Reading, Exploring and Piffling with Hugh in 2021, part 2

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Reading, Exploring and Piffling with Hugh in 2021, part 2

1hfglen
Mar 1, 2021, 5:50 am

Welcome to "Part the Twoth" -- a splendid Ned Seagoon quote in there.

2hfglen
Modifié : Mar 1, 2021, 5:59 am

So have I been reading lately? Of course. Mostly Discworld re-reads before lending them to our tenant -- Nation -- okay, I know that one's not from the Disc -- The Fifth Elephant, I shall wear midnight, Equal Rites and The compleat Discworld atlas. Library books to be added when I finish them. Oh, and another bound volume each of the South African Railways Magazine and the Rhodesia Railways Magazine.

3hfglen
Mar 1, 2021, 8:54 am

I'm listening to Tim Harford's How to Vaccinate the World, in particular an episode on Vaccine Passports. Hello? Am I the only person who remembers when we had to be vaccinated against smallpox every 3 years? Or more recently the 10-year validity of the yellow fever shot yo need to go to East Africa? With these you get (or got) a little yellow booklet with details of your vaccinations, that you slipped into your passport and got examined at the border. They had several pages at the back for "other" --- why not put the covid stickers there? End of problem.

4-pilgrim-
Mar 1, 2021, 9:20 am

>3 hfglen: It depends on what is meant by vaccine passports. In the UK, Boris Johnson is taking about having to show a "vaccine passport" to go into a pub or other public place.

But what of all the people who cannot afford to travel abroad and so do not have passports? To make social gathering the preserve of the middle classes would, justifiably, cause major outcry.

And the Passport Office would probably collapse under the weight of thirsty new passport applications - it has a 6-8 week delay as a matter of course "but may take longer due to the Covid-19 situation" (which means that their offices are all currently closed and they are maintaining some sort of service from home).

5hfglen
Mar 5, 2021, 1:37 pm

>4 -pilgrim-: Did I not make myself clear? The yellow booklet is/was a completely separate document, kept there purely for convenience. Nothing stopping you putting it loose in your wallet when going to the pub, or to the District Surgeon for a renewal shot.

6hfglen
Mar 5, 2021, 1:42 pm

A little local excitement in the small border town of Komatipoort (on the way to Maputo) the other day. The SANParks rangers at Crocodile Bridge fielded a somewhat panicked call from the local branch of a well-known supermarket chain, asking them to please come and remove a snake from the fresh-veg fridge. What a large python was doing there remains unexplained, but it has been re-homed. The remaining question: was its name Monty?

7ScoLgo
Mar 5, 2021, 1:58 pm

>6 hfglen: Perhaps it was simply following a new 'program'?

8-pilgrim-
Mar 5, 2021, 7:20 pm

>5 hfglen: No, I hadn't got that at all. Sorry. I thought they were supplementary pages.

9hfglen
Mar 6, 2021, 8:34 am

The World until Yesterday. A long, slow read with (probably) a significantly higher "fog index" than my normal reading. Description of ancient (hunter-gatherer or small-scale farmer) societies, compared to modern U.S.A., particularly Los Angeles. Both have advantages; both have problems.

10Busifer
Mar 6, 2021, 9:31 am

>3 hfglen: That has been my thought as well. Mandatory vaccination to go places is definitely nothing new, not to me, at least.
And it's not just about being allowed to go places: it has been about not bringing various diseases back, as well (or even more so).

11hfglen
Mar 6, 2021, 10:22 am

>10 Busifer: Quite. I have a 1960-model Road Atlas and Touring Guide of Southern Africa from the AA, that contains in a list of formalities for visiting neighbouring states the information that smallpox vaccination is (was then) not compulsory for visiting Rhodesia and Mozambique but was necessary on return to "the Union" (as then was), and so should be done before departure.

12hfglen
Mar 6, 2021, 11:26 am

>10 Busifer: This conversation seems to me to highlight the difference in attitude between people who grew up within striking range of a land border and those who grew up on an island. I grew up in Johannesburg, whose nearest beach is Costa do Sol at Maputo -- about 80 km closer than any of the Durban beaches. A friend who grew up in Umtali (Rhodesia, now Mutare, Zimbabwe) pointed out to me once that for any Rhodesian, a seaside holiday implied a passport (yes there was a resort on the Cape Peninsula called "Rhodesia-by-the-Sea"; it was 2000 km from most of its patrons' homes). (You may need to fire up Google Earth for the next bit, to see where Mutare and the Mozambique border are in relation to each other.) She also told me that the best local pub her parents used to patronise was at Machipanda in Mozambique, about 4--5 miles from downtown Umtali. Officialdom knew this, and so the border stayed open until 11:30 every night. (Most southern African border posts used to close at 6 pm.) So -pilgrim- yes, some people needed a passport to go down to the pub of an evening!

Actually that border post sticks in the mind for me, too. I was ten at the time, and Aged Mother and I were going to Gorongosa for a weekend. No problems on the Rhodesian side, but on the Mozambique side we got behind a resolutely monoglot "verreh uppah" English family. Half Manicaland couldn't help hearing the resultant conversation (read it in your plummiest aristocratic voice):

"MOTHAAH! Chap heah wants to know wheah you wah born!"
"Ceylon, deah"
"Ceylon?! What evah were you doing theah?"
Which is surely unanswerable.

13pgmcc
Mar 6, 2021, 1:48 pm

14Busifer
Mar 7, 2021, 6:39 am

15hfglen
Mar 7, 2021, 9:20 am

Some time ago Bookmarque suggested lining up a convenient tree in the viewfinder to get the camera level. This may not always work ;-)



Almost right next to the viewpoint in the last image of the previous thread, at the Brown Cat, Botha's Hill, last month.

16hfglen
Mar 10, 2021, 8:30 am

Just for YouKneeK, here is my 1981 re-shoot of the Fox Talbot image that is/was in the Bensusan Museum (now MuseuMAfrika), Johannesburg.



And here is a genuine Fox Talbot, of the south front of Lacock Abbey, c. 1840.



I bought a print of this in the museum shop at Lacock and had it framed. It has hung in my study ever since.

17clamairy
Modifié : Mar 10, 2021, 8:44 am

>9 hfglen: I have this one languishing on Mount Tooby. I suspect it will be a bit of a slog. I have loved the two books of his that I finished, The Third Chimpanzee and Guns, Germs and Steel, but I got a bit depressed reading Collapse and set it aside.

Love the photos!

18YouKneeK
Mar 10, 2021, 7:36 pm

>16 hfglen: Very cool, I like both the re-shoot and the genuine print!

19hfglen
Mar 12, 2021, 6:13 am

>18 YouKneeK: Thank you!

20hfglen
Mar 12, 2021, 6:30 am

Anglo-Scottish Sleepers. Shades of Skimbleshanks in Old Possum! I'm delighted to learn that in the 1920s and '30s a mail train genuinely did leave London Euston for Glasgow at 11:45 every night. Interesting to compare these trains with the ones we have (or had when I wur a lad) here. British sleepers have compartments for one or two; ordinary South African ones are/were 2-sleeper coupés or 4-sleeper compartments (first class) or 3- and 6-sleepers (second class), though a supplement on the 1st-class fare would secure sole use of a coupé. But oh the catering! SAR regularly produced three lavish (6 to 8 courses) Table d'Hote meals a day while on the move, at remarkably low prices; LMS/BR seem never to have risen beyond a la carte single dishes at prices no lower than could be found in independent eateries. The exception being, of course, the Blue Train, which was, once upon a time, affordable. (It now costs about as much to take the Blue Train one way from Pretoria to Cape town as to fly from Cape Town to New York return!) The compartments are for one or two, and the food is at least the equal of anything the Railways managed in their glory days.

The book is beautifully illustrated, well written and informative. But now I wish I could take a l-o-n-g train journey!

21-pilgrim-
Mar 12, 2021, 10:46 am

>20 hfglen: Argh. I remember taking the sleeper to Glasgow when I was a postgraduate student. In a 2-berth compartment - I don't remember what the alternatives available were.

But the food was awful. So awful that we tried jumping off at one of the longer stops to see if we could get a McDonald's in preference. That bad.

22hfglen
Mar 12, 2021, 2:13 pm

>21 -pilgrim-: Better Half and I can both remember when the station restaurants in Cape Town (she) and Johannesburg (me) were world class, and the best in town. The food in the train dining cars was not far behind in the Good Old Days.

23hfglen
Mar 12, 2021, 2:30 pm

Reread of The Perm Book of 'Test the Team'. Published 27 years ago, so some of the questions have aged to the point of semi-fossilization. But not all of them by any means; most are still fun. And I have echoed a couple of the 'Black Book' ones in the Bad Joke thread.

24Meredy
Mar 13, 2021, 2:13 am

>20 hfglen: I love train journeys and am so thankful they haven't yet disappeared.

Four years ago I traveled by train from Orlando to Baltimore, an 18-hour trip. I had a tiny sleeper cabin, a marvel of compactness. The food in the dining car was excellent, as was the pleasure of making cordial conversation with genteel strangers. Linen tablecloths, cut flowers, good service.

I had a mini laptop and a Kindle reader, but I actually spent most of my time just gazing out the window, watching the land and the light change. You miss so much when you fly. No transitions, no sense of environments with real people living in them.

I hope the railways last forever.

25hfglen
Mar 13, 2021, 10:28 am

>24 Meredy: Hear, hear! If one were disgustingly rich, one could contemplate the annual Rovos Rail expedition from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, but the fare would pay the deposit on quite a large house!
Or there's the somewhat shorter one from Pretoria to Victoria Falls ...

26hfglen
Mar 14, 2021, 8:47 am

YouKneeK has a picture of "something with really long horns" in the last day of her England trip. May I suggest that she saw an Arabian Oryx?

Here is the Arabian Oryx's southernmost relative. I was no more than mildly surprised to discover that the name is the same in English, Afrikaans and German: Gemsbok.



Long ago when the world was young and all, one had to go to Etosha in Namibia (very far from home, which was Johannesburg back then), Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (far, roads almost non-existent -- this is now the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) or Langjan Nature reserve in the then northern Transvaal. This last remains the only population in the eastern half of South Africa that has been there "since always". The picture was taken in Camdeboo National Park, and these antelopes or their quite close ancestors were translocated in from elsewhere.

27hfglen
Mar 14, 2021, 8:50 am

Reread of Witches Abroad. I'm sure I read this when I was still in Pretoria, before there was such a thing as LT. It remains as fresh and hilarious as ever, with many brilliant one-liners. Disconcertingly, Granny Weatherwax at large reminds me of my own grandmother. Who would have hated the comparison.

