2020, 9:12 am

Homo Deus. Jawellnofine, to use the great South African catch-all. In brief, he starts by describing how humanity is set to work towards immortality, bliss and omniscience. Then spends the rest of the book explaining why it won't work. Meh.

Would I read another book by Yuval Noah Harari?
I have already, I think this is the third.

Would I recommend this book?
Not often, but there are a few circumstances where I might.

Who would I recommend it to?
On rare occasions I have encountered a particular kind of pompous ass who could do with being riled by this book.

Clearly I found this one a forgettable rather than an enjoyable experience.

162haydninvienna
Oct 26, 2020, 2:33 pm

>161 hfglen: I read Homo Deus a while ago and found it depressing rather than meh. But I agree about the pompous ass. D’you know, I have a theory that you can recognise a pompous ass by voice tone alone, without knowing a word of whatever language he/she is speaking?

163hfglen
Oct 28, 2020, 9:41 am

>162 haydninvienna: I think you're right.

Can anybody explain my Feline Overlord's logic to me? For years, up until this past winter, he has been dead set against any form of lap-sitting. Shortly after lockdown started (autumn here) he relented so far as to spend occasional brief periods on my lap, less often now it's getting warmer. So today, in the hottest hour of the hottest day so far, he decides to come over all affectionate, and is currently purring and inflexibly welded to my lap.

164Bookmarque
Oct 28, 2020, 9:49 am

No logic. Cats are butts.

That is all.

165haydninvienna
Oct 28, 2020, 12:54 pm

>163 hfglen: Which Feline Overlord, Hugh?

166hfglen
Oct 28, 2020, 1:06 pm

Mister Inky Mistoffelees, the Maharajah of Muddipore.

167haydninvienna
Oct 28, 2020, 2:01 pm

>166 hfglen: Ha! Thought it probably was. My impression of Leo was that he was slightly cuddlier.

168hfglen
Oct 28, 2020, 3:55 pm

Leo is very good at bed-warming, but absolutely refuses to have anything to do with lap-sitting. He will accept cuddles when bed-warming, however.

169MrsLee
Oct 28, 2020, 6:59 pm

>163 hfglen: My male giant long-haired cat watches for me to sit down if I have 5 minutes or so before work. He immediately needs a lap. Sometimes he will lap sit at other times, but rarely. When it starts to cool and I am wearing pants seems to be one factor. He hates sitting on blankets. Other tiny female will only join me if there is a specific blanket she likes.

170YouKneeK
Oct 28, 2020, 11:47 pm

>168 hfglen: My cat is the opposite. He’ll often cuddle up in my lap when I’m sitting in various places, particularly at the computer or in my preferred reading spot, but he almost never sleeps with me. He does however occasionally wake me up in the middle of the night meowing and purring and rubbing his head against me, wanting to have a middle-of-the-night social session. When he’s had his fill of human contact, he vacates the bed and goes to find another place to sleep. (Or he starts opening all the bedroom furniture drawers, depending on his mood.)

My previous cat was more like yours – she would usually sleep with me, usually right on top of me, but she hated sitting in my lap.

171clamairy
Oct 29, 2020, 8:49 pm

>161 hfglen: & >162 haydninvienna: I own his Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and haven't gotten to it yet. I imagine it's also depressing, but probably (hopefully) not quite as depressing as Homo Deus.

172hfglen
Oct 30, 2020, 7:12 am

>171 clamairy: I read Sapiens in 2017 according to my LT Catalog, and evidently liked it well enough to pick up others by the same author. Not sure if I would continue to do so.

173hfglen
Oct 30, 2020, 7:18 am

Why didn't I think of that?. Fluff, mostly accurate, you may even find something you didn't already know. Just what one needs sometimes. In answer to Pete's guiding questions, I certainly would read more by Anthony Rubino if opportunity offered, but probably would not put any great effort into finding them. I would recommend it in particular to MrsLee as bathroom reading.

174hfglen
Oct 30, 2020, 9:18 am

I only skimmed Wine Tasting: a professional handbook -- it would take at least six months (or, by no coincidence at all, a whole academic semester) to read this one properly. Unfortunately, the text is replete with polysyllabic academic jargon and thus totally unreadable. In this one it is so prevalent that it even infects the back-cover blurb: "Insights into the cross-modal integration of sensory input ..." (Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz) This is a pity, as one feels that hidden between the covers is the material needed to make a very useful antidote to the pompous, pretentious hot air in too many wine books. But we need someone capable of understanding the complicated organic chemistry, graphs and statistics here and translating them into a user-friendly form.

175hfglen
Oct 31, 2020, 6:36 am

Getaway guide Kruger National Park. The read continues. This one's pocket-sized, lavishly illustrated and (as far as one can tell) mostly accurate. Would be ideal, but is let down by some careless proofreading, of which a typo every few pages is an indication. Pity.

