Paul's Books and Stuff in 2013 Part 9

Holidays as a child were spent on the East Coast of England as there was no way the family go afford to travel overseas. This meant Filey, Bridlington or Scarborough generally. Whitby for trips and we used to have day trips to fairly grubby resorts elsewhere Blackpool, Skegness and Cleethorpes notably.
This is Scarborough South Bay slightly glorified:

For our Quotation it is only meet that Scarborough provides it. The Sitwell family hailed from Scarborough and the irascible Edith was always good for a quote or two.

This was her view on flattery:

The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.>
Edith Sitwell

2013 Books Read

January

1. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
2. Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton
3. Promised Land: A Northern Love Story bt Anthony Clavane
4. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
5. A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block
6. That Awkward Age by Roger McGough
7. If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler
8. Coffee, Tea or Me? by Trudi Baker
9. Among the Cinders by Maurice Shadbolt
10 Viper's Tangle by Francois Mauriac
11 Phantom by Jo Nesbo
12 When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Penman
13 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji
14 An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

February

15 The Shortest History of Europe by John Hirst
16 Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
17 The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
18 The Green Hat by Michael Arlen
19 V by Tony Harrison
20 The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell
21 This Sporting Life by David Storey

2013 Favourite Reads

Non-Fiction
1 Promised Land : A Northern Love Story by Anthony Clavane

Fiction
1 The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
1 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
2 Among the Cinders by Maurice Shadbolt
3 Viper's Tangle by Francois Mauriac

Thrillers
1 Phantom by Jo Nesbo

Category Challenge

1 Works Originally in French (1/13)
2 Historical Fiction (2/13)
3 Poetry/Plays (3/13)
4 Works by Anne Tyler (1/13)
5 Books on Sports (2/13)
6 Books on Travel or Places (1/13)
7 Short Story Collections (2/13)
8 Between the Wars (1/13)
9 Scandi (1/13)
10 Old Friends (1/13)
11 Then and Now (1/13)
12 Prize Winners (2/13)
13 Asia Pacific (1/13)

Total Number of Challenges 169

Completed to Date 19

Percentage Complete 11.24%
Percentage to be on target 11.51%

Behind target 0.27%

Planned Reading for Quatrain 2/13 (Weeks 5 to 8) of 2013

(Provisional Listing - I may juggle a bit to fit TIOLIs)

1. Written in French (2nd of 13) - The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola
2. Historical Fiction (2nd of 13) - The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell Comp 9/2/13
3. Then and Now (1st of 13) - The Shortest History of Europe by John Hirst Comp 2/2/13
4. Old Friends (2nd of 13) - Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer (Griessel)
5. Scandi (2nd of 13) - Death Sentence by Mikkel Birkegaard
6. Poetry/Plays (2nd of 13) - Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo - NOBEL LAUREATE READ Comp 3/2/13
7. Travel (2nd of 13) - On the Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk (Eastern European Global read)
8. Sport (2nd of 13) - This Sporting Life by David Storey (Rugby League) Comp 11/2/13
9. Between the Wars (1st of 13) - The Green Hat by Michael Arlen Comp 6/2/13
10. Short Stories (2nd of 13) - Elegy for Easterly by Pettina Gappah (RD's challenge) Comp 31/1/13
11. Anne Tyler (2nd of 13) - The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler
12. Awards (2nd of 13) - The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (Guardian First Book Prize Winner 2012) Comp 5/2/13
13. Asia-Pacific (2nd of 13) - Island in the Centre by Rex Shelley (Singapore)

Also to finish off

14. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
15. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Also to catch up on 13 in 13 that are behind

16. Between the Wars (2nd of 13) - The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell
17. Then and Now (2nd of 13) - A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
18. Poetry Plays (3 of 13) - V by Tony Harrison Comp 7/2/13

Books at Start of Year on KL Shelves - 1,676
Added in 2013 - 136
Read in 2013 - 21

Revised TBR Total - 1,791

Pages to read at start of year - 639,135
Pages added in 2013 - 42,651
Read in 2013 - 5,808
Revised Pages to read - 675,978

Current Reading:

FLICS SEEN AT THE CIMENA in 2013 (Not a typo - I call cinema; cimena just to irritate Belle.

1 The Hobbit
2 Jack Reacher
3 Les Miserables
4 Parental Guidance
5 The Life of Pi

Series List:

Please refer to my page on fict-fact

http://www.fictfact.com/list/PaulCranswick/ALL

NOBEL CHALLENGE (This year's additions in bold)

NOBEL WINNERS READ WITH FAVOURITE WORK READ SO FAR:
2011 The Half-Finished Heaven by Tomas Transtromer
2010 The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa
2009 The Appointment by Herta Muller
2007 The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing
2006 Snow by Orhan Pamuk
2005 The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
2003 The Master of Petersburg by J.M.Coetzee
2001 A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
1998 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago
1997 Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
1995 Station Island by Seamus Heaney
1994 A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe
1991 July's People by Nadine Gordimer
1988 Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
1987 On Grief and Reason by Joseph Brodsky
1983 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1982 A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1976 Herzog by Saul Bellow
1972 Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Boll
1970 Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1968 Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata
1964 The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre
1962 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
1961 Bridge On the Drina by Ivo Andric
1958 Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
1957 The Plague by Albert Camus
1955 The Atom Station by Halldor Laxness
1954 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway
1953 History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill
1952 Knot of Vipers by Francois Mauriac
1949 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1948 The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
1947 The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
1946 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
1938 The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
1932 A Man of Property by John Galsworthy
1930 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1925 Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
1923 Collected Poems by W.B. Yeats
1921 And the Gods Will Have Blood by Anatole France
1907 Kim by Rudyard Kipling

UNREAD NOBEL WINNERS ON THE SHELVES

2012 Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
2008 The Interrogation by J.M.G. Le Clezio
2004 The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
2002 Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz
2000 Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
1999 The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
1996 Poems New and Collected by Wislawa Szymborska
1993 Jazz by Toni Morrison
1990 The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz
1989 The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela
1986 Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
1985 Flanders Road by Claude Simon
1981 Kafka's Other Trial by Elias Canetti
1978 Enemies : A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
1973 Voss by Patrick White
1971 The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda
1969 Molloy by Samuel Beckett
1966 A Book That Was Lost by S.Y. Agnon
1965 And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
1951 Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
1950 A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
1936 A Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
1934 Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
1933 The Village by Ivan Bunin
1929 Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
1928 Kristin Lavransdatter : 1 The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
1926 Reeds in the Wind by Grazia Deledda
1920 Hunger by Knut Hamsun
1913 He (Shey) by Rabindranath Tagore
1909 The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof

So far read 41 laureates
30 laureates unread on the shelves
37 laureates whose works neither owned not read.

Hi, Paul!

ETA I was trying hard to be first. It's quite an accomplishment in this series of threads!

WahHOO, I'm second!

Almost made it... must time my sleepless nights better

Before I forget: happy 9th!!! (can it be?) thread!

Only on thread #9!! Slacker! I am so glad you enjoyed the Yellow Birds. I read and loved it last summer and I am already thinking about a re-read.
One glaring film omission from '61: The Hustler! It is such a great film and Newman is outstanding.

Wow got here near the beginning of a thread not the end - that must be a record :)

Hope its a brilliant sunny reading day for you ( am sure megan will supply a cold one for you)

9th thread. Already? Wow.

Scarborough is on the coast? Why did I think it was inland? Oh well.

Our best local department store in Austin was Scarbrough's. Wonderful place to shop.

Hallo Hallo! New thread just in time, Paul, as I was getting woefully lost on the other one. Thanks for thinking of me. ;)

The picture up top is lovely. But do I see snow on the buildings? *brrr*

Roni - You Win! If you don't know the script the first up wins a book from my pals at Book Depository. PM me your address and I'll pick something out for you.

Mamie - No multiple winners of first up this year shows that sharing is caring. Hahaha.

Nathalie - I don't suppose it is too fair as it must be early hours in the morning over there.

Mark - Yikes you are right mate, I should not have overlooked 'The Hustler'. Completely forgot that one and I have little excuse as I have just ordered the book.

Alex - Not too bright out this morning in truth and I am expecting to spend most of it cooped indoors - in meetings, urggh.