28YouKneeK
Mar 14, 2021, 9:42 am

>26 hfglen: Hmmm.. maybe? The one in my picture has horns that seem much closer together, running parallel and even touching each other, as opposed to making a V shape like the Arabian Oryx pictures I see in my Google searches do. Maybe the one I immortalized had unusual horns, because otherwise they do look very similar.

>27 hfglen: Witches Abroad was one of my favorite Discworld books.

29hfglen
Mar 14, 2021, 9:55 am

>28 YouKneeK: There's about nothing else that has horns that long and +- straight. And the spacing does vary, especially in males after a fight. In fact it's by no means unheard of for a male to lose a horn in a fight, and become a (ahem) unicorn.

30YouKneeK
Mar 14, 2021, 2:41 pm

>29 hfglen: It looks like you were very close. At the risk of spoiling the fun of trying to guess, I looked up the web site for the location where I saw them to see if by chance they still had them and had listed them by name on their site. They’re the “scimitar horned oryx”, also known as the Sahara oryx. This site indicates they’re a bit larger than the Arabian oryx, and the only oryx whose horns curve backwards.

You were right about the Ankole cattle too. :)

31hfglen
Mar 14, 2021, 2:48 pm

>30 YouKneeK: Ahh! So Longleat does good work in breeding up rare animals. IIRC Wikipedia says that Scimitar-horned is the rarest of the Oryxes. Bizarre piece of useless information: President Ramaphosa breeds Ankole cattle in his spare time.

32hfglen
Mar 16, 2021, 2:42 pm

The Country Railway. Irresistible, as I'm in the final stages of adding it to the Railwaysoc catalogue. An extended and mostly factual rhapsody on British (and Irish and Manx) branch lines. Fascinating if you're a rail nut, otherwise almost certainly dead boring. There are the expected b/w photos of how things used to be, but more entertainingly and unexpectedly, about 8 full-page cartoons by Dennis Mallet, who has evidently watched West-Country characters, sympathetically.

33hfglen
Mar 20, 2021, 6:45 am

Of warriors, lovers and prophets. Taken together with an article in the South African Railways Magazine (1956) on the development and manufacture of screw threads, this one reminds me how useless almost all school history is at (1) explaining how the world got the way it is and (2) more importantly, making it interesting. I submit that the man who invented the screwdriver (the tool, not the drink -- and that surprisingly recently) did humanity more good than any politician, and arguably most of them put together. In the book one can read of Coenraad de Buys (hardly suitable for schoolboys of my generation; he seems to have slept with just about anything that had two X chromosomes), "Siener" van Rensburg (the Afrikaner answer to Nostradamus, and still widely revered on the far right wing), the vhaLemba of Limpopo Province (whose dietary laws are startlingly similar to Kosher laws, and whose menfolk share an otherwise unknown mutation on the Y chromosome with Jewish Cohanim), Robey Leibbrandt (a home-grown Nazi villain; would you call your kid Izan -- "nazi" spelt backwards?) and more. Great bedside reading, if chilling at times.

34hfglen
Mar 21, 2021, 9:02 am

This week's picture is specially for Peter, but possibly quite boring if you're not interested in geology.



It's an exposure of Katberg Formation sandstone in a cutting on the N9 some distance south of Noupoort in the Northern Cape. What makes it special is that it was deposited in the earliest Triassic, just after (OK, a few million years after -- shades of Marvin, the Paranoid Android, in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe the end-Permian mass extinction, the worst such event ever. So these stones are essentially fossil-free. But if you continue about another 100 km towards the coast, you come down the Lootsberg Pass into the area of Graaff Reinet. Here you are on Adelaide mudstones, deposited before the end of the Permian and so full of interesting fossils. There are three good museum collections where you can see examples in the next 50 km or so:
1. The James Kitching Fossil Experience in Nieu-Bethesda (home, also, to a micro-brewery and an extraordinary house full of weird art).
2. The privately-owned Rubidge collection, only open to those staying at their guest cottage on Wellwood Farm. I have just seen that there's a second privately-owned collection on Ganora Farm near Nieu-Bethesda.
3. The Old Library Museum in Graaff Reinet itself. (Note to MrsLee: I think this is where you'll find Johannes Haarhoff most days).

35pgmcc
Mar 21, 2021, 9:20 am

>34 hfglen:
Much appreciated, Hugh. Road cuttings are a great source of interesting exposures. One problem can be the type of road the cutting was made for. You can see fascinating features in the rock outcrops but to stop and examine them in detail would mean putting life and limb in danger as heavy traffic whizzes past you.

36hfglen
Mar 21, 2021, 10:45 am

>35 pgmcc: Fortunately the N9, though a top-grade National Road, "only" links the N1 (on the Free State border) with the N2 (in the relatively small city of George). So we were alone for a minute or two on this stretch. I wouldn't think of stopping for a picture in a cutting on the N3, which links Durban and Johannesburg and is an essentially unbroken procession of ultra-heavies!

37hfglen
Mar 22, 2021, 10:51 am

Africa's top geological sites 44 gorgeously illustrated essays on African geology, from the Cape Peninsula to the White Desert in Egypt and from the Barberton Mountain Land (oldest at 3641-million years) to the Bazaruto Archipelago (youngest), parts of which are barely 1000 years old. The 44 include chapters on impact structures, early-hominin sites and gemstones. It amazes me how many chapters document the biggest/richest/best/oldest/most spectacular, and these turn out to be South African or Namibian. Or is it just that the editors couldn't/didn't find writers to trumpet all the wonders of the rest of Africa? The book commemorates the 35th International Geological Congress, which may explain the high levels of jargon, but there is a good glossary at the end, and many of the obscure bits are explained by mouthwateringly good photos (i.e. well up to Bookmarque's august standard). Makes me want to pack my bags and start exploring!

38hfglen
Mar 23, 2021, 5:30 am

Re-read of Geology off the beaten track. Various routes, mostly on major roads, through some of South Africa's best geology. However, there is one article on quite a minor road in Namaqualand, and a whole chapter on the Richtersveld, where the roads tend to be of the "follow the wheel tracks of the last man here and hope that he wasn't lost" variety. Illustrated with maps that I find less confusing than most geological maps, and with gorgeous photos. Makes me want to pack my bags and head out to obscure places (but not the Richtersveld; I've had my fill of adventures there!).

39pgmcc
Mar 23, 2021, 5:38 am

>38 hfglen: I see its associated with De Beers. Must be a gem of a book.

>37 hfglen: My main memory of African geology is the Great Rift Valley.

Your description of Africa's top geological sites makes it sound like a very enticing book.

40hfglen
Mar 23, 2021, 6:42 am

>39 pgmcc: There are two or three at least partly subsidised by De Beers. All are gems.

I think you'd like Africa's top geological sites, which should still be in print. It has three (four, if you count the Ruwenzori) chapters on various aspects of the Great Rift.

41pgmcc
Modifié : Mar 23, 2021, 7:01 am

>40 hfglen: Yes, it is available. There is even a Kindle edition but it would be a shame to have to look at this book on a Kindle.

I suspect your bullet is moving slowly but it will find its target soon.

E.T.A. Ouch! Notch it up. Ordered.

42hfglen
Mar 23, 2021, 9:18 am

>41 pgmcc: Of course the next step is to persuade you that once (if ever) we get over Covid, you and Caitríona need to come and see for yourselves, in which case I should be delighted to do my best to be tour guide for at least part of the time.

43-pilgrim-
Mar 23, 2021, 10:11 am

>39 pgmcc: Never mind enticing to read book. It is visiting S.A. that this review makes me want to do!

44hfglen
Mar 23, 2021, 10:58 am

>43 -pilgrim-: Thank you; we need the visitors!

45pgmcc
Mar 23, 2021, 11:01 am

>42 hfglen: That would be the dream.

46clamairy
Mar 23, 2021, 6:19 pm

>42 hfglen: Perhaps after this plague is history we can have a SA meetup...

47Bookmarque
Mar 23, 2021, 10:17 pm

S.A. meetup? Whenever it can happen, I'm in.

48Sakerfalcon
Mar 24, 2021, 7:54 am

Me too!

49haydninvienna
Mar 24, 2021, 9:22 am

We would love to join in too.

50hfglen
Mar 25, 2021, 11:25 am

Before you-all plan a SA meet-up, maybe I should suggest you acquire a copy of 50 must-see geological Sites, at least look at the pictures (I find the geological maps in this one confusing, and suspect that you really need the key in Nick Norman's books to make sense of them), and start making a list of places to see. Then I can tell you what's practicable (like Barberton Mountain Land for example) and what isn't (like the Richtersveld).

51Sakerfalcon
Mar 25, 2021, 11:33 am

Can a geological tour be combined with seeing some wildlife too? I would love to see lions, etc in the wild (from a safe distance!).

52hfglen
Mar 25, 2021, 12:26 pm

>51 Sakerfalcon: Barberton (oldest rocks in Africa, essential) is just over 100 km from Numbi Gate (Kruger Park) and only slightly further to Phabeni gate. It would be absurd NOT to go in for a day or 2. The lions are wild, and don't necessarily perform for tourists.

Golden Gate is right in a National Park with some game, mostly black wildebeest, springbok and blesbok. No lions; the biggest predators are black-backed jackal and vultures. It's a great place to see amygdales in basalt laid down shortly before Africa separated from Antarctica. There's also one of the two clearest diabase dykes I know.

Mapungubwe has amazing history, the "great grey-green greasy Limpopo River", a brilliant example of river capture, elephants, monkeys and others.

Apart from a B&B in Fraserburg itself, the nearest decent accommodation to the Fraserburg (Permian) fossil surface is the rest camp at Karoo National Park. There you will find zebra, ostriches, springbok, gemsbok ... there may still be lions there but so far two have escaped into neighbouring farmland.

Mokala National Park offers guided tours to Bushman engravings on, I believe, a glaciated pavement (you may find that incredible in summer with the temperature over 40°C); game includes all the prize rarities SANParks are breeding up for other parks: buffalo, roan, sable and more.

Aughrabies has a waterfall second only to Victoria Falls. Game, not so much.

Good idea to stay in SANParks camps where possible, if you don't mind self-catering.