176hfglen
Nov 2, 2020, 9:26 am

DNA: the secret of life. This book is dated 2003, or the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. The main members of the 1953 team were James Watson and Francis Crick; the former being the author of this anniversary volume. And here we have an account of the story from 1953 to 2003, including the Human Genome Project and very early attempts at gene therapy -- among other things. Watson's semi-popular books are, as always, a good read and greatly to be recommended.

177-pilgrim-
Nov 2, 2020, 12:05 pm

>176 hfglen: I hope Watson acknowledges their use of the X-ray work by Rosalind Franklin. Her colleague, Maurice Wilkins showed them her photographs, and they based their conclusions on that. They shared the Nobel Prize with Wilkins, but Franklin was ineligible by then, because she was dead, so her contribution often seems to be closed over and ignored.

179BrokenTune
Modifié : Nov 2, 2020, 1:38 pm

>177 -pilgrim-: If this is anything like his The Double Helix, then I wouldn't hold my breath. He did mention Franklin in that one (The Double Helix) but mostly in terms of how much she didn't appreciate him and Crick as much as she should have and in terms of how unwomanly her dress sense was.

180-pilgrim-
Nov 2, 2020, 1:28 pm

181hfglen
Nov 3, 2020, 5:21 am

>177 -pilgrim-: (I actually posted a reply last night, but unbeknownst to me our internet was being flaky and seems to have eaten it.) He acknowledges her fully in this one, and includes a rather attractive full-page picture of her -- most other "key players" get 1/4 page or less.

182AidanThornton
Nov 3, 2020, 5:25 am

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183-pilgrim-
Modifié : Nov 29, 2020, 12:16 pm

>181 hfglen: That's good news.

I feel it is rather unfair that dying before the impact of your work is recognised excludes you from prizes such as the Nobels. Particularly when so much ground-breaking work is essentially collaborative, it seems unfair that superior longevity, in addition to the bonus that it is intrinsically, also increases your long term fame by meaning that joint work is memorialised in your name (only).

184hfglen
Modifié : Nov 5, 2020, 4:33 am

The Foodie: Curiosities ... This one benefits from being written with a laugh-out-loud sense of humour. Some surprising facts and recipes that just might work flavour this mixed dish beautifully. Thoroughly enjoyed. Would I recommend this book? I have already inflicted it on the family. Who would I recommend it to? Let's start by suggesting that MrsLee would enjoy it while recovering from her cat's "welcome". So would anybody else who likes good food and good humour.

185Danielle0
Nov 5, 2020, 4:42 am

Cet utilisateur a été supprimé en tant que polluposteur.

186justanotaku
Nov 5, 2020, 11:26 am

aHh yMS SPM tHi mOsT yUm mEaL

187MrsLee
Nov 6, 2020, 10:41 am

>184 hfglen: That does sound like a good one for me.

188hfglen
Nov 7, 2020, 5:43 am

>187 MrsLee: And now you know why I thought of you first.

189hfglen
Nov 7, 2020, 6:04 am

Empire, War & Cricket. This is a semi-popular offering derived from the author's history PhD thesis (Stellenbosch, 2008), and details the glory days of James Logan, a Scot who came to the Cape in 1877, got a job with the Cape Government Railways (not South African Railways as stated in the book; that body didn't exist at the time!) as a porter, and worked his way up to district supervisor at Touws River in the Karoo by 1879. Here he made enough money to buy a block of farms around Matjiesfontein, a relatively short distance further along the line. At the time the farms were more desert than semi-, so uninhabited and not exactly expensive. A well-sited borehole provided water for his own use, and the station (and later hotel) at Matjiesfontein and the village of Touws River. He made a small fortune out of wholesale and retail trade in food and drink, and from railway refreshment rooms. His hotel at Matjiesfontein became a noted health resort in late-Victorian and Edwardian times. By supporting the development of cricket in South Africa (as far afield as Rhodesia) and activity in the Anglo-Boer War he gained access to the highest levels of British aristocracy. Sadly his son, another James Douglas Logan, was not as driven, and the hotel slid downhill until bought by the gifted hotelier David Rawdon in 1968. The Lord Milner is now a jewel of the Karoo, though as a lady friend points out, you can stay for a week at the guest farm next door for the price of a single night at the Lord Milner -- and not be significantly less comfortable.
Did I enjoy it? Mixed feelings. However I did make it to the end, which I gather is a minority claim. (I read it mainly because the aforesaid lady friend is a descendant of James Logan Jr., and her work on the family history has led to some very interesting and enjoyable conversations.)
Would I recommend it? Probably not; one needs a rather specific pre-existing interest to get through it.
Who would I recommend it to? n/a.