Lori - Yep, way over 2000 posts already, LT is still heaving and in fact spiked back up again at the weekend. Amazing.

I'm still basking in my win from last year, Paul!

RD - Scarborough is indeed the Riviera of Yorkshire which is not saying too much in truth. Some of the coldest sea of any "resort" I have ever experienced. Very hilly too.

Kathy - hahaha you and me both. I don't think it is snow but it could be a frosty summer's morning!

*Hee hee!* I DO know the script, yes sirree, yes I do!

Mamie - I really enjoy the ordering of the books for my friends and I know the feeling myself of the joy of receiving that package and ripping it open to see what you've received. x

Roni - hahaha your exuberance makes my day!

Mine too! :D

Paul, what a beautiful photo at the top of your new (I can hardly believe it) thread.
I'm looking forward to all the wonderful discussions we will have here.

By the way, am I remembering correctly that your US Tour is scheduled for spring 2013?

Holy new thread Batman. You move fast Paul!

Enjoying your summaries of movies, music and books from the 60s. I haven't heard, seen, or read many of them but they are still fun!

Hi Paul!
Stopping in before I am 150 messages behind.
Nice picture of Scarborough :-)

Hi Paul. Happy New Thread!

That's a nice picture of Scarborough. It looks as good (in a different way) as the Malaysian beaches you posted before.

To celebrate, I thought I'd take over some of your duties for my birth year, Paul!

RETROSPECTIVE

From the Music Archives

Mule Train by Frankie Laine
That Lucky Old Sun by Frankie Laine
All I want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth by Spike Jones
Buttons and Bows by Dinah Shore
The Fat Man by Fats Domino

At the Movies

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
In the Good Old Summertime
The Inspector General
On the Town
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Samson and Delilah
All the King's Men
Little Women
I Was a Male War Bride

A selection of Books

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Beyond Earth's Gates by C. L. Moore
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Events

January: Communist forces enter Beijing
February: Death of a Salesman opens
March: Newfoundland joins Canada as 10th province
April: NATO treaty signed in Washington
May: Federal Republic of Germany is established
June: Rhesus monkey becomes first primate in space
July: Israel and Syria sign truce to end 19-month war
August: Bhutan becomes independent
September: Federal Republic of Germany founded.
October: People's Republic of China officially proclaimed
November: Indonesia is recognized
December: Sukarno elected president of Indonesia, Robert Menzies elected prime minister of Australia

Don't post the year once you figure it out, people, but let those who want puzzle it out. It's not that difficult. PM me if you want to comment on it.

Scarborough looks lovely at twilight, Paul!

I'm just hanging in waiting for my year, 1964, to magically appear in your thread!

Dang it, I can't ever get here first!

It isn't often that I am stumped by vocabulary, had to look this one up:

ombrophobous ɒmˈbrɒfəbəs adj (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Botany) (of plants) not able to tolerate wet conditions.

Ahem. Richard. I thought maybe you word smithed it, but it has a definition. Thanks for the addition to my vocab. I can think of so many uses...

And it reminded me (for some reason) of my daughter's spelling test from last week. She spelled the word tardiness as "tartyness" - again, so many uses.

Ooo - Roni - I've read 2 books off your list. King of the Wind - a childhood favorite, and 1984 - which I read in 1988.

To EBT: Referencing your post #269 on the previous thread. Yes, you MUST read Stranger in a Strange Land at some point. That book changed the way I see the world.

Not even close to first, but I am here sooner than 100 for a change.

Hi Paul, I'm catching up - great pictures of your meet-up and of your family on your last thread, not to mention the pretty scene on top of this thread.

Love your lists by year - especially that great year, 1959...

Hola Pablo!

Oh good grief! Thread Nine! Jeez!

>205 PaulCranswick: (last thread- give me a break, Im trying to be caught up here!)
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
huh? that was from 1961? I had no idea it was soooo oooold ;)

The Yellow Birds is definitely on my list to read/acquire soon. It sounds like a great account. Glad you loved it and YAY for a 4.5 star read, or 9 point read, or....well, you know!

Love the top shot, looks lovely, but not at all how I imagined the East Coast of England. Is that snow? Or just fairy dust?

Good grief!! Thread Nine post 41!!

Oh, and Roni - got the year! And a damn good one it must have been!

Lovely picture at the top Paul. I'm enjoying your lists. And struggling to keep up.

Kathy - hahaha. It is what you would call getting properly into the spirit of the competition!

Ellen - Thanks. I am having to await the movement or otherwise of my "anchor" projects in Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur before I can commit to dates for my trip.

Heidi - zap! pow! and kerplunk! Thanks. I see you have taken to the group like a bat to a cave. A great addition to our number I must say.

Cee - How far are you from Scarborough, Maine?

Pat - Thank you so much.

Nina - Scarborough can be, shall we say, bracing. Of the seaside locales on the east coast I would place it second to Whitby as a favourite of mine with Bridlington third. There is a coastal walk from Bridlington via Filey to Scarborough that is very healthy and extremely tiring.

Roni - Thanks for taking up the mantle, especially as I had rudely started a tad later than that!
I would of course have added The Sheltering Sky and The Man With the Golden Arm to your list of books but it is your list and not mine! x

Julia - A matter of three more small days to go!

Tina patience please my dear. I am hopeful that there will be one or two more threads before the year is out. x

Jenn - As I stated to RD I am still not convinced I fit his description that well! Reprehensible (often), a jackanape (still more often), ombrophobous (never, I am in my element in the rain - I think he was implying I am something of a dry stick but my wife always tells me I am wet!).
I have read the first two on Roni's list - 1984 in 1984 of course.

Es - I also have that on my TBR pile/ the groaning shelves and assorted nooks and crannies. Don't like the genre generally but I am told that with Heinlein it doesn't matter so much.

Anne - 37 is a good number. It was my top score in school cricket the year I captained Hemsworth Grammar school to a winning season.

Joanne - The good thing about those lists is that in most of them there is a film, book, musical record or event that strikes a chord with someone.

Roberta - I see you are ensconced in your spanish reading mode! Saya memang terima kalau orang jedi pandai baca buku dari banyak bahasa bahasa lain.

Prue - But it is slowing a little!

Bonnie - As am I my dear, as am I.

I've reviewed the newest Flavia de Luce cozy mystery, Speaking from Among the Bones, over in my thread...post #26.

It's the fifth one, and the series continues to charm. It's something I think even the ombrophobic Brit in you might like, Paul.

RD, I need to check that series out. If a dry stick can enjoy it that is.

UPDATE OF THREAD/POSTING LEAGUE (Over 300 Posts)

1 Paul (paulcranswick) 2148
2 Richard 1554
3 Mamie 1127
4 Mark 1041
5 Joe 987
6 Stephen (Ape) 808
7 Ellen (EBT) 769
8 Kath (Mckait) 719
9 Darryl 718
10 Nora 659
11 Megan 640
12 Diana (Wilkiec) 639
13 Amber 624
14 Caro 619
15 Katie (katiekrug) 527
16 Bianca 511
17 Leah (leahbird) 484
18 Linda (Whisper1) 463
19 Kathy (Unrulysun) 460
20 Claudia 459
21 Roni 453
22 TinaV95 450
23 Suzanne 434
24 Bonnie 424
25 Rachel (Hibernator) 382
26 Chelle 366
27 Rhian 360
28 Donna 358
29 Karen (maggie1944) 345
30 Pat 342
31 Kerri (DorsVenabili) 333
32 Peggy 327
33 Stasia 326
34 Morphy 316
35 Lucy (sibyx) 311
36 Deb 301

Hey Paul! A shiny new thread deserves a visit. Scarborough looks like one popping peninsula. I just google earthed it and Scarborough castle looks amazing. Another place to visit when my new jet is delivered.
Ack! it appears I've dropped out of the mighty thirty active threads.....must run off and respond to all my visitors individually :0) Have a good one!

A beautiful picture of Scarborough! Hooray on your #9, you're in a hurry :)

Lynda - thanks for stopping by. Another 2 places on the list would have found you (38th). Scarborough has a shabby charm that makes it well worth a visit.

Diana - I'm actually slowing down noticeably aren't I?