53hfglen
Mar 25, 2021, 3:29 pm

>51 Sakerfalcon: On maturer reflection, the skeleton of a geological-and-wildlife tour could look like this, given infinite time, enthusiasm and money:

Arrive (BA or Emirates) in Durban. Get your breath back in time to enjoy the Umgeni Steam Railway's route through the Valley of 1000 Hills on the last Sunday of the month.
Go to Golden Gate National Park, stay 2 nights.
Move on to any of several B&Bs in the Barberton area. Reserve a whole day for the Barberton Makhonjwa Geotrail.
Enter Kruger National Park through either Numbi or Phabeni gate; proceed via Skukuza to see the museum hut and Stevenson-Hamilton museum, on to Lower Sabie camp. Then northwards with overnight stops at Balule (tiny, museum piece camp), Mopani, Shingwedzi (detour to Crooks Corner) and Punda Maria camps.
Head westwards to Leokwe Camp, Mapungubwe. The guided tour up Mapungubwe Hill also shows you a spectacular dolerite dyke.
Overnight at the Warmbaths Forever Resort (it's a hot spring, so vaguely geological).
Next stop Venterskroon (or, if the one-and-only inn there is full, one of several B&Bs in Potchefstroom, which allows for dinner at SA's best steakhouse). Two nights minimum: there's a lot to see in the Vredefort Dome.
Move on to Mokala National Park (Mosu or Lilydale). Allow a day for the glaciated pavement / San engravings, and another to go in to Kimberley for the Big Hole and so that the indecently wealthy can buy a diamond or 2 for souvenirs. I WILL NOT accompany you on the walkway suspended over the Hole, which is over 1 km wide and deeper than that.
When you've recovered from that trauma, we move on to Aughrabies National Park. Immense granite scenery, breathtaking scenery, hot as hell in summer)
Move on to any of several B&Bs in Sutherland; stay a whole day if necessary to take in a guided tour of SALT, the South African Large Telescope (astronomy).
Next stop Fraserburg to see Permian fossil tracks on a nearby farm, then down Teekloof Pass to Leeu Gamka, for either Karoo National Park or a B&B in Graaff Reinet. This is one of the most prettily historic towns in the country, and has spectacular dolerite formations in the Valley of Desolation.
Head back towards Golden Gate, hugging the Lesotho border.

54Bookmarque
Mar 25, 2021, 4:30 pm

Sounds good to me!

In terms of overnight accommodations - how do the places mentioned fall in the grand scheme of cost and fanciness/plainness?

I assume there are also park fees to take into consideration.

55-pilgrim-
Mar 26, 2021, 4:08 am

I would also ask which of these places are disabled- suitable, and which would be sheer madness to attempt.

56hfglen
Mar 26, 2021, 7:39 am

>54 Bookmarque: Somewhere between reasonable and average, unless you decide you want to sample the Shalati Train hotel (somewhere north of ZAR 5000 a night) or the Singita lodge (north of R14000 a night when I looked a year or three back). To get US$, divide by about 15. SANParks accommodation is mostly comfortable rather than glamorous, and assumes self-catering, though main camps have restaurants. But note that Balule has no electricity, no restaurant, no shop and no fuel. Huts there have no en suite facilities (use the ablution block across the road/driveway) and no windows. Stevenson-Hamilton had a fixation on protecting tourists from large, hairy predators, so ventilation is a stretch of mosquito-mesh all round between the wall and the roof, and there's a peep-hole in the door of each hut. On the other hand, when I was little all rest camps were bounded by a ring of whitewashed stones -- no fence. Other camps have completely self-contained accommodation, with bathrooms and kitchenettes (also cheaper huts without). All camps now have electric fences, which don't necessarily stop elephants. B&B accommodation is variable, but there is legislation mandating decently comfortable standards. I'd suggest exploring the SANParks website in some detail, as it has descriptions, maps, pictures, prices, lists of activities and more.

Park fees: vary depending on where you come from: least for South Africans, more for SADCC countries, most for "overseas". The smart move is to count how many nights you will be staying in SANParks accommodation; the break-even point is about seven. If you're staying longer it will pay to get a Wild Card, which lasts a year (renewable) from date of purchase and gives free access to SANParks, Cape Nature reserves (Western Cape), Msinsi resorts (KZN), eSwatini Big Game Parks and SOME Ezemvelo KZN reserves. The current prices of Wild Cards are listed on the website.

Happy hunting!

57pgmcc
Mar 26, 2021, 7:47 am

>42 hfglen:
The book arrived yesterday and is indeed beautiful. I will spend many happy hours looking at the pictures and reading the descriptions. Thank you for hitting me between the eyes.

58Sakerfalcon
Mar 26, 2021, 7:49 am

>53 hfglen: Sounds perfect! Wildlife, geology and a steam train - fantastic! Time to start saving ...

59hfglen
Modifié : Mar 26, 2021, 8:04 am

>55 -pilgrim-: Most sights I listed are right next to the road, SANParks have wheelchair-access cottages in most camps; IIRC they're the ones with a code ending in Z (e.g. BG2Z, which would be a 2-sleeper bungalow ...). They cost neither more nor less than any other of that class. One would have to ask about each B&B in turn, but country hosts tend to be helpful.

The Umgeni Steam Railway is not wheelchair accessible. I would, candidly, see you in Hell before letting you loose on the Big Hole viewing platform in Kimberley, though the museum village next door is safe enough. The interiors might be tricky, though -- they're original Victorian wood-and-iron structures built for speed and economy rather than access. I'd also "hae me doots" about the viewing site for Aughrabies -- it's a very smooth granite pluton sloping towards the river (a long way down!) with a questionable barrier. And if the gang decide they just have to climb the Sentinel at Mont-aux-Sources, say NO, firmly. You can drive up to a car park at 8400 ft., and the first part of the trail is probably do-able, but then there's a 300 ft chain ladder none-too-securely attached to the cliff.

ETA: The guided tour up Mapungubwe Hill is also, unfortunately, not wheelchair accessible. You start by going down steel steps into an excavation, then up wooden steps (replica of the original, which were designed to keep intruders out) built into a crack in the rock to get on top. Pity; the view is amazing.

60pgmcc
Mar 26, 2021, 9:36 am

>59 hfglen:
the Big Hole viewing platform in Kimberley,
Now that is something I have seen a picture of. I first became aware of it when we were learning about kimberlite and diamonds. I wonder where that type of rock got its name. :-)

61hfglen
Mar 27, 2021, 9:26 am

Further to #56 and #59 above. The SANParks site can be confusing. To find prices of accommodation and photos of interiors:
Go to the Park you want. If there is more than one camp, choose your camp. Now go to Availability:Accommodation. You will now get a list of accommodation types. For example, CK6 is a campsite (provide your own tent), EH3 is a basic 3-bed hut, BD3 is a bungalow etc. Read along the table and you will find a "base price" and the number of people that pays for. Suppose Haydninvienna and Mrs.H. book a BD3U at Lower Sabie. The price quoted is for both of them, and the U indicates a bungalow with a river view (marked as such on the camp plan, which is under "Maps"). If -pilgrim- books a BD3Z she gets disabled access and pays the same whether or not she takes a carer along. Now hover the cursor over your chosen code. A bullet-point description of the unit pops up; if you click on it you get a series of (slightly) enlarged photos of the unit, inside and out. One weakness: the pictures, at least for the BD3s at Lower Sabie, are the same for the ordinary and the disbled-access ones.

62hfglen
Mar 27, 2021, 9:27 am

>60 pgmcc: I understand that an academic geologist wanted a $3 word for "blue ground".

63hfglen
Modifié : Mar 28, 2021, 12:00 pm

Reread of Carpe Jugulum, which loses nothing by repetition. the Sir pTerry one-liners and hectic plot are as fresh as ever.

64hfglen
Mar 27, 2021, 11:33 am

I wish I understood people, especially some of my fellow South Africans *sigh*. The death and funeral of the Zulu king even made it on to the BBC, and is the basis of my current mystification. Covid regulations allow a maximum of 100 mourners indoors or 250 outside, widely spaced, face masks mandatory, at funerals. And no wakes. So the news footage shows us some thousands of Zulu "military" in traditional regalia, crammed together as tightly as possible, with no a face mask to be seen (they're not Traditional), for several hours if not two or three days. Why did nobody in government dare to whisper the dreaded words "superspreader event"? My prediction is, look for a third wave starting in Zululand in the next week or two.

65pgmcc
Mar 27, 2021, 11:52 am

>64 hfglen: That is disappointing.

66-pilgrim-
Mar 27, 2021, 12:24 pm

>64 hfglen: This shows the power of selective reporting. The BBC coverage here seems to have selected the photographs with masks - albeit often worn as ornamental neckguards.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56443464

Can one hope that the three month mourning period mentioned also acts as a quarantine period?

67-pilgrim-
Mar 27, 2021, 12:40 pm

I do not feel on good ground to criticise here. The Orthodox Church in Britain is assiduously observing social distancing, respecting injunctions to close the churches during the period mandated by the government and so on.

But, on the other hand, the late Patriarch of Serbia, at the age of 90, held a mass, open-casket funeral for the Metropolitan of Montenegro, who had died of Covid-19. Thousands attended.

And no surprises for guessing the cause of death of the late Patriarch of Serbia,who had previously made statements to the effect that the virus would not claim the lives of the faithful. After the death of the Metropolitan, he moved to a "we submit to God's Will" position.

Meanwhile for those who are interested: the normal method of administering communion in the Orthodox Church is to add the bread to the wine, and then administer a soggy piece to each communicant with spoon. Obviously sharing a spoon makes little matters like masks and spacing seem trivial.
So our parish priest has developed a sort of tip/flick procedure, which propels the contents of the spoon into the communicant's mouth without the spoon ever making contact with their body.
Just included as an example of a very traditional body trying to make accommodation with the current situation.

68hfglen
Mar 27, 2021, 2:55 pm

>67 -pilgrim-: So tonight's news is all about how a faction in the ANC wants to tighten lockdown over Easter so they can stop church services (size of congregation already severely limited) "to eliminate superspreader events".

Towards the end of last year St. Agnes, Kloof, developed a system whereby the congregants came to the front one by one, were sanitised and handed a wafer, then moved to one side to pick up a shot-glass with wine (Presbyterian-style) which they consumed, putting the glass in a bucket of disinfectant when they were finished. Congregations limited to 50 at a time, widely spaced. Then services were stopped for the second wave, and when they came back the shot-glasses didn't.

Yours sounds hazardous; what if the priest misses?

69-pilgrim-
Modifié : Mar 28, 2021, 12:05 pm

>68 hfglen: So currently communion in one kind?

From the ecclesiastical point of view, the problems of dropping sacred elements are prevented by the cloth as shown in this picture.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-29/communion-ritual-unchanged...
From a hygiene point of view, rather than the position shown, our contain was told to try to squat a little, with head back. Masks are also worn, except for when actually receiving, and the priest when praying or reading (at which point he is a considerable distance from anyone else).