190hfglen
Nov 13, 2020, 6:39 am

PS to above: The young lady points out that the book breathes not a word about the fact that James Sr. went bankrupt in 1907, leaving James Jr. to pick up the pieces of the Logan empire -- no easy task. It appears that the bankruptcy was caused by the Cape Government Railways' introduction of kitchen and dining car sets on their crack trains in that year. That removed at a stroke one of the main pillars of the Logan family fortune. Curiously, exactly the same thing happened to one C.W. Tomkins of Inchanga (on the Natal Main Line) at the same time for the same reason. Investigations continue.

191hfglen
Modifié : Nov 13, 2020, 6:44 am

Altered Pasts 'What if one or another turning point in history had played out differently?' This book examines the possibility (usually effectively zero) of giving a plausible answer to this question, and the questioners asking it (mostly on the political right). Competently written, but soporific in places.
Did I enjoy it? Not a lot.
Would I recommend it? Probably not.
Who would I recommend it to? n/a

192pgmcc
Nov 13, 2020, 7:07 am

>191 hfglen:
A very clear review and unambiguous recommendation.

:-)

193-pilgrim-
Modifié : Nov 29, 2020, 9:28 am

>191 hfglen:
I find such books mostly useless because of the domino effect. Most things happen for a reason - even if it is sometimes a mind-blowingly stupid one.
If we change one thing to set up the hypothesis, what other things change because of that hypothesis?

e.g. suppose Hitler's barber was stung by a bee, causing him to cut the Führer's throat, on the morning that he was going to declare war on the Soviet Union?
That hypothesis is set up as a random event, to discuss how the German General Staff would have proceeded, if making their own decisions.
But also:
How would the loss of their charismatic leader have affected the morale of the German people?
The internal political manoeuvring within the Nazi Party, and between Party and career military was intense. It is implausible that, even with an obviously accidental death, someone would not have tried to allege murder and attempted coup. Which group would have been purged? And to what consequences?

How far does one go in proposing ALL the consequences of a single changed event - let alone a premise that involves multiple changes.

It is far simpler to propose, and attempt to answer, a straight question.
(In the above example: "To what extent was the declaration of war on the Soviet Union supported by Hitler's Staff?")

194hfglen
Nov 15, 2020, 9:07 am

Guns, Germs and Steel. I could have sworn that I had already read this long ago (i.e. before LT allowed collections). No matter, it bears re-reading several times.

This time around it formed an interesting counterpoint to Altered Pasts, and indicates why the premise of the latter misses the point, as >193 -pilgrim-: suggests. Here we learn to look for the ultimate causes of events (which, for example, a single traffic accident or assassination attempt will not change). So, who is in charge is generally not important in the long term, but the length of group experience of agriculture, war and nationhood is. A most interesting read.
Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Would I recommend it? I dimly recall having done so, in a much younger Green Dragon.
Who would I recommend it to? Anyone who wants to know what makes history tick.

195pgmcc
Nov 15, 2020, 9:33 am

>194 hfglen: I have a copy of Guns, Germs and Steel as it was recommended by a colleague at work. I have not managed to read it yet. Your post encourages me to dig it out and have a go.

I also thought you had mentioned this book before.

196Karlstar
Nov 15, 2020, 10:57 am

>194 hfglen: Sounds interesting!

197SylviaC
Nov 16, 2020, 11:12 am

I liked Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I know I read based on recommendations here on LT. I didn't think his arguments were as well organized as in Collapse, but it was still well worth reading.

198hfglen
Nov 20, 2020, 5:29 am

>197 SylviaC: If I ever encounter a copy, I should much like to read Collapse.

The last fish tale. All oceans are connected, and so this book is relevant to coastal communities everywhere, even though it claims to concentrate on the fishing community of Gloucester, Massachusetts. (Admittedly, British fishing communities are mentioned in some, but much less, detail.) And certainly, the story he tells can be repeated almost verbatim all up the Cape West Coast. Certainly when I was a lad hake was almost the ultimate cheap protein, and even Cape rock lobster and oysters were credibly-priced luxuries that one might hope to sample occasionally; and that was in Johannesburg, far inland! (There was even a kosher delicatessen within walking distance of home that stocked North Sea herrings routinely in the 1950s.) That is no longer the case, and fish of any description is a rare and expensive treat. Here we see, if not a blow-by-blow account of the reason why, at least a chronicle of how the world's oceans have been terminally overfished for centuries, interwoven with the tale of how one fishing community has struggled to survive and keep its character while trying to make a living at other activities, notably tourism. Overall, this is not a happy book.

That said, I believe from other sources that at least some North Atlantic fishing grounds have received functioning protection, if less than perfect, since this book was written, and that in those areas there has been a limited revival of the cod population. Can anybody in the GD comment, please?

Will I seek out another book by this author? Yes, there are two or three of his I have not yet read.
Would I recommend it? Yes, definitely.
To whom would I recommend it? Anyone interested in conservation, fishing, coastal tourism or cooking -- the last with the warning that I do not believe that the recipes in this book would result in edible dishes, however traditional they may be.