Lovely photo up top - I'm so enjoying traveling through your childhood!
I won't request that you feature my year of birth, as it would reveal me to be a mere child among impressive adults. *ahem*
There were some doozies in the film section that year (Jaws was #1 on the charts), and my all-time favorite Roald Dahl book was published then, too...

Hey Paul! I love the picture at the top of your thread. Perhaps you already did a quick review of the movie Life of Pi, but I was wondering how you liked it?

Paul, you are a delight! You provide me with some sort of food for thought, even if not very profound thought, every time I visit.

I noticed that when I was having a slump, I did fall off a bit in the posting league, as would be expected. Now I'm back in. But what should come to my mind: just who exactly do you measure. Is this everyone in LT, or just in the 75 books group?

I am planning on striving to improve. I just am not sure what improve might actually mean for me. I'll be thinking on it.

Oh well - I'll never be first to one of your threads:) They just move so fast!

Hope you and yours are having a good day.

What's this 4th spot business? Well, I'm back to work now, so I am sure I will settle back into my usual cozy location.

Amber - It looks like it willtake a bit of time to get to you then! I remember going to see Jaws with my Dad and brother on Christmas day and we being late to the cinema due to my having lost one of my Christmas presents already (an inkpen as I recall). By the time we got there a queue a hundred yards long had formed. We waitedan hour, inched towards the doors and were turned away as there were only three seats in separate parts of the theatre.

Brit - I loved it. Quirky certainly it was and somewhat slow to action but it remains my favourite film of the year so far.

Karen - I don't have the facilities or faculties to check up on the 1.5 million signed up to LT! The stats are from our own select little group.

Calm - If I get to another thread regeneration I will time it differently to give a chance to those sleeping at different times!

Mark - I think you are still the fastest moving thread at present mate. You and Joe are both amongst my absolute favourites in the group but there is a certain necessary synergy with a certain fellow at 5th!

18.

The Green Hat by Michael Arlen (Category Challenge : Between the Wars 1/13)

First published in 1924 and included in the original 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die this is a look at the London arty set through a segued eye. Iris Storm/March/Fenwick comes into the life of our narrator one evening as she visits her sot of a twin brother at his apartment. Iris of course sports a green hat and an intriguing air.

The prose is best described as dextrous. Wonderfully flowing and fluid but the whole fails somewhat for the want of a beliveable story and entirely unsympathetic characters.

Urbane and cynical with a repartee in dialogue which I dare say was completely of its time, I found much to admire in this novel but far too little to like.

7/10

I'm predicting third place for Mark. Go Mark! Go Mark!

Paul, about that picture of your coffee cups...

Mamie - I don't think Mark will pass you in truth. As Mark himself says Go! Mamie Go!

Promise picture as soon as I get Yasmyne in a good mood.

I felt the same way about the Arlen, but it sure hit some spot for folks in the twenties.

Lucy - and it is stuck a little bit in that age - a sort of british Great Gatsby with mildewed emotions.

Go Me! Go Me! Actually, I love all you guys, so the ranking doesn't really matter. It's fun keeping track though.

" a sort of british Great Gatsby with mildewed emotions" LOL! I LOVE that!

Go Mark! Go Mark!

Hi Paul!

I'm falling way behind in the posting league. I need to post more half-naked men!

Paul - this is straight off google translator so it is probably not the best translation of what I want to say.

kuasa mungkin dengan anda

que la fuerza esté con usted

For my ally is the Force – and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you: here. Between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship. Master Yoda

Nora- At least you'll get RD over there more often.

Nice pix of Scarborough. We usually took the A1 up to Newcastle (the Twyne Tunnel) and then followed smaller roads up to Edinburgh along the coast, so we missed Whitby and Scarborough. We liked very much Eyemouth further North. That was a lovely little town.

1962 RETROSPECTIVE

MUSIC
1. The Sound of Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash
2. Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
3. Sinatra and Strings - Frank Sinatra
4. Crying - Roy Orbison
5. Let's Face the Music and Dance - Shirley Bassey
6. Coltrane - John Coltrane
7. I Left My Heart in San Francisco - Tony Bennett
8. Ornette! - Ornette Coleman
9. Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music - Ray Charles
10. Just Jummy Reed - Jimmy Reed

1962 at the movies

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Longest Day
3. The Birdman of Alcatraz
4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
5. To Kill a Mocking Bird
and
6. Dr. No

1962 in Books
1. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
2. Another Country by James Baldwin
3. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
4. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
5. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
6. The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
7. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
8. Room at the Top by John Braine
9. The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm
10 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

EVENTS
January - An attempt to assassinate Sukharno of Indonesia narrowly fails
February - John Glenn becomes the first american to orbit the earth.
March - Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in one NBA basketball game
April - JK Galbraith's proposes peace/de-escalation proposals for Vietnam backed by Kennedy but later undermined Assistant Sec of State Harriman.
May - Coventry Cathedral is consecrated.
June - William Jefferson Blythe becomes Bill Clinton
July - William Faulkner dies
August - Nelson Mandela is incarcerated the day after Marilyn Monroe dies
September - The Beatles record their first single "Love Me Do"
October - Cuban missile crisis (ironically the same month as the first Bond movie was released)
November - Another Kennedy (Teddy) is elected to public office, as Senator in Ma
December - Vail Ski resort opened but sans snow and only a handful of customers

Worried there for a minute - but I have read one on your list - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And a good read it was, too. The Solzhenitsyn is in my pile, as is the Bradbury. Just haven't got to them.

Haha re ombrophobus. Living where you do, it would be unfortunate if you were.

Hi Paul,
Scarborough, Maine is about 50 miles south of here, I believe.
We pass through it a lot on the highway - but rarely stop.
We have gone canoeing in the marshes - that was fantastic fun!

Here's a long shot of our Scarborough:

Mark - I started keeping the record last year safe in the knowledge that I was safely tucked into the pack only to finish embarrasingly at the top and now this thing has legs and I can't stop! Love seeing posts on my thread and I thoroughly enjoying responding to every message but, quite right, who gets the most posts is immaterial really.

Mamie - Always pleased to place smiles on faces instead of frowns.

Nora - It could be the lull before another storm though couldn't it? Last time you had Canadian hunks which I guess is finite in number. Go British and you'll find a bigger population gets results!

Roberta - The Force Be With You - mmm just about I suppose!

Mark - hahaha - I will also take a peek to see what I need to cut away do to match up to the pin-ups.

Paul - I haven't been to Eyemouth myself but have heard good things about it.

Jenn - Yes fear of the rain would send me turtle like under a shell near permanently here. I have read 6 of the 10 listed.

Cee - Thanks for that - not quite polar opposites as they are both on the coast but the UK's is hilly whilst Maine's looks flat. The marshes sound fun and Fenland like.

There's just nothing bad about that 1962 music list, Paul. You have excellent taste (which is to say, it agrees with mine). :-)

At least I've read a couple of the books — 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Both first-rate. There are some others on that list that I should read someday.

>71 PaulCranswick:: thank you Paul! Great list.
February - John Glenn becomes the first american to orbit the earth. Family legend has it this kept my grandmother from visiting her daughter and newly-born granddaughter (me) in hospital.

1962 - graduated from Roosevelt High School, just had our 50th reunion last summer, it was fun.

South Africa was talked about in our high school, in Seattle, and the description of what apartheid was and how it affected people is very much what started my life long desire to fight racism it all it guises.

And I also remember Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain. I believe he had attended Seattle University before he began to play pro ball. The beginning of a life long love of basketball.

Thanks, again, for the strolls down the past.

Hi mate, a cracking photo of Scarborough to start thread 9, have had some happy times there and if memory serves me right there are a couple of good secondhand book shops there. My copy of A Suitable Boy was 1474 pages long and at one point i didn't think i'd ever finish it. Following your stats report i must see how many pages i have to read on my TBR pile.

I love that film list for '62. All classics and "Lawrence" is one of my all-time favorites. And Liberty Valance is a top western for me. I've also read 3 books off the list. A good visionary year. Not bad for me.

Hey there stats king! I can't believe how fast this thread moves!!! :)

Loved Lawrence of Arabia - one of my all time favorites. I remember my father taking me to see it years later when it was sent around to theatres a second time. And I've actually read half of the books on the '62 list. Giving Tuchman's The Guns of August the edge (slight) over Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I read last year for the first time. Coming up dry on the music - am not a giant music person. When I listen to anything it's usually the classics on MPR (makes me sound like such a poop) and I have a lot of Celtic stuff. Probably the ol' Quaker heritage coming out in me.