But since the spoon is still probably getting breathed on, I do have concerns.

However, since communion requires significant preparation (confession, fasting etc.) it is quite common for not everyone who attends Divine Liturgy to receive communion. I suspect that the numbers who choose to attend without receiving may currently be higher than usual.

I think the church that you described has an admirably sensible procedure.

Corrected for missing text

70hfglen
Modifié : Mar 28, 2021, 7:04 am

>58 Sakerfalcon: We'd need a bit more to make it perfect. This being the Green Dragon, and Pete being part of the gang, there would have to be visits to the SPCA Bookshop and Ike's in Durban to investigate the possibility of offering homes to homeless little (used) books. New ones from several sources. Then on the road we'd need to stop at the Gourmet Greek for CHEESE, Nottingham Road Brewery for craft beer, Pages of Nottingham Road for guess what ...
Clarens (Free State, not Switzerland) also has a good craft brewery and a bookstore, and so it goes on.
The Park Shop in each main rest camp in Kruger Park generally has a shelf of books, mostly wildlife guides, souvenir picture books and the kind of novel none of us would admit to reading (MEOW!).

71pgmcc
Mar 28, 2021, 7:07 am

>70 hfglen: At least shipping all the book acquisitions home would not be dependent on the Suez Canal.

72hfglen
Mar 28, 2021, 11:58 am

>69 -pilgrim-: Yes.

And now I know what the cloth is for, thank you.

73haydninvienna
Mar 28, 2021, 2:06 pm

>70 hfglen: If you get to Ike’s and that copy of The Formation of Vegetable Mould is still there, please somebody give it a good home.

74-pilgrim-
Mar 28, 2021, 3:26 pm

>72 hfglen: Yep, just a more extensive version of a communion-plate.

75hfglen
Mar 28, 2021, 3:32 pm

>73 haydninvienna: Even with the fearsome price tag?

76hfglen
Mar 28, 2021, 3:44 pm

Re-read of Wyrd Sisters. What can I add that hasn't already been said before about Sir pTerry's writing in general and this sample in particular. It's an early story in the canon, and so possibly a tad rougher around the edges than the later Witches stories. We learn how Magrat meets the love of her life, and who King Verence II really is.

77hfglen
Mar 28, 2021, 3:58 pm

Cool Cars. Curious. Does a classic car have to be a convertible or a supercar to be collectible, desirable or both? Because precious few of the 130 cars described here do not fit one or both of these labels. But if I were infinitely wealthy and looking for a beautiful vehicle, it would be almost none of these. It would, however be comfortable and preferably not impossible to feed and maintain. *thinks* How about a big Citroën TA, or a 1929 Cord, or a Peugeot 404, or something else entirely? The text in the book is to-the-point and adequate, and the pictures are as one would expect from the publisher (that is, first class, though several are on the edge of pixellating).

78clamairy
Mar 28, 2021, 7:27 pm

>76 hfglen: My favorite part has to be Granny Weatherwax yelling at the theater troop during the performance.

I have become Granny Weatherwax. And I'm not sorry...

79Sakerfalcon
Mar 29, 2021, 6:34 am

>70 hfglen: I took it as read that books, good food and wine would be on the itinerary! But thanks for providing details to whet my appetite!

80pgmcc
Mar 29, 2021, 7:34 am

>78 clamairy: Many years ago, my parents went to a ballet. Ballet in Belfast was not the normal fair. I do not know what the ballet was but at one point a character was about to stab someone. He had his arm raised to strike when my father shouted out, "Oh God mister, don't." The house erupted in laughter. Apparently the rest of the audience had been enjoying the ballet as much as my father.

81hfglen
Mar 29, 2021, 7:42 am

>79 Sakerfalcon: There are one or two wine estates in KZN, indeed on the route I outlined. But it's hardly good grape country, and the one bottle of KZN-origin I sampled bore more resemblance to paint-stripper than anything you'd come back to willingly (which might explain why that estate no longer exists). However there is or used to be an establishment in Rosetta, 10 km up the road from the Nottingham Road Brewery, called The Wine Cellar, where you could get wines from most if not all South African estates at cellar-door prices. That's the nearest we go to any winemaking area on that route, sorry. We do, however, encounter at least five craft breweries on our route. There's a cheese place at Fouriesburg, a short way out of our path near Golden Gate (but squarely on our way home). We go right past ... no, we stop for -- the home of Ouma Rooi's Koeksisters (just be a little ware of exploring the site -- a lot of it's in Afrikaans) in Ermelo. And there will be frequent stops at likely-looking butchers for biltong and droë wors (dried boerewors). And somewhere we will need to acquire one or more bottles of Amarula, the traditional "antifreeze" for Kruger Park nights!

82Sakerfalcon
Mar 29, 2021, 7:50 am

>81 hfglen: With all those good things you list I don't think I'll miss wine! Mmm, cheese .... And the Koeksisters look dangerously good!

83hfglen
Mar 29, 2021, 9:53 am

>82 Sakerfalcon: I must correct myself. Mokala is just-down-the-road from a winery belonging to Griqualand West Cooperative. John Platter gives no clue about the wines (at least in the 2013 version), other than that the vineyards in one area were knocked out by hail and floods in successive years, but there seems to have been a crop in 2012. Then if we go to Aughrabies we go along the vineyards of Orange River Wine Cellars, who have made memorable sweet wines and dry whites for years, and decent reds more recently. At least one of their cellars is rated as wheelchair-friendly. (I fancy the idea of taking the GD meet-up wine-buying at a place called Grootdrink (Afrikaans for "big drink"!).) There are two private estates on the Orange River between Upington and Kakamas, which would appear to be tourist traps from the description in Platter. Kakamas is otherwise famous for dried peaches and fresh dates.

84-pilgrim-
Mar 29, 2021, 12:07 pm

>83 hfglen: I am not in a wheelchair, Hugh. (Yet.) I use double fore-arm crutches - nifty things where your weight goes onto your forearms, and thence to shoulders, without involving wrists.

It leaves me in the odd position of finding small sections of stairs easier than long slopes.

Although I fear that, after a 1.5 years of being ordered to stay indoors (initially due to previous chemo, before the pandemic ever started), stamina is going to be an issue.

85hfglen
Mar 29, 2021, 12:32 pm

>84 -pilgrim-: Tiny mind rewinds rapidly to when I broke an ankle some 50 years ago, and spent a few weeks on fore-arm crutches. That does rather put a different complexion on the matter, in that it widens the range of possibilities considerably. It also means that you have a practical if undignified way of handling the stairs at Mapungubwe. I've seen huge rubber ferrules like suckers on crutches like the ones I think you're describing -- with those you may arguably be safer than the ultra-fit at Aughrabies! I'd still steer clear of the viewing platform at Kimberley and the chain ladder at Mont-aux-Sources, but everything else is definitely do-able. And the disabled-access cottages in National Parks are likely to be more of a nuisance than a help.

Game viewing in reserves: you are not allowed out of your car except at rest-camps and designated get-out points, for obvious reasons. Ideally all the lion sees of you is a long lens sticking out of a window, so stamina is not an issue (but one does need to pay attention to time between comfort stops!).
Other viewing: wherever possible one would drive right up to the target sight, pull off the road, tumble out of the car and enjoy. Barberton-Makhonjwa trail is great for this: they have interpretation signs and sample rocks on stands in the parking areas.

86hfglen
Mar 31, 2021, 10:36 am

Thought for the geology-enthusiasts, and better (?) answer for >54 Bookmarque: and >55 -pilgrim-:. I've just seen the latest (South African) Go! magazine (#175, dated April-May this year). If you can possibly get hold of a copy, do so; it has write-ups of some farm stays for >54 Bookmarque:, and an article on Aughrabies indicating that I last went there some 40 years ago -- they've installed boardwalks from the offices to the viewpoints, which might make >55 -pilgrim-: feel safer. If Peter gets hold of a copy, there's a picture on p. 43 that will cause him to mandate a (long) detour to Barrydale, ostensibly to see Cape Fold Mountains (ahem!).

87-pilgrim-
Mar 31, 2021, 11:10 am

>86 hfglen: I have found its website, but they are only showing #184 so far.

88hfglen
Modifié : Mar 31, 2021, 2:32 pm

>87 -pilgrim-: It arrived here in Durban today.

ETA: I've added the juicy bit to LT Local.

89hfglen
Avr 3, 2021, 1:49 pm

The range of Easter goodies in our local supermarket this weekend provokes a bemused thought. Is there another city where normal alternatives to Easter eggs include barfee, gulab jamon and jellaby?

90-pilgrim-
Avr 4, 2021, 5:18 am

>89 hfglen: I had to look those up, but they seem much closer to paskha than to Western Easter fare.

91-pilgrim-
Avr 4, 2021, 5:39 am

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!

92hfglen
Avr 4, 2021, 5:54 am

>90 -pilgrim-: Interesting thought; in your looking up you'd have found that they are all Indian.

>91 -pilgrim-: Indeed He is risen! (I'm being too lazy to look up Cyrillic and Greek alphabets).

93hfglen
Avr 4, 2021, 6:10 am

Not from South Africa this week, but East Africa.



Specially to tie in with the book Peter is savouring; I can catch two chapters here. This is an overall view of Olorgesaille fossil hominid site, about an hour's drive south-west of Nairobi, on the road to Lake Magadi. Every one of the dark stones in the U-bend of the walkway is a hand-axe shaped by early hominins some 750 000 years ago. The soil is diatomite, which forms a fine white dust that gets into everything, and is hell's own job to remove. So you can deduce that this is the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley; the east wall forms the horizon. With a bit of imagine you might just be able to see the road to Nairobi ascending the wall.

94hfglen
Avr 4, 2021, 6:13 am

Re-read of Pyramids, which I'm sure I read in Pretoria, before there was such a thing as LT. Still thoroughly enjoyable. I'd forgotten, but enjoy all over again, Ptraci's accent, in which words beginning with "t" acquire a leading "p" (so for example "time" becomes "ptime").

95pgmcc
Avr 4, 2021, 7:06 am

>93 hfglen:
There were extensive diatomite deposits around Lough Neagh and the River Bann. The deposits were extracted for commercial exploitation up to the late 1960s.

There has obviously been a cleansing of the record since I studied Geology as all the references I have looked up for the uses of diatomite avoid mentioning the one that we all grew up knowing about. It was used as the clay component in dynamite.

I remember passing the diatomite works near Toome Bridge when they were still in operation. The deposits are a lot more damp than those in yiur picture, Hugh.