199pgmcc
Nov 20, 2020, 5:59 am

>198 hfglen:
I remember in the 1960s we were being encouraged to eat more fish. Fish was the cheap alternative to meat and there were adverts promoting the less popular species. Now fish is no longer a cheap option and some of the then less popular species appear to be a rarity.

I have noticed cooking programmes have recently started promoting pollock. There are chefs telling us that pollock is a lovely fish. My experience of pollock involves the preparation of two large pollock for dinner. They were as bony as hell and not that nice to eat. I suspect there is a move to promote pollock and persuade people that bony, tasteless fish is the way to go. All the recipes involve plenty of spices and herbs.

Cod was highlighted as an endangered species in past years. Apparently stocks have recovered somewhat under EU fishing policies and quotas, but I think this is a shaky recovery. Also, with the UK Brexit in progress and the UK pulling out of the fishing arrangements put in place through the EU the fishery protection programmes are under threat.

There is a Northern Ireland delicacy called, potted herring. It is nothing to do with pots, but is unique in its preparation. It involves rolling up herring fillets and cooking them in malt vinegar with all-spice pods. The smell is amazing (akin to the smell of sardines cooking on the grills on the south coast of Portugal) and it is a smell I grew up with as the local fishmongers in Belfast all prepared a tray or too of potted herring for lunchtime and the smell wafted everywhere. To my chagrin the potted herring has disappeared from most if not all fishmongers. I have tried unsuccessfully to get some herring fillets but the fishmongers I have tried to buy them from say they cannot get any. :-(

I suspect what herring is being caught is being bought up by firms processing them before selling them. Herring fillet must have dropped in popularity for home preparation.

200Busifer
Nov 21, 2020, 4:40 am

>198 hfglen: Fish has indeed turned from being an affordable staple to (often incredibly) expensive. In Sweden the has been much discussion on overfishing, and the countries around the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia has agreed on quotas, and on policies restricting periods, and so on. Our main staple now when it comes to fish is Norwegian, farmed, salmon, which has and is under heavy critique for their treatment and feeding of the fish. I generally avoid it, farmed salmon is markedly inferior to the free-living kind. One have to give it, though - it is relatively cheap, and better than chewing through the world's population of cattle.

When I was a kid mum bought herring at the market, to feed the cat. That was how cheap it was. Only yesterday I saw filleted herring at my grocery shop, every self-respecting grocer has a "deli" part of which is dedicated to fresh fish and other edible things found in the seas, but the volumes are much down from earlier days.
I also remember cod being so cheap we regularly got it served in school (Sweden has free lunch in compulsory school). Compare with today: I bought cod two days ago, half a kilo. It was 250 SEK/USD29. Which puts it out of range for a lot of people.

>199 pgmcc: Irish potted herring sounds much like Swedish Inkokt sill, or Rullsill, which are two names for the same thing: herring fillets cooked in vinegar and spices. We do have two names for the same species, with the border being the strait between Kalmar and Öland. Everytging north of it is sill, everything south of it is strömming. Strömming is larger, sill is smaller. After it is prepared both often become "sill". Mainly pickled herring ;-)

In the skerries fishing for herring is very popular, and I think it good fun, personally, at is very rewarding: you sit in your small rowing boat, throw a line with +6 hooks to it over board, hold on, and pull it back. One would expect as many herrings as there are hooks, on every throw. I don't like to eat them, though, so I've only done it a few times. Those who do it regularly, in due season, says the fish have been fewer than they used to, and the shoals are harder to find.

201pgmcc
Nov 21, 2020, 6:27 am

>200 Busifer: That is the same way we catch mackerel; multiple hooks and multiple mackerel when you hit a shoal. The shoals can be spotted with the water boiling as the tiny fry try to get away from the voracious mackerel.

Over the years I have noticed the mackerel have gotten smaller. I seldom see a mackerel that matches the size I remember as a child, and it is not just faulty recall. The mackerel used to spill over the edge of some trays. Now they all fit within the same sized trays.

202hfglen
Nov 23, 2020, 5:29 am

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. It occurred to me after reading this book (from the Railway Society's library) that one could possibly divide super-luxury trains into two overlapping groups. In one there are very comfortable means of getting from A to B rather more slowly than by air. Here we find such marvels as the V S-O-E (24 hours London to Venice, three times a week) or our own Blue Train (31 hours -- used to be 25-and-a-half -- Pretoria to Cape Town, approximately weekly); possibly also the Indian-Pacific and others in Australia. In the other there are some astronomically expensive adventures that help nobody with a schedule. Here I would place the Blue Train's twice-a-year excursion to the Kruger Park, and two annual trips undertaken by Rovos Rail, one from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam and the other from Dar es Salaam to Lobito (Angola). These two latter take about a week each, and are timed to pass through the best scenery and game-viewing during daylight.