Addition: August 1962 Hermann Hesse died

>46 PaulCranswick:: Stranger in a Strange Land has some great philosophy and isn't overly sciency, like some of Robert A. Heinlein's books can get.

#78 Maggie 1944
Wilt Chamberlain played his college ball in Kansas at KU (The University of Kansas - Jayhawks). KU is the "Other" school in Kansas. The one down the river and it is always better to be upriver than down.

Starting in August 2013 Mark is going to get all of his Saturday's off as the United States Post Office is going to stop delivering mail on Saturday. This is a slow slide to no postal delivery at all. I am disconsolate.

Benita- I am not happy either! Our union is outraged.

It might be a "message" to Congress. Do something! Before August!

Julia - I am rather proud of my music collection in truth and have some difficulty in culling the numbers to ten for each year. I like pretty much everything except techno and thrash and there wasn't too much of that about in 1962!

Laura - So instead of "God speed John Glenn" it should have been..........Your entrance has more significance to the group than his orbit.

Karen - I don't really go a bundle on american sports (other than my ill-fated efforts to will the Bears to glory this last season) but I know that it is talked about reverently on ESPN when one of the giants gets 50 points in a game, so I figured 100 was well worth recording.

John - I don't recall any book shopping in Scarborough before. Mainly because I have been devoid of pocket money at such times. I do recall a lake there though that used to carry out mock naval battles and was fascinating.

Mark - Peter O'Toole is a Leeds boy, although you couldn't tell that from his accent and so I am biased in his favour. It is a majestic film though. If I had to choose the film I most enjoyed though it would be Liberty Valance tied with the first Bond movie. Goosebumps still as Ursula Andress comes out of the ocean.

Tina - It is down to all of you keeping it ticking over nicely I am only the facilitator!

Charlotte - I also have a decent classical music collection but the composers are, I think, all long ago dead. Most people will know my love of celtic music too.

Paul -I think I was right in going with Nelson Mandela. Hermann Hesse as some will know is my least favourite author in Christendom!

Es - Must read that one soon. Sciency does not appeal overly I must say so that is a relief to know.

Benita / Mark/Karen - No mail on Saturdays, is that civilised?

Yes, and if no one is harmed, I think closing stores, banks, etc. etc on Saturday and Sunday could be a good thing. Maybe people would go bowling again.

OK, I googled Seattle University basketball and find that the famous player of the 1950s was Elgin Baylor. I stand corrected, happily. I did think it was Wilt, the Stilt, for all these years, but now I know.

I would LOVE to go back to nothing open on Sunday, Christmas, Thanksgiving... Wouldn't it be nice, religious views aside, to have 1 day a week that could just be quiet?

I am undecided on the effect of the USPS not delivering on Saturday. As a small business owner who often ships on a deadline, this could mess things up on other days of the week too...

Just quick shout out for Seattle U - that's where I (and most of my family) went to law school!

Hi There...I enjoy your lists.

Did you like the movie Les Miserables. I liked it so much that I saw it twice.

>91 nittnut: They will still be delivering packages on Saturdays. So I would imagine small businesses would be fine.

>94 brenzi: What worries me is that there may be delays, so if a package is shipped Thursday, when it would have arrived on Saturday, it now arrives Monday or Tuesday. Know what I mean? I guess if the processing remains the same, but they are just cutting hours of delivery, overall, it may work fine.
I can always go with FedEx. :)

Phew! I don't know how you keep posting all the fun birth year trivia and keep up with your thread and your reading, not to mention work...

I just posted 1972 over on my thread - http://www.librarything.com/topic/147106#3897202 - since it's my birthday. Love to see what books/music you own from 1972 :)

There is talk down here of reducing postal delivery to three days a week - I hope the idea will be shot down .......

Hi Paul, just cruising through while I catch up on some of threads this evening. February has turned into a busy month for me in RL and I've had to curtail my time on LT. You seem to be as busy as ever and if Mark hadn't already put it on my wishlist, your review of Yellow Birds would certainly have landed it there.

Most days I get the "mail" and it all goes straight into the recycling. Not a lot to miss I"m thinking.

Hi Paul,
*not saying anything about you missing my last post*

#41

*not a thing*

You are so busy!
Lawrence Arabia is a guy who makes music from NZ, his stage name anyway. And so often presenter miss-say it as Lawrence of Arabia. I always chuckle. And then again as I go ahead and type it wrong, as Lawrence of Arabia. Duh! An easy mistake it seems. :)

I'd love to see the film, but have yet to get on to that.

The film I really want to see next is Forbidden Planet- the first film to have a completely electronic musical score- as talked about in a doco about Kraftwerk that me and my lovely other (and a friend) watched last week.

Hej Paul,
you are right about going for Mandela and not Hesse ... I just had the feeling I had to add something 'Swiss' to the list... :) I read several pieces by Hesse (well, some I had to) and I don't like his works. His use of German is good, but what he writes doesn't touch me.

Not sure that hourly paid employees will necessarily be happy at having their hours reduced but their workloads maintained Karen. Public services always seem to be compromised in the name of cost savings.

Jenn - I "religiously" don't work on Sundays which is family day and I religiously visit a book store of my choice on Friday lunchtimes! The post is essential and everyday bar Sunday is a must surely.

Brit - I studied at Warwick in Coventry, England and externally in London. The former a great place to be in the 80's the latter still in the ether largely.

Linda - I did indeed enjoy Les Mis despite some of the singing! I thought in particular that Anne Hathaway's rendition of I Dreamed a Dream was very emotionally splendid.

Bonnie - Mail is delivered normally here on Saturdays but I seem to recall that Saturday has no post in England (I may be mis-remembering)

Jenn - Loved your lists (which I jumped across to study immediately). 1972 is special for me as it was the only time my soccer club has ever won the English FA Cup.

Alex - Three days a week!! My goodness we shouldn't complain about the post over here then.

Judy - I am also swimming against the tide in the last week or so barely keeping up with my own thread and struggling to contribute as much as I would like to others. The weekend and a long holiday (Chinese new year) is coming.

Reba - I have Belle sorting the junk mail at home and she seems to do a splendid job.

Megan - Yikes, it is not like me to miss a post......a thousand apologies. I can see that Prue posted twice and I missed out between her posts. That must also therefore require a similar apology to Reba.
I think the photo maybe showing frost but I'm not a hundred per cent sure.
I have seen Lawrence of Arabia and read the fellows extremely cumbersome opus. It was actually the first library book I bought - by default as I left it out in the rain one day - three quarter read - and had to buy it in consequence.
I haven't seen Forbidden Planet yet either. x

Paul - relieved that he is not your author of choice as I try not to be too critical of authors normally. Hesse is an exception though as he has a tendency to irritate me splendidly.

I think the 5 day delivery proposition will hurt the post office in many ways. They say it will save lots of money but I think the damage will be irreparable. The union is furious. Many job positions will be lost.

I agree, Mark. I don't think that they are thinking creatively enough. I'm glad Grandpa did not live to see this day.

Mark - I agree with you mate; it is a poor idea -how effective is your union?

Charlotte - Was your Grandpa a postie?

I need to write a book in which I build a world where everyone only works, let's see, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week and happily makes do with less income by eschewing the purchase of nonsensical stuff like plastic toys for the kids which break the second day they are in the house. Everyone knows that going for long walks is more entertaining than sitting in front of gargantuan TV screens and watching inane TV shows. No one watches sports on TV because they are too busy practicing the skills to play the sports themselves. And on and on and on......

Ah, a girl can dream, eh?

Paul, I mostly lurked on your last thread as I was busy taking care of three of my grandchildren. I was just too tired to do much posting...or reading for that matter. I'm surprised that I kept my #28 position. I owe thanks to my loyal readers. Btw, it was lovely to see the picture of you and Prue together. You are fortunate to have so many meetups.

Not caught up.. but beautiful photographs here ! Made me smile.. Thanks Paul and Cee!