96haydninvienna
Avr 4, 2021, 8:13 am

>89 hfglen: I was thinking of betting that you could buy all of those in any large supermarket in Doha. Probably not this year, though; the Holy Month of Ramadan follows hard on Easter this year and the supermarkets are gearing up for the big binge that is fasting all day and feasting all night. I'm pretty sure that in the past I've seen Easter eggs in the supermarkets there, and of course many of them also stock Indian sweets. Gulab jamun for certain and probably the others.

97-pilgrim-
Avr 4, 2021, 8:17 am

>92 hfglen: And Orthodoxy has a significant presence in India. I have no idea what Indian Christian Easter traditions are like, but I was hoping that you might.

98hfglen
Avr 4, 2021, 12:05 pm

>97 -pilgrim-: Total blind antelope (no-eye deer) about Easter in India; I've never been there. Here in Durban, Indians have the same range of traditions any other Christians have -- anything from RC to African Independent, with the same goodies the rest of us see in (actually, the same) supermarkets. Orthodox? There are Greek orthodox communities in the major cities, and Russian, Serbian and Coptic Orthodox communities in Johannesburg / Midrand. Not sure about the Copts, but if you don't speak Greek, Russian or Serbian (as appropriate) you're sunk in the others. Our Indians tend to be bilingual in Hindi and English, which wouldn't help.

99hfglen
Avr 4, 2021, 12:17 pm

>95 pgmcc: Interesting. The picture is from the middle of the dry season, so the scene is at its least like Ireland. Which raises a question in my mind for me to research. There used for many years to be a dynamite factory in Somerset West, on False Bay. This factory used to supply the Witwatersrand gold mines (along with a similar factory at Modderfontein on the East Rand), which was an unfortunate precondition for the worst accidental explosion ever in South Africa. In 1932 a train of 31 trucks of dynamite blew up just outside Leeudoringstad; my mother used to maintain that she heard the explosion in Johannesburg, 200 miles away (there is a record of its being heard in Kokstad, 500 miles away on the other side of the Drakensberg). The other day I read an unintentionally chilling account in the Rhodesia Railways Magazine from the 1950s, about how every Wednesday a dynamite train left Somerset West and travelled via Kimberley, Bulawayo, Victoria Falls and Lusaka to the Copperbelt (Zambia).

But the question: where did that factory get its diatomite? Better Half, who grew up in the western Cape, thinks "somewhere on the West Coast", which sounds probable.

100hfglen
Avr 5, 2021, 6:10 am

Re-read of Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare: the world as a stage, which packs more sense into fewer pages than most. It is written in his well-known, easy yet accurate style, and takes reconstruction no further than the few available facts will support.

101haydninvienna
Avr 5, 2021, 8:23 am

>89 hfglen: >96 haydninvienna: I was in a Teams conference with colleagues in Doha this morning. Yes, they were able to buy Easter eggs in Doha supermarkets. So not only in Durban; in Doha as well.

102pgmcc
Avr 5, 2021, 3:28 pm

>101 haydninvienna: My daughter in the US has not found what we would call Easter eggs there. She has resorted to ordering them from England. I have no idea what condition they will arrive in.

103-pilgrim-
Avr 5, 2021, 5:18 pm

>98 hfglen: No Oriental Orthodox?
India has the twelfth largest Orthodox community in the world, but I suspect the majority belong to the Church of the East. I understand that they usually use the Syriac liturgy, but I have certainly seen Orthodox services broadcast from India in Mayalam. I suspect that the majority are from South India.

104Karlstar
Avr 5, 2021, 11:02 pm

>102 pgmcc: What are those things you call Easter eggs?

105pgmcc
Avr 5, 2021, 11:26 pm

>104 Karlstar:
Chocolate eggs. Nom! Nom! Nom!

106MrsLee
Avr 6, 2021, 2:51 pm

>105 pgmcc: We have Cadbury eggs over here, which used to be my favorites, until I quit eating that kind of candy. I don't understand what this elusive candy is you are speaking of. Maybe you should send me a sample?

107hfglen
Avr 6, 2021, 3:25 pm

>103 -pilgrim-: Not that I know of. Most Durban Indians are Muslim or Hindu; the Christians are mostly Roman Catholic, Anglican or some form of charismatic-reformed.

>106 MrsLee: There are various kinds of hollow chocolate eggs (and bunnies) wrapped in "gold" paper, priced as if the wrapper is 24-carat. The chocolate is (just) thick enough not to break under its own weight. Less expensive are marshmallow eggs, yellow in the centre, with a white "mantle" and an almost see-through chocolate crust. Then there are various tiny egg-like structures with a jelly core, and a chocolate mantle, and possibly a coloured sugar crust.

108haydninvienna
Avr 6, 2021, 4:15 pm

>106 MrsLee: >107 hfglen: Mrs H is addicted to a certain brand of chocolate bunnies, and we tend to have a few in the fridge. On Easter Sunday our American neighbours surprised us with a plate of cookies, so we reciprocated with some of the chocolate bunnies. Their six year old daughter went absolutely into orbit, apparently never having encountered them before.

I grant you the bunnies are expensive in terms of weight of chocolate, but they tend to go on special at the supermarket fairly regularly. You notice that there are certain brands of chocolate eggs that only appear for Easter, and those are universally rubbish.

109-pilgrim-
Avr 6, 2021, 4:42 pm

>107 hfglen: I find breaking the egg and filling with ice cream a most acceptable way of serving it. ;-)

>106 MrsLee: Do you have any sort of Easter eggs over there?
When I was a child we decorated (real) eggs the old-fashioned way: paint shells with designs in wax, dip in vegetable dye to colour (repeating both stages, with pricking patterns into previous waxing, several times, depending on how complex a colour scheme), then hard boil. Are you familiar with these?

110YouKneeK
Avr 6, 2021, 5:04 pm

>106 MrsLee: Cadbury eggs are an important part of the Easter season for me! I've been addicted to them since childhood. Although I’ve cut down on my candy consumption quite a lot in general, Cadbury eggs are still an exception with a limit of 2 per week. I stock up a few boxes when they come out for the season so I can enjoy them longer.

I do remember chocolate bunnies as a child, but Cadbury eggs eclipsed everything for me. With the possible exception of white chocolate bunnies. White chocolate is another favorite. I would also be happy to sample other people’s beloved Easter candy in moderation just in case I'm missing out on something important! ;)

>109 -pilgrim-: We did something similar when I was growing up, with dying the eggs. We didn’t use wax or draw any designs, though. We hard boiled first if I remember correctly, then dyed, but I could be misremembering. I remember one year my parents tried some alternate approach which involved drilling tiny holes into the tips of the eggs, blowing out all the insides, dying the eggs different colors, then putting some sort of sleeves over them that I think were shrunk onto the eggs with heat. I was young, and we only did it once because it was apparently a horrendous amount of work, but they did come out pretty from what I remember and we were able to save the eggs to display again in later years. I don’t know what ever happened to them. Crushed at some point, no doubt.

111MrsLee
Avr 6, 2021, 5:14 pm

>109 -pilgrim-: I am most familiar with hen eggs, dyed in a variety of ways, after being hard boiled, unless one is dying with natural materials while they boil, such as onion skins.

When I was small, my uncle used to bring me hollow sugar eggs which had magical scenes inside of them, done out of frosting. One only eats those if one is a child who isn't aware of the perils of cracked teeth and would do anything for sugar. There were also hollow bunnies and eggs of chocolate.

112-pilgrim-
Modifié : Avr 6, 2021, 5:24 pm

>110 YouKneeK: I only recently discovered those sleeves online. They appear to be a way of cheating on the Ukrainian custom of pysanky.

We tried the blown version one year too. Very fiddly, poor survival rate.

113hfglen
Avr 8, 2021, 11:45 am

>111 MrsLee: Have you seen this cover?

AFAIK these are eggs dyed for Easter. Can you imagine the hours of work that went into these?!

114hfglen
Avr 8, 2021, 12:03 pm

Sun Dancing: a medieval vision. Curious. I see the LoC call code for this one points to a fiction class; undoubtedly nearly half of it is. But just over half is the historical explanation for the "fictional" embroidery, and a description of the real underpinnings. The best that can be said is that I am profoundly grateful to be a 21st-century "oke" and not a 6th-14th century Irish monk. That was surely hardship beyond the call of duty, all too often with results exemplified by the death of Aedh, c. 1044. It's the largely fictional story of a tiny community of monks on an almost completely barren island off the Kerry coast, and raises a question from me to Peter: what's the geology of Skellig Michael? The description of the island makes it sound like shale on basalt.

Would I read another book by this author? -- maybe.
Would I recommend this one to anybody? -- maybe; it would have to be the right person.
Who would I recommend it to? -- possibly one or two fellow parishioners.

115-pilgrim-
Avr 8, 2021, 1:02 pm

>114 hfglen: Ow, you got me with that one. The Orthodox Church recognises the Western saints up until the Great Schism, and the commonality between what was British Christianity before the Council of Whitby and the Eastern tradition is one of the things that drew me towards Orthodoxy.

It sounds as if there was a strand of Celtic Christianity that was as extreme in its asceticism as the Russian ascetics or any of the Desert Fathers.

116hfglen
Avr 8, 2021, 2:51 pm

>115 -pilgrim-: "there was a strand of Celtic Christianity that was as extreme in its asceticism as the Russian ascetics ..."

I fully agree with your spoiler. The monks on Skellig Michael seem to have taken their asceticism to an extreme that was beyond anything I've read of elsewhere.

Before you get carried away and put a lot of effort into finding this one (I found it in the library, which is not more effort than it's worth) please be aware that if I ever rated books, this one would come in between 2.5 and 3 stars -- not awful, but I.m not that keen on it.

117-pilgrim-
Avr 8, 2021, 4:19 pm

>116 hfglen: Apart from the "did they REALLY think that was a good idea?!" aspect, is there any other aspect of the book that is causing your lukewarm reaction?

118hfglen
Avr 9, 2021, 4:36 am

Yes. The "fictionalised history" dragged badly; even though it occupies less than half the pages in the book, it seemed to go on for ever, raising the question "do I care enough to finish reading this?" The answer was mostly no. When, eventually, I reached the explanations, things went much faster. But most chapters here were less than two pages long, some not quite filling a single page. The result was very "bitty" and lacked coherence. Actually there are ways in which the whole book had that problem.

119-pilgrim-
Avr 9, 2021, 6:43 am

>118 hfglen: Thank you, Hugh. Yes, I see. Poor fictionalisation is one of my least favourite genres. It suggests to me that the author is not sufficiently interested in his topic, and so does not have confidence that his readers will be, and if therefore trying to "jazz it up".