This book details the work done by the author's husband and a large team, backed with vast amounts of skill and money, to locate and restore enough old British Pullman coaches and European Wagons-Lits to re-establish a super-luxury service between London and Venice. It is well written and profusely illustrated -- 110 in colour alone, all mouth-watering.

Would I seek out another by this author? Yes, noting that she has a Ph.D. in Botany and almost all of her other books are about botanical art.
Would I recommend it? Yes, indeed.
To whom would I recommend it? 1. Dragoneers who like beautiful books (in particular, for the dust-jacket and posters by Fix-Masseau) -- look at the time span of his work!
2. I intend to put a note in the Railway History Society's Chronicle encouraging members to read it.

203haydninvienna
Nov 23, 2020, 1:37 pm

>202 hfglen: Hugh, in your second category i would add the Rocky Moountaineer trains up the Canadian Rockies from Vancouver. Anyone who has the chance to do this should do so without a moment's hesitation.

204Busifer
Nov 23, 2020, 2:44 pm

>202 hfglen: If nothing else, reading the book is more affordable than actually going with the restored Orient Express (which has nothing "express" about it, lol). I have noted it down.

>203 haydninvienna: They and various cousins of theirs have been on my list for a good while now.
One can dream, if nothing else :-)

205SylviaC
Nov 24, 2020, 9:17 am

>203 haydninvienna: My friend and I decided years ago that once our kids grow up, we will take a train trip from Ontario to the west coast. The kids are close to grown up now, but the idea of travelling for days in an enclosed space with a bunch of other people is currently not very appealing. And I don't know how well the Canadian passenger rail system will recover from its financial losses during the pandemic.

I really enjoyed The Edge by Dick Francis for his description of travelling from Ontario to British Columbia on the train.

206hfglen
Nov 24, 2020, 1:56 pm

>203 haydninvienna: I would love to! In fact DD and I have often said that if we won the lotto it would be great to take the trip outlined by >205 SylviaC: to get there.

>204 Busifer: Indeed yes! But I'm not totally convinced that the Orient Express 'has nothing "express" about it'. One of the odd documents in the Glen collection but not in my LT catalogue is a January 1982 Thomas Cook book of European timetables, that is, before the TGV (just). The best possible times from London to Venice there are somewhat slower than the V S-O-E, mainly due to a very long wait in Paris. The actual times "on the rails" as it were are pretty much the same, even taking the TEE from Paris to Venice (which includes an hour or so hanging around in Milan).

207hfglen
Modifié : Nov 27, 2020, 1:18 pm

At last I've weakened and completed The Questionnaire. I truly thought most of my answers would be "n/a" or some riff on that, but in fact very few are.

1. Name any book you read at any time that was published in the year you turned 18:
My catalogue tells me I have quite a few botany books of that date, but for now let’s point to Full many a glorious Morning by Lawrence G. Green, which I re-read a few months back.

2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long:
I don’t keep a specific TBR pile.

3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky

4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
Wine Tasting: a professional handbook. Zzzzzz. Usually I don’t keep notes of such books.

5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
If a book looks likely to do this, I put it back on the library shelf.

6. Name the book that you read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live?
Currently re-reading Durban: once upon a time, a history of my home town illustrated mostly with Edwardian picture postcards. Also The Natal Old Main Line, which practically passes the front door. For fiction, Light Across Time, one scene of which takes place within walking distance of where I grew up.

7. What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
Local history; fish; early humans (still busy); railway dining cars (still busy).

8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
Re-read the Harry Potter series during lockdown.

9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it?
I usually don’t give star ratings.

10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
Dr. Johnson’s London leads on to Restoration London (both by the same author). Or What the Victorians did for Us leading on to Thunder, flush and Thomas Crapper leads on to Flushed With Pride.

11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
Not exactly infatuated, but try Liza Picard or Adam Hart-Davis.

12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
A fantasy world that looks like eastern Australia (Empress by Karen Miller)

13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
Railways in Guernsey, added to Railwaysoc’s collection last month, contains an account of industrial lines built by the Germans during the occupation 1940-1945.

14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation?
I forget.

15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
Homo Deus

16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
The Last Fish Tale, about the North Atlantic.

17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
Ooh lots! Honourable mentions to Dean Allen, Mitch Reardon and Brigitte Wongtschowski.

18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
Among a slew of uninspired covers, that of New Babylon, New Nineveh stands out for having precious little if anything to do with the subject.

19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
This might turn out to be Charles M. Schulz, but researching the question takes too long, and as MrsLee says, the question is ambiguous.

20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
Recent re-read of the Narnia series.

21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
Brother Cadfael.

22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
Probably Railways in Guernsey, one of several 32-page documents added to the Railwaysoc library since lockdown.