1963 Retrospective

From my music collection

1. Please Please Me - The Beatles
2. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
3. This is the Ian Campbell Folk Group - The Ian Campbell Folk Group
4. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - Charles Mingus
5. Monk's Dream - Thelonious Monk
6. Impressions - John Coltrane
7. Night Beat - Sam Cooke
8. Night Train - Oscar Peterson
9. If You Need Me - Solomon Burke
10 Blood, Sweat and Tears - Johnny Cash

1963 at the Movies
1. Hud
2. The Great Escape
3. The Birds
4. This Sporting Life
5. Tom Jones
and From Russia With Love (my favourite Bond)

1963 a selection of books

1. V. by Thomas Pynchon
2. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea by Yukio Mishima
3. The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson
4. Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King
5. The Graduate by Charles Webb
6. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
7. The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris West
8. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
9. The Living Reed by Pearl Buck
10. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Events of 1963

January - Possibly the greatest of American poets Robert Frost dies
February - Harold Wilson becomes Britains Labour leader following the death of Hugh Gaitskell.
March - The Beatles' first LP is released as Alcatraz closes.
April - The Aldermaston marches take place against nuclear weapons (25 years later Paul worked there for a spell)
May - The first diet coke drink is sold
June - Kennedy makes his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech
July - Sonny Liston pound Floyd Patterson in one of the most ill-advised re-matches ever.
August - MLK says "I Have A Dream"
September - The first X-men comic issued
October - The formation of the Lamborghini motor company
November - JFK is assassinated as is Oswald and LBJ becomes President
December - Frank Sinatra Jr is kidnapped

The Birds had me terrified of birds for years!

Karen - 6 hours a day 5 days a week is hellishly civilised so long as the rates of pay allow plenty of book buying. Karen for President!

Donna - I noticed on your thread that your delightful Grandkids were occupying your time (and justly so) but you will always get plenty of visits with your good sense and charming reviews. Prue was great company and I have been so lucky to have met with three wonderful ladies thus far - Caro (twice), Megan and Prue.

Kath - Always happy to hear you smile dear lady. x

Kath - There is a petrol stop on the highway here between KL and Johor Bahru that has literally thousands of raucous birds in residence. I avoid the place like the plague as I saw a woman there the first time I went to fill gas who was the spitting image of Tippy Hedren - I kid you not.

Oh and trivia... my father who ran away from home in 1963, and disappeared was questioned in the Frank Sinatra case. He was a witness, because the kidnappers stopped at a gasoline station where he was working at the time. ( on one of his infrequent periods out of the military).

Someone saw the info in a news magazine and told my mom, but he went back into the military and was once again hidden away.. ( they did that then.. refused to give my mom info, so he never paid a dime in child support. He stayed in the military and hid until I found him again when I was 22. Then off he went. It was a fair chase for years.Finally, when my kids were grown.. he gave up his running and we became closer)

Kath - What a brilliant story! My own father has done his disappearing acts too on several occasions - my brother for one I'm sure wishes he had never reappeared.

Oops. I missed being here for '62, the year I graduated from high school and started college. I'm fairly up to date on both books and movies. I do so remember being terrified during that Cuban Missile Crisis that we were all going to be blown up, and I was going to die without being able to see my parents again, being still home-sick and unable to leave college.
And, Scarborough! Branwell and Anne Brontë accompanied the Robinson family, for whom they both worked, to Scarborough for part of every summer with varying degrees of pleasure.

My local rural post office has been cut to 6 hours a day, Mon - Friday. I think all this cutting of postal services stinks. The US government should take some of the money we throw away on other things and put it into the postal service.

Well, then I won't let this one go by without adding that '63 was the year I graduated from h.s. and started college. I was sitting in calculus class at UCLA when we learned that JFK had died.

#106 - Yes, Paul, he was. He was an RFD carrier in Westport, MA from approximately 1916 til about 1957. And his name was - Mark!

I don't like the non-delivery on Saturday's. I think it will hurt everybody. The Post Office was one business on which I could depend. It was voted as THE most trusted business in the U. S.

And before I get hollered at - it is a business. It is not a government institution anymore. It is a business and must turn a profit. That is the law. (I am sure Mark could explain it better.) It ceased being a government agency about 30 years ago. Most people don't know that and think it is another example of government inefficiency when it is a prime example of the deleterious effects of governmental interference. If it were still a government agency nobody would care if it was going broke. However, since it isn't, and it MUST save money, there is no choice but to cut the hours of operation and raise the rates.

I could go on for hours about the Post Office because like #117 Cobscook, I grew up in a rural area and we depend - DEPEND! - on the post office. It was the only place in town with a copy machine for many years. It is now gone, and the post office is only open 6 hours a day. The other delivery options only deliver on an as needed basis. As, whenever they have enough to load a truck, because fuel is too expensive to deliver everyday. Rural areas have been on short rations from UPS, and Fed Ex for years. In our little corner of Kansas UPS delivers three days a week. How would you like to be a car repair shop, plumber, or electrician and try to deal with that? Most of those supplies come into our community via the Post Office because, guess what, the Post Office has a contract with UPS to deliver packages everyday. I'll bet that even with the "delivery of packages on Saturday" clause in this announcement, that rural areas won't get packages delivered on Saturday.

OK, I have vented enough. I entered my 2,000th book today into LT. It's a milestone.

Congrats on your 2,000 book!

Agree with you about rural areas being short-changed. Won't be long, I suppose, before the "solution" proposed for rural folks, if they want their mail, will be for them to be required to hitch up the buckboard/car to make a once weekly visit to wherever to fetch their own mail home. How quickly we fly backward!

We had to drive 6 miles to get our mail, or to send something out. If we had a large package, we had to drive another 12.

Well, just to be clear, what the USPS is proposing is to stop letter delivery on Saturdays only. Packages and (I think) priority mail would still be delivered on Saturdays. There's still quite an impact on folks, though.

Part of the financial problems of the Post Office are not of their own making. Even though they are an independent business, Congress imposed a requirement that they prefund their pension fund to the tune of multibillions a year. This New York Times article explains the problem.

Privatizing the Post Office needs to be undone. It was a bad idea then and the chickens are now coming home to roost.

Privatizing services is code for "handing over public assets for private profiteering" and needs to be reversed completely. Nationalizing the banks would be a good start. Oil companies too.

Peasholm park mate for the boating lake and it has now been done up so that it is back to being the jewel in Scarborough's crown. I haven't been for awhile as Whitby has been the visiting destination of late but having a granddaughter who is two at the end of the month it would be a crime not to introduce her to the delights of the premier Yorkshire resort.

Peggy - I wasn't around then but reading up on the year I was surprised at just how confrontational everything seemed to be.
The Brontes didn't seem to benefit too much from the salt air of Scarborough did they? That damp home of theirs at Haworth was neither conducive to the good of their health or that of English literature.

Heidi - In the UK every village had a post office when I was younger but I don't know in truth whether that is still the same. Malaysia does not have a series of Post Offices per se.

Reba - I have often seen it said that most people remember where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. I am the same with John Lennon and distinctly remember hearing it on the radio whilst getting ready for school and blubbering all the way to class.

Charlotte - I take it that there are no regulations in the US Postal service that preference be given to the appointment of Marks. x

Benita - Always happens when services are commercialised doesn't it? Bus services required to turn a profit? - rural services get cut. Libraries not making money? - close down the one's serving the fewest and do away with the wonderful mobile services. Typical. Nationalised car, steel, shipbuilding and mining industries are less profitable than before? - close them down and buy cheap shite from the developing world where they "compete" by having child labour and no welfare and we "benefit" from cheaper goods at the expense of paying 4 million of our citizens not to bother working. Congratulations on your 2,000th book!

Charlotte - Once we are only motivated by profit the notion of service is automatically secondary.

Kathy - I suppose not everyone can be close to a post office but 12 miles is quite a hike!

Jim - I think that it is the start of the slippery slope though isn't it that has all so aggravated? Nice to see you here by the way mate.

Rebecca - Thanks for the link. Looks like they are up the proverbial shit creek! When businesses are "privatised" their pension plans often become an issue of default.

RD - We agree on this. I have moved a little more centrist than in my early 20's but I don't see the point in having our people idle whilst goods and services that could be provided by our own populace are outsourced because they are at first sight cheaper elsewhere. The banks, oil companies, steel, motor, ship companies, water, power, gas and other public utilities should be working for all of us not a few ne'er do wells sitting on a board in a darkened smoke-filled room.