Sounds like one to keep a watch for in sales, then.

120MrsLee
Avr 10, 2021, 12:49 am

>113 hfglen: I think I have seen that. Way beyond my talents and level of patience. 🙂

121pgmcc
Modifié : Avr 10, 2021, 5:26 am

>113 hfglen:
When I was very young, about 6, we used to dye boiled eggs at Easter and then roll them down a hill to crack them open before eating them on a picnic.

We did not do anything as fancy as the ones you show.

I cannot remember the dye we used.

My Mum told us of when she was a child they used the yellow flowers from the gorse* bushes to make the dye for their eggs. That would have been the 1920s.

* We would normally call them whin bushes.

122hfglen
Avr 10, 2021, 6:11 am

>121 pgmcc: The Scots call them whin too. They're invasive in (so far) a very small area of East Griqualand -- look for Kokstad on Google Earth.

123-pilgrim-
Modifié : Avr 10, 2021, 6:31 am

>122 hfglen: That's interesting. I lived a large part of my life in Scotland, and have always heard gorse rather than whin. But then, I always stayed in the Lallands.

124hfglen
Avr 10, 2021, 9:09 am

>123 -pilgrim-: My honorary-aunt who lived in Edinburgh, and all the clan (who live in a different part of that esteemed city) call them whin.

125haydninvienna
Avr 10, 2021, 9:39 am

I read once that furze and gorse were the only exact synonyms in the English language, both being used for the same plant indifferently across classes, places and times. Whin appears to be a bit more northern—the "Lyke-Wake Dirge", from Yorkshire, uses whinnies.

126pgmcc
Avr 10, 2021, 10:00 am

My use of the word "whin" was not recognised when I moved to Dublin. It would appear the use of this name is a Northern Irish practice, and Northern Ireland having strong links with Scotland it is not unusual that we share some words.

127pgmcc
Avr 10, 2021, 10:16 am

There are words I found commonly used in Donegal (North West corner of Ireland), a place with strong links to Scotland, that I had never heard before. Some of them turned out to be remnants of lesser known languages and others turned out to simply be a different pronunciation of a commonly used word. Two examples I are presented below.

Fornenst: Used in Donegal to mean near to or up against. If a bicyle were leaning against a wall it could be desribed as being "fornenst the wall". If a car were parked beside a wall, or someone was standing a foot or two away from a wall, they could be describes as "fornenst the wall".

I did a Google search and I found that this word is identified as being used in Midlan U.S. as well as being a dialectic use on this side of the Atlantic.

Shuck of sheugh or shough: In Donegal this is used to describe a ditch. I have heard it pronunced with the hard "ck" and also with the softer sound as found at the end of the work "lough" in Ireland. I had heard before that it is from Middle English and I found support for this in several places on the Internet. All references agree that it refers to a ditch, although some are specific about the type and purpose of the ditch being referred to. It appears from the Wiktionary entry that a Scottish colloquial use of the word is a bit more cheeky.

128hfglen
Avr 10, 2021, 11:05 am

>127 pgmcc: "cheeky"
Good choice of word there ;-)

129pgmcc
Avr 10, 2021, 11:21 am

>128 hfglen: I thought you would approve. :-)

130-pilgrim-
Avr 10, 2021, 3:16 pm

>127 pgmcc: Did you used to get the messages for your mum as a child? ;-)

Another Scots usage that is not immediately apparent is the use of "where are you staying?" as a synonym for "where do you live?", without any implication that the accomodation is temporary.

131hfglen
Modifié : Avr 10, 2021, 3:50 pm

>130 -pilgrim-: "Where do you stay?" with that meaning is pure Sarf Efrican!

ETA: I always thought it was a direct if no more than semi-literate translation from Afrikaans: "Waar bly jy / julle?"

132hfglen
Avr 11, 2021, 4:52 am

This week's picture is an Anglo-Boer War blockhouse, built c. 1901. There were thousands of these all over the country, mostly made of wood and iron, hot as hell in summer and icy in winter. Probably more of a hazard to the Tommies manning them than to the Boer commandos they were meant to inhibit, if truth be told. Fortunately, nearly all of those blots on the landscape have gone, but some unusual ones survive.



This one's at Prieska (from a Khoekhoen word usually translated as "place of the lost she-goat") in the Northern Cape. What makes this one special is that it's made of local stone, not highly regarded at the time but now expensive as the semi-precious Tiger's Eye. For Peter's benefit, it's a fibrous amphibole (asbestos to the rest of us) silicified into limonite.

I took the picture right at the end of 1969, so it's irretrievably faded.

133pgmcc
Avr 11, 2021, 7:23 am

>132 hfglen:
Well, for an irretrievably faded picture it looks pretty good. Thank you for the local stone detail.

134hfglen
Avr 11, 2021, 3:30 pm

This headline reminds me irresistibly of Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon. I wonder what kind of drills his company made?

135clamairy
Avr 11, 2021, 3:52 pm

I'm late to the conversation but my family stopped hiding real dyed eggs on Easter morning before I was even born after one got lost inside a couch, resulting in a stench that was overlong in both identifying and removing.

I used to enjoy Cadbury eggs but the last time I bought them and tried to eat them I found them cloyingly sweet. I suspect the US variety are higher in sugar and lower in real chocolate content than the European ones.

136MrsLee
Avr 11, 2021, 7:45 pm

>135 clamairy: I believe they also use HFCS now, instead of sugar. That has ruined a lot of my past favorite things, as I find they are now as you say, cloyingly sweet.

137clamairy
Avr 11, 2021, 9:33 pm

>136 MrsLee: I believe you're right. The egg filling was as sweet and tasteless as the filing in an Oreo. *gag*

138-pilgrim-
Avr 12, 2021, 4:44 am

>136 MrsLee: The sugar tax has ruined the taste of a lot of things.

139hfglen
Avr 12, 2021, 5:54 am

Origins: the story of the emergence of humans and humanity in Africa. Archaeology of mostly southern Africa from earliest times almost to the present day. There are a few mentions of early hominins from Chad and East Africa, and an extended text-box on a cave in Zanzibar, but most of the book is about Africa south of the Zambesi. The text is good and the illustrations excellent, but oh dear! the layout! The text is two columns to a page, so four to an opening, well and good. But the "arty-farty" layout person who decided, when confronted with two more-or-less parallel long blocks of text that the best way or arranging them was as three columns of box-text and one of body-text, both ending in the middle of a sentence, for several openings in a row, succeeds only in being profoundly annoying.

140-pilgrim-
Modifié : Avr 12, 2021, 12:31 pm

>139 hfglen: Sounds like the designer was someone who believes that books are there to be admired, rather than read.

141hfglen
Avr 13, 2021, 12:14 pm

DD had the bright idea that one day we should investigate this resort / caravan park, which is sandwiched between the edge of Phalaborwa town and the Kruger Park boundary. It certainly looks appetising, with only two worrying features I can think of. The serious one is the level of copper pollution KNP scientists have found in the vegetation on their side of the fence near the town. But if you want to risk your life, there's a new-ish "craft distillery" on the other side of town. Don't know about you, but I find the name (Qualito) rather ominous already -- if they need to say it is, then it isn't. They claim to make whisky (without the intrusive "e") out of grain. Really? In a low-rainfall area 50-odd km south of the Tropic of Capricorn? What grain? Maize? Sorghum? The former would surely put their product closer to Bourbon than the real Highland nectar -- not that Bourbon is in any way to be sneezed at, mind.

142hfglen
Avr 13, 2021, 12:20 pm

Seven Votes is the story of how narrowly South Africa entered WW2, and how the result trashed Smuts's United Party government. Well written and accurate, as one expects from Richard Steyn's history, but nonetheless a bleakly depressing story of how mean, narrow and petty-minded politicians went out of their way in the 1940s and later to make indefensible decisions. Doubtless good for the soul, but not a happy read.

143Karlstar
Avr 16, 2021, 5:00 pm

>142 hfglen: That is a very uncommon book here on LT! Someone gave it 5 stars though. Call me right on the edge of interested in this one. If I'm reading the ratings correctly, you did not rate it?

144hfglen
Avr 17, 2021, 12:09 pm

>143 Karlstar: indeed I didn't. I very seldom rate books, and this was no exception.

145hfglen
Avr 18, 2021, 7:07 am

This week's picture is a significant portion of the main (and almost only) street of the museum village of Pilgrim's Rest.



Pilgrim's Rest was the site of almost the first gold rush in the then Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek, almost 150 years ago. Unlike most gold-rush villages, this one survived to become a tourist attraction. Indeed, one can still watch a demonstration of panning for alluvial gold (though the gold in the pan is barely $1 worth).

146Meredy
Avr 18, 2021, 5:27 pm

>52 hfglen:, the "great grey-green greasy Limpopo River" -- oh, my, I had nearly forgotten that. "All set about with fever trees." That was one of my most favorite books when I was a youngster. I remember reading it aloud to my first-grade class. I could almost have done it by heart. Thanks for recalling that rich memory.

147hfglen
Avr 23, 2021, 3:04 pm

Re-read of The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. Sir pTerry making bait for the younger generation to grow up into Discworld proper, with just enough decently hidden (mostly) "spice" to keep parents reading to kiddies entertained. With, also, a message about tolerance that the world sorely needs.

148hfglen
Avr 23, 2021, 3:12 pm

Inside the Vatican. The authors are National Geographic staffers, so the expectation that pictures will be gorgeous, plentiful, of rare sightings and from unreachable viewpoints is richly fulfilled. Text occupies considerably less than half the book, but is nonetheless satisfyingly complete and an easy read.

149hfglen
Avr 25, 2021, 11:30 am

Seeing MrsLee indicated a desire for an ostrich egg in her Cookbookers thread, I looked to see if I had a picture of one, or at least an ostrich farm. No such luck, but I can offer her some wild ostriches. At Karoo National Park, just outside Beaufort West -- only about an hour-and-a-half drive from the farms around Oudtshoorn.

150Meredy
Avr 25, 2021, 1:18 pm

>149 hfglen: Wild ostriches. Excellent. If ostriches don't lead enviable lives, I'd rather not know about it.

151MrsLee
Avr 25, 2021, 2:18 pm

>149 hfglen: Thank you! I have had an emu egg, and I imagine the ostrich is similar. After trying to crack 26 quail eggs without getting shells into the bowl, 1 large egg would be a relief.

152hfglen
Avr 25, 2021, 2:50 pm

You don't crack an ostrich egg, at least not easily. Rather use a drill with about a 6 mm (1/4 inch) bit at each end and blow.