23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?)
Altered Pasts. User-unfriendly writing and questionable premises.

24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT?
Peanuts Jubilee. Though I’ve had the book for yonks, it somehow escaped being added.

25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
Shaping Kruger has spectacular pictures. Empire, War and Cricket has some remarkable historical images.

BONUS QUESTION!
26. What is the title and year of the oldest book in your physical library that you have reviewed on LT?
I haven’t actually reviewed it but have read it (a long time ago): a copy of Gulliver’s Travels printed in 1766. This is still far from being a first edition.

208hfglen
Nov 27, 2020, 1:24 pm

Fire and Fury Caution! This book is very political, so there is little that can be said in this pub. If half the content is true, this is a horrendous account of a nation I have always looked up to. The President in this book is almost as flawed, and flawed in the same way, as our (South Africa's) immediate past President, and evidently has as much difficulty with facing that fact. Which is chilling.

209pgmcc
Nov 27, 2020, 4:22 pm

>207 hfglen: Great answers. Glad to see you are as susceptible to peer pressure as the rest of us.

210MrsLee
Nov 27, 2020, 6:18 pm

>207 hfglen:, thanks for contributing!

211Jim53
Nov 27, 2020, 7:23 pm

>207 hfglen: I'm finding it very interesting to look through these; I don't think I've seen any answers repeated yet. Thanks for joining in.

212jillmwo
Nov 27, 2020, 7:37 pm

>202 hfglen: How technical is the book about the Orient Express? Is it about engineering specifications or about the stops the train made along the way or the internal luxury of the train? What is the main focus of the text? I ask because I recently watched a documentary about the train in the context of Art Deco design and I'm intrigued about the subject.

>207 hfglen: and >209 pgmcc: I've been out of touch. Where did the Questionnaire surface from? Peer pressure is always a powerful influence but memes like that usually start from one entity in particular...

213pgmcc
Nov 27, 2020, 8:34 pm

>212 jillmwo: I found it in fuzzi's thread.

214hfglen
Modifié : Nov 28, 2020, 4:19 am

>212 jillmwo: There's relatively little technical content: virtually only one chapter on restoring the coaches. There is a chapter on the history of the original Orient Express, and another on the stories of the individual coaches (this has two pages of technicalities, gathered into an appendix.) There's a chapter on the design of the "loose bits" -- tableware, uniforms, things-sold-in-VSOE-shops; this could be construed as technical but I think you'd find it more an account of Art Deco out of time. And finally three chapters on getting permissions, publicity and what-the-journey-feels-like. The pictures are to die for, and if you like looking at Art Deco design then this one's for you.

The Questionnaire pops up in the GD in fuzzi's thread as pgmcc says, but Fuzzi credits three other people in the chain of events.

215rajeshyadav
Nov 28, 2020, 4:23 am

Cet utilisateur a été supprimé en tant que polluposteur.

216hfglen
Nov 28, 2020, 4:26 am

By the way, does anybody know how to add books to a series in LT2.0? Railwaysoc acquired two new-to-LT books in the Mobil Treasury of Travel series the other day, and I can't see where to add the link.

217Busifer
Nov 28, 2020, 10:25 am

>206 hfglen: Well, I was thinking of the present-day edition of the service which is not allowed use of the high-speed rail systems, but yes: until the advent of high speed rail it was both express and luxurious.

>216 hfglen: They have changed how it's done?! Clearly I've done too little "book-work" lately. Now I have to go look...

218Busifer
Nov 28, 2020, 10:49 am

>216 hfglen: After some searching (no one has updated the "help" section on "series") I found what I would had found immediately if I had not been used to the old way of doing it: on the series page, top right, there's a pop-out menu called "Edit series".

Very modern, and very unlike what I expect of LT ;-)

It is very hard for us users to know what to expect when a service mixes models of interaction in this way. In my opinion it would had been helpful if they had left a little note on the Common knowledge page saying something like "Looking for Series? Go to..."
I stopped contributing to the evolution of LT a long time ago, though, after some extremely rude interactions.

219hfglen
Nov 28, 2020, 1:51 pm

>218 Busifer: Many thanks. It worked! It may be conceptually very slightly simpler, even though there are more steps. But as you say, it would be nice if the "help" section reflected current instructions.

220hfglen
Nov 29, 2020, 5:28 am

The First Human. So who was our first ancestor? Here we see the (not always angelic) teams involved in trying to find out. At the time of writing, 15 years ago, the oldest ancestor appeared to be Toumaï (Sahelanthropus tchadensis), a roughly 7-million year old fossil from the Djurab Desert north of Lake Chad, but at the rate new "oldest" fossils have turned up since the late 20th century, this may not still be the case. As usual, I came away thinking "who needs spy stories, mysteries or many other kinds of fiction when we have all these strange tales from the sciences? Indeed, many of them are so odd and illogical no fiction writer would dare to create a story like that." Now, of course, I'd love a supplement that brings the story up to date. One final thought arising from palaeo-environmental work done by a mostly French team in Chad: when Toumaï lived there, the place was not the howling desert it is now, but looked rather the way that the Okavango (Botswana) does now. And (going beyond this book) look at the gardens we make anywhere in the world when money is no object: there are streams, lakes, grassy areas, fruit trees ... just like the Okavango. An ancient tribal memory, perhaps?