John - Peasholm Park; that's it mate I had forgotten the name in actual fact. I too prefer Whitby and its Transylvanian delights.

Wow! Lots of P.O talk. The office was buzzing today too! Benita is correct. The USPS has been private since, I think '72. No government funding. And Jim is also correct about the plan to stop letter & flat delivery on Saturday but priority parcels will be delivered.
Rebecca brought up something, very few people know. We are in debt from trying to pre-fund our retirement for the next 75 years, that's 5 billion a year. This was a law passed in '07. Another big thanks to George W. We've been steadily in the red since.

Paul- We have a good union but like all unions in the US, they are losing their bite. We'll see how they battle on this Saturday issue.

19. V by Tony Harrison - Category Challenge Poetry and Plays 3/13

This long poem was started and finished in one sitting. Very controversial in its day in the 1980's for its somewhat overbearing use of expletives Leeds poet Tony Harrison's accessible verse at times sparkles at other times clunks.

Updating Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard this is more a polemic in a City Churchyard. Harrison visits the grave of his parents in Beeston cemetary overlooking the football ground and is distressed and angered to find graffiti from disgruntled football fans daubed over many of the gravestones.

Race, the Miner's strike, inner city decay and immigration are all thrown into his anguish but some of the verses are heavy handed at best.

Where Gray wrote ethereally from his post:

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Harrison was more matter of fact:

If buried ashes saw then I'd survey
the places I learned Latin, and learned Greek,
and left, the ground where Leeds United play
but disappoint their fans week after week

The subject matter took me to the end quite quickly and parts of it are actually very good but it is too repetitive and the excess of expletives are over done and a little gratingly gratuitous after a while.

The second half of the book is given over to a record of the debate and dispute about the reading of the poem being aired on british television. I was pleased to see that Bernard Levin, Joan Bakewell and Melvyn Bragg, all of whom I admire as writers, journos and broadcasters were supportive. It deserved support too but unfortunately was insufficiently good poetry to be remembered too much beyond the local stir it caused.

6/10

Mark - Good luck to you mate. Having my own pension I don't really understand the nuances of institutional or corporate ones. Seems a guarantee of pension is a good thing but not if the result thereof is to put your very jobs at risk.

Hi Paul. Your threads are moving at a fast clip as usual! Love your opening photo!

It would have been unlawful, if they had tried to force any other private corporation into pre-funding that much. It was an outrage and most of us did not even know about it, until it had passed.

Chelle - Thanks my dear. I am feeling pretty bad for not being able to visit too many threads this busy week but I have the weekend and a holiday coming to catch up properly.

Mark - Bush and his cohorts didn't have a lot of time for or understanding of the working man.

Has anybody here read the Stuart MacBride books? The U. S. publisher is making a big deal out of him and touting him as a really good mystery writer. They are releasing all of his books, previously published in the UK, in the U. S. starting in March. Should put other things aside and start reading them now?

Not to hijack Paul's thread but I want to thank everyone who contributed to my increased understanding of how the PO works in the US. I can't believe that I didn't know the postal service is not a government agency!

Every day I learn something new from LT!

>127 PaulCranswick:: My mom always talks about knowing where she was when JFK was shot. I missed the Lennon shooting, because I wasn't born until '81, and I somehow missed the significance of Cobain's death in '94. However, my generation knows exactly where we were when we heard about the Twin Towers on 9/11. I even remember things my dad said on the phone to me that morning and how everyone was gathered around every possible TV on campus... people were opening their apartments to crowds of strangers so they could share their televisions.

Adding Stranger in a Strange Land to my must-read list.

EBT: Good! I highly recommend it :)

The Post Office prefunding the pension obligations for the 21st century was a timebomb meant to go off and force Shrub's successor to finish whittling the service down to uncompetitive levels, assuring the private vultures get the pick of the profitable services and earning their scumbag bosses more and more of the public's money.

Worked a treat, didn't it, because Murrikins is so effin' stupid they think gummint is bay-ud.

Preach It!

127, 138. The older you are, the more shocking events you remember and where you were!

Until you begin to forget it all......

Rdear, you took the words out of my keyboard. JFK, RFK, MLK, what a terrible time.
Losing Lennon was bad, but even though personal security has so far stopped public figures from dying brutally, the availability of semi automatic weapons and assault rifles and huge clips have allowed plenty of others to die. Then 9/11 and more... humans are often vile.

Benita - I have read quite a few of the Logan McRae books by Stuart MacBride and they are excellent I must say.

Heidi - Hijacking is fine over here! I have been an absent landlord for the whole day in any event. Had to go to the bank and make some urgent payments to my chinese contractors with Chinese New Year upon us and then off to a Government Agency MARA which is tasked with developing human capital for the nation. They have agreed to take up a minority stake with us and an American company from Kansas regarding aerospace parts manufacturing. So we gladhanded with the Director General took photos and signed documents. Then in the afternoon off to one of my more troublesome clients who seems to think it is pefectly ok to have us do work without being paid for it. Finally back into town and a traffic jam to end all traffic jams. Did find an hour for the bookstore which I had to walk to in the heat of the midday from MARA's office (a 25 minute walk in full suit and I was wringing wet when Halim managed to finish his prayers and pick me up). More of that later.

Es - Certainly the 9/11 tragedy was one where we all remember where we were when watching it.

Ellen - Stranger in a strange land was me this afternoon walking through the humid city streets towards my bookstore destiny.

RD - It is strange isn't it that in Western Europe the need for the government to provide welfare and public services especially to those most needful became a pillar of our societies. We see America as a benevolent society yet its own idea of government is one that gets the hell out of the way.

Rebecca/Maggie - Both of you are quite right! I wonder when I am likely to become forgetful or whether I have forgotten already.

Kath - Quite clearly that period of the 60's it was best not to admit to three initials! It is especially sad that some of the terrible things done by man to man are often in the misguided guise of religion!

As I have stated above I had to walk 25 minutes in entirely unsuitable clothing to keep my date with Kino.

To treat myself for making the effort I had a double my usual Friday helping:

1. The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Englemann
2. Victorian Literature by Beth Palmer
3. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
4. The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva
5. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
6. 1066 by Peter Rex
7. The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk
9. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
10. The Blackhouse by Peter May
11. Journey Into Cyprus by Colin Thubron
12. Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Nice book haul. Enjoy your weekend my friend.

Thanks Roberta - I hope to get caught up tomorrow morning (my time)

Oh, some wonderful stuff in the double haul! What, you're now in an aerospace parts manufacturing consortium? Consulting engineer still, or are you going to get to machine the propellers?! That would be so cool!

Nice haul, Paul. I'm trying to hold off on purchasing books because I have a huge stash, but I'm probably going to indulge myself soon.

#141

Richard - I so agree with you. Government that works for the people and with the people is a wonderful thing. It builds things and people and makes life easier for all. A government full of people of work only for themselves or their special group doesn't work at all. That is not to say that sometimes government makes bad decisions - like the banking bills that came out of the Carter Administration that negated all the hard work of the FDR administration when it fixed the same problem in the 1930's, but ... I guess I am still an old school New Englander at heart. By that I mean that kind of thinking where a community believes that if you raise one person you raise the whole community.

I don't know if the books I picked up are the Logan McRae series, so will check. Thanks for the info.

Yes indeed Benita...protect one and all are safer; lift one and all are higher. What amazes me is the sheer prevalence of fools saying "*I* don't use welfare/food stamps/SSI so why should I pay for *them* to have it?"

You don't need it. Now. But the point of a safety net is for it to be there for when any of us fall...as we all do, someday.

Nice haul, Paul. Glad you're back in form.

>113 PaulCranswick: LOL
My friend (the same one who was to rescue me from the clutches of you and your family on our meetup, Paul) has a bird thing.
She once leapt into the arms of a stranger who was sharing a park bench with her, as a bird swooped to grab her sushi!

>138 Esquiress: However, my generation knows exactly where we were when we heard about the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Yup. I'd say that too. Even though I was born way before you, I was too young for Lennon, and never liked Nirvana and thought him an irresponsible father for killing himself. But 9/11 was huge.
My mum talks the same way about JFK.