153hfglen
Avr 26, 2021, 6:16 am

Re-read of Thief of Time, which did rather less for me than most Discworld stories. Nonetheless, as someone who used to appreciate the "real" Top Gear and later Who wants to be a Millionaire, I appreciated the idea of a monomaniac horologist called Jeremy Clockson.

Currently reading Mythos, which I recall being recommended in this pub when it came out. So far, it's earning every good word said about it.

154haydninvienna
Modifié : Avr 26, 2021, 8:08 am

>153 hfglen: Just goes to show something. Thief of Time is currently my favourite Discworld. But then I'm a sucker for Susan Sto Helit.

155MrsLee
Avr 26, 2021, 4:12 pm

>152 hfglen: Quail eggs are surprisingly (or not) difficult to crack also. Being tiny andvery hard, you can't very well hit them against the edge of something like a he's egg. I resorted to holding it in the palm of my hand and hitting it with the sharp edge of a knife. Then, because the outside crumbles and the membrane is very tough, I inserted the knife and cut the membrane, then tried to pull it apart without getting crumbling shells into the dish. Not very successfully. It makes sense they are hard, since they nest on the ground. I wonder if the drill and blow method would have been better. I'm glad my son won't read this, he can make an innuendo out of much less than what I just said.

156hfglen
Mai 1, 2021, 6:58 am

>155 MrsLee: A sharp blow with a hammer driving a small panel pin, maybe?

157hfglen
Mai 1, 2021, 7:21 am

Mythos. I recall considerable discussion of this a year or two back in this very pub. It's taken that long to track the book down in our local library, but it was well worth the wait. Every positive word you see about this book is true, or at least justified. Wishing for more of the same, I checked on LT and see there are two more of Mr Fry's works of Classical Greek mythology / history. Something to look forward to, indeed. That said, I was a wee mite disappointed that Leda and the Swan were dismissed in two lines, if only because they feature in a brilliant sequence of puns in an English version of Offenbach's Orphée aux Enfers : "Leda had no leader / to lead 'er to the swan ... libidinous Papa!". For that matter, Offenbach is missing, too. But if he included everything, the result would fill a library, and we should rather revel in what's there.

Would I read more by this author? Gladly and eagerly.
Would I recommend this book? likewise.
To whom would I recommend this book? Anybody wanting a good read that puts a smile on the face. There are a few strait-laced individuals I've met who (to their great loss, not mine) may not approve of the Fry style.

Next, or at least soon, up: a self-published offering by one Mervyne Matthee, grandiosely titled My long road to the footplate. A quick skim suggests that this belongs to that class which gives self-published books their bad name: out-of-focus pictures, frequently (badly) faded colour, too many pictures without captions. There probably is space in the world for a book about a driver who has made the transition from steam to diesel and electric, by my initial impression is this isn't it. I have no doubt that the writer is a good storyteller "down the pub", but that's a world away from being a writer. Unfortunately, I am committed to writing a review and hence finding something positive to say about it.

158hfglen
Mai 2, 2021, 11:24 am

Seeing it's May-day weekend, I offer a picture taken in May (2014). In the Golden Gate National Park, which is high enough for the first frosts to have happened already.



We are looking southwards at the Drakensberg escarpment; on the left we look across the highly picturesque Amphitheatre. The hill on top of the cliffs is Mont aux Sources (just shy of 11 000 ft; originally named by French missionaries), so called because it is the source of the Tugela (which flows into the Indian Ocean), and the Orange and Senqu rivers, which flow into the Atlantic. The rock is basalt, part of a vast flood of the stuff that poured out over Gondwanaland about 180-million years ago at the start of the breakup of that supercontinent. The lower hills nearer by are Clarens sandstone, as is the house (just right of bottom centre). That formation is home to various animal tracks and occasional skeletons of the dinosaur Massaspondylus.

159MrsLee
Mai 2, 2021, 11:29 am

>158 hfglen: Majestic.

160hfglen
Mai 2, 2021, 11:48 am

Billy Connolly's Route 66. Glaswegian comedian being serious, travels from Chicago to LA on America's iconic Route 66. His chosen vehicle is a trike (super-powerful motorbike with two rear wheels). He comments frequently on the kindness and friendliness of the inhabitants, which sounds like the Americans I met in '73 and '98, and the USAnians in this pub. Also on the spectacular scenery, which also rings true. Greatly enjoyed.

Would I read more by this author: yes, if I encounter another
Would I recommend this book: yes, if appropriate
To whom would I recommend it: Armchair travellers and anyone planning to visit the area traversed by Route 66, certainly. Lovers of the Western U.S.A., possibly.

161Busifer
Mai 2, 2021, 12:05 pm

>158 hfglen: What MrsLee said: majestic.

162-pilgrim-
Mai 2, 2021, 1:14 pm

163pgmcc
Mai 2, 2021, 1:30 pm

>158 hfglen: Amazing.

164Meredy
Mai 2, 2021, 2:44 pm

>158 hfglen: (Admiringly) What a jigsaw puzzle that would make.

165Bookmarque
Mai 2, 2021, 2:51 pm

Wow what a gorgeous view!

166NorthernStar
Mai 2, 2021, 3:51 pm

>158 hfglen: Beautiful!

167Narilka
Mai 2, 2021, 5:22 pm

>158 hfglen: Wow! Amazing view.

168Sakerfalcon
Mai 4, 2021, 6:12 am

>158 hfglen: Fantastic shot!

169clamairy
Mai 4, 2021, 9:35 pm

Lovely photos, Hugh.

My mouth is still hanging open here at the idea of using a drill to get into an egg, though. 0.0

170hfglen
Mai 5, 2021, 6:09 am

>169 clamairy: I'm not small, but I can stand on an ostrich egg without breaking it, and without taking special precautions. They're tough, and it beats me how the chick gets out.

171haydninvienna
Mai 5, 2021, 7:36 am

>170 hfglen: Don’t know for sure about ostrich eggs, but I understand that a hen’s egg breaks readily from the inside. An egg has to be strong enough against an outside stress to bear the weight of the bird that’s sitting on it. Explanation here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nanoscale-changes-keep-eggshells-stron....

172hfglen
Mai 5, 2021, 11:15 am

Thank you, Richard. So the shell is evidently strong in compression but not in tension, which makes sense, and becomes less so when hatching time approaches.

173hfglen
Mai 5, 2021, 11:27 am

My Long Road to the Footplate is not quite as dire as I had feared. To be sure, it displays most of the faults of a self-published book, and would have been vastly improved by the attentions of a copy-editor, a picture-editor and a proofreader. Nonetheless, it is evident that Mr Matthee is a good raconteur "down the pub", though there is an all-too-evident gap between that skill and writing a good story down in such a way as to display it to best advantage. Mr Matthee was based in the Western Cape, and spent his whole career driving (or learning to drive) trains. He started as an apprentice fireman in the outer fringes of the South African Railways network, and worked his way up, first driving steam-powered fast goods (fruit) trains, later electric commuter trains in and around Cape Town. Sadly, his driving career ended with a horrendous accident; he survived, but being unable to drive afterwards, ended his career in administration.

174hfglen
Mai 9, 2021, 11:28 am

This week's picture is almost the same as last week's, and was taken just a few minutes earlier, from a few kilometres further east on the same road.



This time you can see the Amphitheatre (Eastern Buttress, Devil's Tooth, Sentinel) clearly. Also note how quickly the weather can change in the high Berg!

175Busifer
Mai 9, 2021, 12:15 pm

Nice! I love to be able to travel this way (even though I prefer actually travelling for real).

176-pilgrim-
Mai 9, 2021, 12:43 pm

>174 hfglen: Yes, the comparison is amazing.

177NorthernStar
Mai 9, 2021, 11:36 pm

>174 hfglen: Nice! Very interesting cliffs in the foreground.

178pgmcc
Mai 10, 2021, 3:14 am

>174 hfglen:
Beautiful scenery.

179hfglen
Mai 10, 2021, 3:20 pm

>161 Busifer:-169 and >175 Busifer:-178 Thank you all very much.

>177 NorthernStar: That's Clarens Sandstone, deposited some 200-million years ago as windblown sand in a "howling desert". It's almost the commonest building material where it crops out, and was used (presumably at considerable expense) in the Union Buildings in Pretoria. In the Eastern Free State the stone is roughly cut into blocks and lasts, apparently, for ever, but the Union Buildings are of ashlar stone, which is starting to spall after a "mere" hundred years or so.

180hfglen
Mai 10, 2021, 3:25 pm

Brain porn: the best of the Daily Maverick. A collection of articles from a South African online newspaper, covering approximately its first five years. Very political, sometimes uplifting, sometimes thought-provoking, occasionally funny, often depressing. The writing is as variable as one might expect from a multi-authored work (Angela Voges is the editor, not the author).

181haydninvienna
Mai 10, 2021, 4:49 pm

That’s a couple of impressive pictures, Hugh. What an amazing country it is.

182hfglen
Mai 11, 2021, 6:52 am

Legendary Safari Guides seems almost self-published: "published by ... on behalf of ...", but differs in crediting a proofreader and being competently produced (and readable). The author evidently runs a tour company in London, specialising in safaris in southern and East Africa. The book is therefore a collection of short biographies of the guides she works (or has worked) with, indicating where they live and work, and what guests (who no doubt pay handsomely for the privilege) can expect on each guide's safaris. Despite the fact that such safaris are evidently orders of magnitude more than I can afford (often for only five days), and despite the absence of illustrations other than passport-size portraits at the head of each guide's section, the book makes me want to pack and get into the bush!

183hfglen
Mai 14, 2021, 3:35 pm

>181 haydninvienna: Thank you, Richard.

184hfglen
Mai 14, 2021, 3:38 pm

Re-reads of A Hat full of Sky and The Cat who tailed a thief. I recall reading the first, but not a word of the second (is anno domini showing, or is it showing). Both thoroughly enjoyed.

185hfglen
Mai 15, 2021, 6:34 am

Re-read of Reaper man. My excuse for not remembering much of it is that I evidently first read it while still in Pretoria, before the days of LT. Which doesn't stop it being pure Pratchettian gold, with a wonderful description of a plague of shopping trolleys and an out-of-town shopping mall (though one wishes they could be put down that easily on Roundworld!).

186hfglen
Mai 16, 2021, 7:43 am

Re-read of The Cat Who talked Turkey. Another cozy mystery, but pretty unmemorable -- which may be no bad thing.

187hfglen
Mai 16, 2021, 11:02 am

Karoo National Park (adjoining Beaufort West, Western Cape) not only has live animals, but also some significant fossils. Many of the most scientifically important are in Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, but a few are displayed at the Park offices.