Would I read another book by this author? Sadly, LT lists only one book by Ann Gibbons, but if she ever writes another I hope to encounter it.
Would I recommend this book? Yes.
To whom would I recommend it? Anyone who enjoys a good spy story, mystery, or just a good story. Also anybody interested in human ancestry.

221hfglen
Modifié : Nov 29, 2020, 5:37 am

Finding Fourways (Touchstone not working). A collection of 25 short, highly amusing essays on life in Johannesburg. It comes across as very much the town I grew up in and was pleased to leave behind when we moved here. A good read, despite being produced by a publisher so minor it might as well be self-published.

ETA: Fourways is a gardenesque suburb on the northern fringes of Johannesburg; when I wur a lad it was no more than a crossroads out in the sticks -- IIRC one road was still gravel, the other narrow tar.

Would I read another book by this author? I have no evidence of such a book, but if there is one that is not about his day job (in IT management), then yes.
Would I recommend this book? Yes.
To whom would I recommend it? If I could find a copy I would be delighted to offer it to MrsLee, both to give her a Southern Hemisphere author and for bathroom reading.

222NorthernStar
Nov 29, 2020, 2:02 pm

>220 hfglen: Sounds interesting!

223Sakerfalcon
Modifié : Nov 30, 2020, 6:46 am

>207 hfglen: Nice answers! You have redressed the balance in terms of the Southern Hemisphere!

224Busifer
Nov 30, 2020, 1:26 pm

>219 hfglen: Glad to be of help. As my everyday life is dedicated to practical design research focused on digital services I sometimes somewhat flippantly joke that my super-power is the ability to figure out any user interface ;-)

>220 hfglen: Sounds very interesting (jots down a note...)

225hfglen
Nov 30, 2020, 2:49 pm

>223 Sakerfalcon: "redressed the balance"
Only at the cost of introducing another bias. All mine are South Africans (including a couple of hidden ones in #207 and #221). I leave it to Richard (Haydninvienna) to list Australasians, and from South America I can only think of Jorge Luis Borges, even if he does count as being as important as several from elsewhere.

226haydninvienna
Modifié : Nov 30, 2020, 3:03 pm

>225 hfglen: And I’m no use on the New Zealanders, or from any other Southern Hemisphere country.

ETA although I have read quite a bit of Borges.

Does The Last Continent count?

227-pilgrim-
Nov 30, 2020, 3:26 pm

I can manage a South African AND an Australian - as long as I am allowed to include Hugh's old classics teacher!

228Narilka
Nov 30, 2020, 8:36 pm

>207 hfglen: Great list!

229Karlstar
Nov 30, 2020, 11:15 pm

>207 hfglen: Thanks for the list, that was quite different.

230hfglen
Déc 1, 2020, 8:24 am

>226 haydninvienna: Surely The Last Continent counts, but I'm not sure as what.

And thanks to everybody for their kind comments on the questionnaire answers.

I went to the SPCA this morning to re-house some books, and acquired two I've not seen before.
Rediscovering the Garden Route. Suffice to say that Jose Burman is a Southern Hemisphere writer, in particular a Capetonian who writes knowledgeably and occasionally humorously about Cape (mainly Western Cape) scenery and history.
If you'd just let me finish appears to be the latest Jeremy Clarkson. I expect this to be very much the mixture as before, which is no bad thing.

231hfglen
Déc 6, 2020, 6:47 am

Having re-read Going Postal and Making Money, both of which I have, during lockdown, I was inspired to look for Raising Steam now that the libraries are at least sort-of open. Found it, and the re-read was, if anything, more satisfying than first time round. It occurred to me that one thing I haven't seen at Umgeni Steam Railway is the "traditional railway fry-up" on the back of a shovel in the mouth of the locomotive firebox. Can't help wondering if the fry-up is apocryphal -- must ask the guys in the shed.

Steve Jobs: the Genius who changed our world. A selection of Time articles intended, evidently, as a biography of or homage to the man who made Apple Computers. Lots of pictures of the man, and not enough of the machines (and most of those lacking significant detail). I cannot help feeling that the LT reviewer who gave this one two stars was being generous.

232haydninvienna
Déc 6, 2020, 7:55 am

>231 hfglen: I’ve carefully avoided reading anything about Steve Jobs, since for all his peculiar genius he wasn’t a particularly nice person. But it was his maniacal perfectionism, and Jony Ive’s design skills, that made Apple what it is. Never forgotten opening the box for my first iPhone—almost like jewellery. The package was as beautiful as the phone itself.