I feel old seeing you folks talking about your mothers remembering JFK! Of course, I was right here in NYC for 9/11.

Nice load of books there, Paul! And, ummm... you've got all sorts of politics going on in here... are you okay?? :p Hope your weekend treats you well!

Hi Paul, Whitby is great and Endeavour books is a good place to spend a while and a few pennies. I like your book haul, the only one i've read is Doctor Thorne and i enjoyed it, my copy was from the Thirties part of the small pocket hardback books that came out with wafer thin pages, the Oxford,Collins and Bodley Head publications, i have quite a collection of these.
Have a good weekend mate.

P.S. have you heard about the HS2 rail plans that have come out, Cold Heindley, Walton and Normanton/Altofts are in the firing line with it due to pass within yards of Charles Waterton's grave in Walton Hall woods, a lot of people not happy about this and Wakefield gets no benefit from this.

>158 rebeccanyc:: Sorry to make you feel old :)

Paul, The Man in the High Castle??? Classic science fiction, to be sure, but not something I think would encourage you to read more in the genre.

>130 msf59:--Mark--My understanding is that the PO would NOT be in financial trouble except for that requirement that it fund its pension for 75 years in advance. No other agency (or private company) has to do that, and it is thought (by progressives at least) that the intent of the 2007 law was to set the post office up for failure.

I do remember specifically where I was when I learned of the assassination of JFK (as well as RFK and MLK), and when I heard about 9/11. I don't specifically recall the circumstances or specifics of where I was when I heard of John Lennon's shooting. Kurt Cobain shot himself here in Seattle, so I remember that pretty well.

I'm here, mostly just read the reviews..... V sounds like an interesting read.

Hi Paul. Just trying to stay caught up. Hope you're having a great weekend.

RD, Any double haul obviously includes a short story collection. Raymond Carver is one of the giants of the genre but one I shamefully must admit to have never read.
Aircraft parts manufacturing - well here's the thing I have a lot of friends from the old BAE Systems (British Aerospace Engineering) and have shamlessly utilised these connections over the last five years to develop a portfolio of work in aviation related projects to the extent that now locally I am mistakenly taken as an expert in the field and was approached to join the consortium. Very exciting but I did get a funny luck from one of the participants (a scot based in Wichita) that I was not interested in developing a sweatshop over here to allow simply cheaper manufacture.

Lori - that sounds like me too - too many books and trying to control; it's just that I am not very good at control.

Benita - I grew up as a committed socialist but one who should probably now be committed! I have amended my views over the years and don't think that there is anything wrong with entrepreneurship and wanting to turn a profit but there is and always will be a need to give something back and for society to care for those amongst it who genuinely need its help.
I think most of the MacBride books are in the Logan MacRae series; the first being Cold Granite.

RD - I am blessed to have my own small company and I start from there in thinking that all within it are part of a larger family and that as Big Uncle I have some responsibility to take care of them all. When my three terrors at home are getting cocky I will take them to one of the local orphanages so that they can see that daddy doesn't waste quite all his money on books.

Reba - I feel in form with two extra days of holiday coming up.

Megan - It is funny isn't it that too many birds together can be quite scary.
I would also have to say that I don't put Cobain on a par with JFK, RFK, MLK, Lennon or the Twin Towers. I remember Lennon because I idolised him and, born in 66 I don't remember the first three but the 9/11 events have changed the world as we all know it.

Rebecca - As a child of the sixties (albeit an infant one) I do feel a bit twixt and between sometimes.

Kathy - hahaha I'm fine; politics will always rear its head sometimes as it is part and parcel of our lives. Does bug me somewhat when crass decisions made by people not affected by those decisions influence negatively so many lives, especially when they're pals like Mark.

John - Whitby is a great place to visit; but my God all those steps! My version of Doctor Thorne is one of the new Penguin 100 English Classics series and beautifully designed.
I think the country needs far more effective rail and public transportation generally as an effort of helping those unable to upkeep vehicles, to take account of dwindling fuel stocks and to be aware that there are too many cars on the roads. This needs to be by improving the network and making the rail systems more available to all the populace as it used to be and by also having high speed links between the main population centres. It is concentrating on the glamorous latter whilst overlooking the needful former.

Es - Hahaha; you've made me feel medium!

Roni - I thought of you when I decided to see if it was on the shelves. I came across it sifting through lists of books for 1962 and thought the concept a great one.

Sounds simple Deborah doesn't it - repeal the pension requirements, have a well functioning and non-loss making PO and we can all keep the Saturdays.

Lucy - It is a very Yorkshire kind of read in many ways with its reference to the football club, some of it in dialect and some of the locales. It is a patchy work I would say but parts of it are good and it is fun to declaim the thing aloud especially if, like I, you can do so in a West Yorks accent.

Pat - lovely to see you. Will let you know about the weekend. Flopped out exhausted yesterday and today is just starting!

Hi Paul, I tried to catch up, but my energy is quickly waning and the couch is calling my name softly, where I long to snuggle up with Coco and a book, so will just wish you a very nice weekend for now. xx

My mother was a very lacquered kind of woman, put together and accessorized and painted elegantly. She wasn't too terribly warm, and unless she was shrieking at my father (or me, after we left California), not prone to emotional displays.

When JFK was assassinated, my ultrasupercool mother ran into the TV room shouting and making a racket. I had NO idea what the fuss was, but once I figured out it was something on TV, I watched the news with her jumping up and down and shouting OH MY GOD OH MY GOD NO OH MY GOD which marked the first time I'd ever heard her swear!

It was the most memorable day of my early childhood, next to the day I threw my bottle out the window of the car as we drove to Arcata.

Ilana - Same to you my dear; I'll be along to check on you in due course.

RD - Nice images of you as a perplexed son and beared baby throwing out the bottle from the car.

>166 PaulCranswick: Paul that is a great idea to take your kids to the orphanage. When my brother and I were 9 & 10 we used to complain that we were poor. Much had to do with my dad leaving and our lifestyle not quite as extravagant as it used to be. I grew up on the Mexican border. My mom arranged for us to spend the weekend across the border with our housekeeper. She worked with our family for years, even before we were born. It was eye opening. Their lives were so humble but they thought they were living high on the hog because most of the family had some kind of income. I remember going to the bathroom and instead of toilet paper they used torn bits of newspaper. They didn't have doors but had sheets hung to give them privacy. The family were content to spend time together. I was humbled and ashamed to ever think we were poor. Having a housekeeper should have been a clue. LOL!

Arcata? As in Arcata, California?

Indeed, Ren, that was where we spent a few weeks in every summer when it got hot in Los Gatos. Dad had already redeveloped the San Francisco home that my mother detested.

Roberta - Nice story. My kids are not too bad most of the time but I think of all the conveniences that they took for granted and the ease with which they get money out of their old man compared to my growing up and I have to keep giving them the occasional reminders.

Ren/RD - Impressed because I have never heard of the place.

Paul, I'd accidentally unstarred your thread and now am so behind! Interesting to hear your story about seeing Jaws on Christmas Day. I don't remember cinemas ever being open on Christmas Day. When I was a child I remember my mother being extremely dubious that I wanted to go to the cinema on a Sunday - I don't remember ever being allowed to go on Sundays until I was an older teenager and had more autonomy. It wasn't even as if she was a churchgoer. Oh and on the subject of Saturday deliveries - we still do have those!

1964 RETROSPECTIVE

FROM MY MUSIC COLLECTION

Biggest problem here was deciding which Dylan album

1 The Times They are-a Changing by Bob Dylan
2 A Hard Day's Night by the Beatles
3. A Girl Called Dusty by Dusty Springfield
4. The Animals by the Animals
5. 12x5 by the Rolling Stones
6. The Kinks by the Kinks
7. Wednesday Morning at 3am by Simon and Garfunkel
8. The Dubliners with Luke Kelly by the Dublners
9. Bitter Tears by Johnny Cash
10. One Flight Up by Dexter Gordon

1964 at the Movies
1. Becket
2. Cheyenne Autumn
3. Zorba the Greek
4. Zulu
5. A Shot in the Dark
and Goldfinger

Fistful of Dollars and of course mega musicals Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady make up a pretty stellar year.