This is a Diictodon, a Dicynodont or mammal-like reptile, and so in the direct line of our own ancestry, from somewhat more than 200-million years ago.

Beaufort West is also famous among rail buffs as a major centre on the line between Cape Town and Kimberley.

188pgmcc
Mai 16, 2021, 11:17 am

189Narilka
Mai 16, 2021, 1:51 pm

>187 hfglen: That is so cool!

190NorthernStar
Mai 16, 2021, 4:16 pm

>187 hfglen: - cool!

191Sakerfalcon
Mai 17, 2021, 9:13 am

Wow, that's amazing!

192hfglen
Mai 17, 2021, 10:50 am

>187 hfglen: - >191 Sakerfalcon: Thank you all!

It's been nagging at the back of my mind that the legibility of the label didn't survive being prepared for posting, so here's the info, suitably (I hope) enlarged:

193pgmcc
Mai 17, 2021, 10:56 am

>192 hfglen: Very legible.

194haydninvienna
Mai 17, 2021, 12:53 pm

>192 hfglen: Very nice! Do you know what the matrix rock is? It looks almost opalescent in the photo.

195clamairy
Mai 17, 2021, 1:13 pm

>187 hfglen: Oh, that is awesome!

196hfglen
Mai 18, 2021, 5:20 am

>194 haydninvienna: Sorry, but no I don't. It looks like some kind of dripstone, but the label in #192 suggests a very fine mudstone, and the apparent opalescence is due to the way it reflected the flash.

197hfglen
Mai 20, 2021, 5:46 am

The Sun King. This account of the life and times of Louis XIV of France benefits from having been written by Nancy Mitford, who is clearly sympathetic to the period and place. The edition I found in the local library had a good picture editor, and is (by the standards of its time, 50-60 years ago) profusely illustrated. -pilgrim- and I were having a conversation in another thread recently on the limitations of school history. This book could be taken as evidence for what we were saying. In my school history the French Revolution came out of nowhere, just happened, and was a Major Influence On Subsequent History. Life simply isn't like that. The economic foul-ups that precipitated the revolution go back (at least) to this Louis's custom of appointing aristocratic rather than competent ministers and generals, thus losing some expensive wars. His great-grandson, Louis XV, was apparently even less able to appreciate how many beans make five, and Louis XVI continued the tradition. Makes much more sense, doesn't it.

Would I read another book by this author: yes, if I encounter one
Would I recommend this author: well yes; after all, she is one of the great writers of the 20th century
To whom would I recommend this book: anybody who feels the same gaps in their education that I do.

198-pilgrim-
Mai 20, 2021, 6:10 am

>197 hfglen: If you can access it, you might enjoy the French TV programmes "Nicolas le Floch". They are an intermittent series, based on the novels by Jean-François Parot. They are crime dramas, but the situations are usually entangled with the political situation. At the start the King was Louis XV, but it continues until after the Revolution.

The situation of the poor, and the middle classes, and how it is effected by royal policy, which is itself a consequence of court intrigue, is followed throughout.

The author on whose books the series was based is a historian and diplomat. I keep meaning to try the books themselves one of these days.

199hfglen
Mai 20, 2021, 8:50 am

>198 -pilgrim-: One small problem: even if I could find the series, it wouldn't help, as I have no French.

200-pilgrim-
Mai 20, 2021, 9:15 am

>199 hfglen: I have been following it with English subtitles, as my French is too rusty to cope without.

201hfglen
Mai 20, 2021, 10:59 am

Flower Hunters. Surely a re-read; it's been on my bookshelf for years. Yet I remember nothing specific to this book, if only because the scientists whose biographies are featured here, are to be found in many other accounts of the botanical exploration of the world. Actually that may be a recommendation, as it suggests that the Gribbins' writing is both accurate and inconspicuous, both advantages in this kind of book.

202hfglen
Mai 22, 2021, 9:37 am

Bill Bryson's latest, The Body: a guide for occupants, rather unexpectedly, made its appearance in the local library (unexpectedly in that the evidence for the recent newspaper story that Ethekwini Municipal Libraries have bought no new books in the last three years is all too obvious). But here we have a New Book, provided by the Friends and not by the library system.

And the book itself? A guided tour of the human body, in the true Brysonian manner. Loads of interesting stories, often showcasing the unjustly forgotten scientists who really found these things out. Almost every chapter includes a story that may cause the delicate to fear they are about to lose their lunch. But all in all a good read, and one can see why this copy is hardly ever "home".

Would I read another by this author: AFAIK I've read all he's written, but will certainly pick up the next one to appear.
Would I recommend it: If like me you're a Bryson fan, recommendation is superfluous; if not, you need this book.
To whom would I recommend it: Anyone interested in what makes humans and many other animals tick.

203hfglen
Mai 23, 2021, 11:22 am

Would this do as a rather small, probably harmless Green Dragon?



It's a life-size model of Lystrosaurus that I saw in Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, in 2017. The animal is about the size of a middling-size, overweight dog, so about 75 cm / 2 feet tall at the shoulder. It was a herbivore, and had a horny beak -- so probably harmless. Lystrosaurus is interesting in that it's one of the very few animals to survive the end-Permian mass extinction some 255-million years ago. So its group, the mammal-like reptiles, are ancestors of all mammals, including us.

204-pilgrim-
Mai 23, 2021, 11:40 am

>203 hfglen: Oh that is cute! I hope clamairy adopts it.

205clamairy
Modifié : Mai 24, 2021, 8:08 am

>202 hfglen: I bought this for my Kindle when it was on sale recently. I love his stuff, both the humorous travel writing and the more serious books. I'm glad to hear this one is up to snuff.

>203 hfglen: Awww!

206hfglen
Modifié : Mai 25, 2021, 6:40 am

Library Cat: the Observations of a Thinking Cat. Library Cat lives in Edinburgh, dividing most of his time between the University Chaplaincy and the Main University Library. The setting is exactly as in real life, and chapters are headed with photos of Library Cat. So what make the book fiction? Only that a mere human has the nerve to claim that it is an accurate representation of the thoughts of one of the Feline Overlords of the university. The result is a work of gentle humour, portraying Library Cat as a soul-mate of YouKneeK's Overlord, Ernest.

Would I read another by this author: Looking at the LT catalogue of works by Alex Howard, I rather doubt it. However, given sufficient funds and the assurance that Library Cat is still in the land of the living, a visit to Edinburgh University Library (armed with, at the least, a sufficiency of bacon rind) would be essential.
Would I recommend this book: definitely.
To whom would I recommend it: Any human owned by a Cat, or who has a Cat-shaped hole in their existence.

207hfglen
Mai 25, 2021, 6:56 am

The Pyramids of Egypt. Mercifully, any attempt at adding a touchstone directs to the wrong book. This one is a disaster, in which bad facts (either garbled beyond comprehensibility or just plain wrong) serve as inadequate foundations for flights of woo-woo fantasy. To be avoided like the plague.

Would I read another by this author: not Pygmalion likely!
Would I recommend this book: No way!

208-pilgrim-
Mai 25, 2021, 8:47 am

>207 hfglen: Please can you name the author, so we can evade effectively.

209hfglen
Mai 25, 2021, 10:44 am

>208 -pilgrim-: Emmanuel Barceló

210Busifer
Mai 25, 2021, 12:41 pm

>209 hfglen: You have done the world a favour. Thank you.

211haydninvienna
Mai 25, 2021, 2:11 pm

>206 hfglen: Never precisely been to Edinburgh Uni Library, but been to Edinburgh Uni Law School (for a conference), which is pretty special. Big staircase with a huge portrait of David Hume on one of its landings.

212-pilgrim-
Mai 25, 2021, 2:23 pm

>211 haydninvienna: The university library is more sixties-style prefab. No Gothic pinnacles.

213hfglen
Mai 25, 2021, 2:58 pm

>211 haydninvienna:, >212 -pilgrim-: Pictures on Google Earth and Library Cat's Facebook page show a sixties brutalist concrete brick.

214haydninvienna
Mai 25, 2021, 3:29 pm

>213 hfglen: Having looked at Google Streetview, I agree. The Law School is in Old College on South Bridge though, and is far nicer.

215-pilgrim-
Mai 25, 2021, 3:35 pm

>214 haydninvienna: I agree. I have seen some interesting theatrical performances in the Old College quad during the Edinburgh Festival.

216hfglen
Mai 28, 2021, 3:43 pm

See South Africa: visual facts. This book has a subtitle Our country in infographics, which is an accurate description. And so we have about all one would wish to know and quite a lot one didn't know, presented in pictorial form with minimal text. And many of the pictures are as superb as the facts are obscure. And so one learns (for example) that the highest peak in Northern Cape is 2156 m, slightly higher (!) than Limpopo's Iron Crown (2126 m). However one thinks of the former province (which turns out to cover an area only slightly less than Japan, though with a population only a small fraction of Tokyo's (1 145 861 in 2011) as essentially flat, while the latter (slightly larger than Eritrea; now there's a useless piece of information!) has an extension of the Drakensberg escarpment running through it.

Would I read another book by this author? Yes, I have.
Would I recommend this book? Not only that; if I were infinitely wealthy I would give a copy to each of the Dragoneers who commented on the "magical mystery tour" we discussed in this thread a couple of months back.
Who would I recommend it to: New immigrants, prospective visitors to South Africa and anyone who wants a ready reference to a huge number of micro-facts about the country.

217-pilgrim-
Mai 28, 2021, 4:31 pm

>216 hfglen: That would have been successful sniping on your part - except for the fact that it is proving even harder to find than Sayers' Dante!

218hfglen
Mai 29, 2021, 5:46 am

The Freemasons: their history and mystical connections. How can one comment fairly on a book describing such a secretive organization? The history is at least internally consistent, and the woo-woo element is held to a minimum. The illustrations are plentiful, good and relevant to the text, which is readable and interesting. Apparently the author is a Mason, which may or may not be a good thing.

I omit pgmcc's three questions, as the answer to all three would be 'don't know'.

219hfglen
Mai 29, 2021, 5:58 am

I've just come across this brilliant quote, which speaks to a discussion a week or 3 back between -pilgrim- and myself, in 50 people who stuffed up the world.
"... the notion that history matters, not just because it's bloody interesting when it's told right, but as a way to make sense of the present and guide us into the future."
Not bad for the first paragraph of a new book! I hope the rest is as perceptive and forthright.

220hfglen
Mai 30, 2021, 6:15 am

I think we need a new thread for the imminent new month.