233hfglen
Déc 8, 2020, 4:53 am

In no uncertain terms. Parliamentary memoirs of Helen Suzman, who represented the Houghton constituency from 1953 to 1989. She was arguably one of the three greatest statesmen (statespeople?) South Africa has ever produced, and for over a decade the only voice of sanity in Parliament. She did, however, live to see most of her predictions made in her early years come true -- many before she retired. As this book quotes the South African Hansard extensively, one feels it would contravene the sign in the doorway of our pub to go further.

234haydninvienna
Déc 8, 2020, 7:21 am

>233 hfglen: Hugh, believe it or not, you may just have got me with a BB.

235hfglen
Déc 9, 2020, 5:11 am

>234 haydninvienna: Richard, you may have difficulty finding this, as it's old enough to be out of print. I'd suggest a good library, possibly one in Oxford if you can get there (or arrange an ILL).

236haydninvienna
Déc 9, 2020, 7:45 am

>235 hfglen: The Oxfordshire library system has it and I’ve just placed a reservation.

237hfglen
Déc 16, 2020, 1:43 pm

In the midst of a Vienna / Salzburg production of Die Zauberflöte. Sarastro looks exactly like Lord Vetinari, which I find unsettling.

238clamairy
Déc 16, 2020, 4:25 pm

>194 hfglen: One of my favorites, though I think I liked his The Third Chimpanzee just a bit more.

>220 hfglen: I think I might have taken a bullet right there.

239hfglen
Déc 18, 2020, 5:04 am

Extra Virginity. Local foodie scuttlebut has long had it that South African olive oil is of far better quality than the imported product. Now I know why, at least when (as is almost always the case) the local oil is bought directly from the farm and the import (as is equally exclusively the case) from a supermarket. Unfortunately South Africa eats vastly more olive oil than we produce. The disclosures in this book are, to say the least, disturbing. Is the situation in the Mediterranean any better now than it was in 2012. when the book was written.

240haydninvienna
Déc 18, 2020, 12:23 pm

>239 hfglen: Substitute “Australia” for South Africa and your first sentence might still be true. There’s quite a few abandoned plantations in Australia and some feral trees, and a small local production of oil. I used to buy Australian olive oil when I was there, and it really was pretty good.

241haydninvienna
Déc 18, 2020, 3:25 pm

>233 hfglen: Hugh, I picked up In No Uncertain Terms from the library this afternoon. So far, I’m enormously impressed.

Very, very quiet in Bicester library this afternoon. Perhaps not surprising at 4 pm on a very dreary afternoon, but I at least managed a bit of chat with the fellow who checked the book out (me having forgotten my library card). He and I and another staff member were the only people in there, but at least it was open.

242Narilka
Déc 18, 2020, 8:11 pm

>239 hfglen: That sounds interesting. I'll have to snag it if it goes on sale.

243hfglen
Déc 19, 2020, 5:08 am

>241 haydninvienna: I met her once. She was indeed "enormously impressive" despite only coming up to my shoulder (dynamite comes in small packages).

244clamairy
Déc 19, 2020, 10:01 am

>239 hfglen: I buy extra virgin organic cold extracted olive oil from Costco. It's bottled in Italy and comes from Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece and/or Tunisia. I stopped buying from the grocery store over a decade ago after much of the news that I suspect is in your book made headlines. The grocery store stuff was adulterated and diluted with cheaper oils, etc. My niece is a professional chef and she swears by the Costco product. (If I lived somewhere warm enough all year for olives to thrive I would try a local product.)

245haydninvienna
Déc 19, 2020, 12:05 pm

>244 clamairy: In Doha I used to buy olive oil from Jordan. Seemed fine to me.

246hfglen
Déc 20, 2020, 1:23 pm

>240 haydninvienna: How very interesting. Extra Virginity gave me to understand that Oz olive oil was growing in volume, and was a notably honest market.

247hfglen
Déc 23, 2020, 9:46 am

Reread of The Best of Eric Rosenthal. A long time ago, before TV (which came late here) there was a program on the steam radio called "Three Wise Men" -- a distant relative of QI in sound only, if you will. The eponymous men were Prof. Arthur Bleksley (Applied Maths at Wits) in Johannesburg, Eric Rosenthal in Cape Town and Grant Loudon in Durban; questions and, at least theoretically, answers, provided by the audience. Mr Rosenthal also wrote books on the by-ways of South African history -- the fun bits that would never, ever, find their way on to a school syllabus, but which go far to explaining why we are what we are. And this is short bits from his books, showing why he was popular. Small wonder that we are told that the publisher was busy at the same time with a "Best of Lawrence Green" volume; the authors were similar, though Rosenthal wasn't as restricted in outlook as Green.