A selection of 1964 books
1. The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble
2. Herzog by Saul Bellow
3. A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
4. Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
5. The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
6. Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
7. Julian by Gore Vidal
8. The Little Girls by Elizabeth Bowen
9. Nothing Like The Sun by Anthony Burgess
10. The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

Events of 1964

January - Plans for the builidng of the New York City World trade center as revealed.
February - Cassius Clay rocks Sonny Liston and declares himself "The Greatest"
March - Dick and Lizzie become Mr. & Mrs. Burton for the first time
April - The Beatles hold positions 1-5 in the Billboard charts an unprecedented achievement
May - India's first Prime Minister Nehru dies.
June - Barry Goldwater wins the California primary to all but seal the Republican nomination
July - The Cicil Rights Act is signed by LBJ ending segregation for ever.
August - The last Looney Tunes cartoon is made
September - The Warren Commissionreport on JFK's assassination is published
October - Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
November - LBJ defeats Barry Goldwater getting 60% - today nobody admits to being part of the 40%.
December - Sam Cooke of the silken voice is shot dead in a California hotel.

Rhian - The cinemas were open in Wakefield (1 anyway the Odeon - now long gone). Didn't help me none as we didn't get in after queuing for an hour or so.

Did I see a Phillip K Dick up there in your latest haul ....... most surprising ..... Bit like Blackcaps (cricket) win

Hahaha Alex I aim to be predictabile in my unpredictability.

Hi Paul- Just checking in. I hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend and getting lots of prime reading in.

Hello Paul! I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard about study from the University of Leeds and it made me think of you! I hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Here begin a small set of random thoughts, stimulated by your thread:

Interesting how parents handle the information about relative wealth. My mother, bless her heart, was a divorced, single parent, well before it was common. She had not finished college which she regretted her entire life, I think. She quit to marry my father. Nevertheless, her oldest son had left home and was fending for himself so it was left to her to deal with "raising a little girl". She and my maternal grandmother pooled their resources and coped as well as they could. We did not live in a proper house until I was nearly out of high school.

But she never let me think we were "poor"; or in her vocabulary, "look like we live on tobacco road". I always had clothes, and food, and spending money. I really grew to appreciate what she had accomplished when I was an adult and owning my own house at age 25, with a "career" in public school teaching.

Understanding the value of money is one of the most challenging tasks for a parent.

The assassination of JFK really changed "the world as we knew it". Before then, people believed their government was honorable and could be trusted. Before then, people believed that the US of A really was a special place, involved in proving that democracy was the best government ever invented, and that capitalism was invented to make everyone rich, eventually. Every man was equal to every other. (We conveniently ignored the facts that racial minorities and women and sexual minorities were not included in the "every man" category)

Afterward: the US of A could be involved in a war which was not justified; there were pockets of poverty in the US of A which would never disappear because "those people" were not given an equal chance to succeed; and the government was filled with fallible men and women who pursued their own ideas of value; not always coinciding with "the Public Good".

I think September 2001 has had a parallel major impact and the reality has shifted once again. I'm not sure I really understand the details of where and to what extent but I sure do not like the increasing divisiveness I see and the increasing isolation of people. When one never has the opportunity to encounter people who are different than oneself, and who sincerely hold different ideas, the entire society suffers.

OK, I'm off this morning to a Meet-Up of local photographers. We are going to try to develop a little photography group. I'm hoping this will work as I think we all need to get out and about and meet some strangers, face to face, once in a while.

#182 When one never has the opportunity to encounter people who are different than oneself, and who sincerely hold different ideas, the entire society suffers. That's something I worry about in the UK too as well, where although society is much more accepting in terms of racial differences it seems to be becoming more stratified in terms of class and income. There is a great deal of talk by politicians of 'stretched middles' i.e. people in reasonable jobs who find it difficult to make ends meet. But this category seems to include households earning £50,000, £60,000, £70,000, which is considerably above the average household income in the UK, whereas those who really are in the middle financially and those below that position, seem to be conveniently forgotten.

I'm really surprised at the purchase of the Philip K. Dick, too. I didn't even like it!

On the other hand...

I knew we were poor after my dad left. No car was the least of it. There were plenty of times we had little food. ( sometimes down to just rice ). Now and then someone...not sure who, would leave us a box of "surplus food" . This predates welfare. We had no car to go get it, and it came randomly... but had rice, powdered milk, canned meat of some kind ( smelled like dog food to me...) nothing fresh or yummy. We did go to bed hungry at times. My sister and I would scour the alleys to find "pop" bottles to return to get the refund, and we would use it to buy pop or treats. We used to buy Campbell's vegetarian vegetable soup and cook (heat really ) the meat in it and it was "stew" that we would put over the rice. We also made "Depression soup" made from a roux with caraway seeds... add water, salt pepper and dumplings of flower and egg. It was delicious! It was cheap, and knowing how to make it got me freed from "Home Ec" in high school.. so a silver lining for sure!

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger........!

I have a lot of empathy for those who struggle today....I know what it's like.

Mark - Doing a bit of reading mate but hoping and failing to catch up as I am a bit troubled by one of my projects which needs finishing but it is chinese new year and no workers are about.

Brit - It is funny what associations we make and how LT has changed them. I had never heard of Powell's bookstore for example and now it is a prime ambition to raid its hallowed shelves.

Karen - I think that to appreciate money you do at some stage need to have a little experience of not having much of it. I come from a poorish, working class background and my father was a welder back in the day. He gave us "nowt cept what we needed" but taught us, for all his faults, the value of hard work and striving to reach your ambitions. Always aimed high Dad did and at nearly 70 he still gets up and goes to work before 8 every day. It is just a shame that he would cheat his own children for money - and has. I learned from him a work ethic and because of him that money can be used for good and not necessarily selfish reasons.
Unlike some businessmen who spend like money goes out of fashion my company accounts have never gotten close to overdrawn these last few years and I am loathe to spend money for the company unless I have at least a quarter of all my outgoings covered in advance.
Interesting views on the parallel impact of the two major American events 38 years apart. Good luck with the photography group.

I think that the cost of living in Europe is outstripping salary increases Rhian. Apart from myself my top earner in my office earns GBP18,000 per year but is comfortable by local standards here. A few years ago I was offered what someone in the UK thought was an outrageously high salary to run the commercial side of a manufacturing and construction company in the north of England and they were amazed that I turned them down as I was better off here, even on technically much less money.

Morphy - You didn't like it gives me half a chance with it, no? x

Lovely and touching post Kath. I also remember collecting the bottles of pop - british favourites like Tizer and Irn Bru and Dandelion & Burdock, Lemonade, Ginger Beer and that strange new drink all the way from the US of A Coca-cola I think it was!

>182 maggie1944: I sure do not like the increasing divisiveness I see and the increasing isolation of people
I completely agree with you Karen. I am reading a book right now that you might find interesting. It's called Slow Democracy. It's about bringing more of the decision making back to the local level and increasing participation in communities with a process of story telling and quiet deliberation. The stories about communities where people are coming together and deliberating in a civil and respectful way in spite of differences is truly inspiring. I may recommend it to our school board and teacher's union who are locked in a not so civil battle for our schools. :)

>187 PaulCranswick: The cost of living is outstripping salary increases many places, Paul. My husband works for the US govt. - in a nutshell - preventing the dams that provide water to the west from deteriorating to a point where they are at risk of failure. He hasn't had a cost of living increase in 4 years. But Congress got one this year although they haven't been able to pass a budget in those 4 years. We are blessed to be in a good situation - if we're careful and don't buy too many books :) we'll be fine. However, the true cost of out of control government spending is the decreasing value of our money and the increasing cost of the things we need to buy. Who does it hurt the most? The "poor" they purport to be helping with their spending.

There are lots of people in the U.S. who haven't seen raises in several years, but gas has more than doubled in that time which makes the price of everything else go up too. I completely disagree with the "salary for life" that our Congressmen and Congresswomen receive.

Have a great week end, Paul! I remember picking up bottles tossed out on the roadsides in central Texas -- and seeing the occasional rattlesnake! It made getting that extra spending money so much more exciting. I always like coming here to see the topics your thread generates.

I completely disagree with the "salary for life" that our Congressmen and Congresswomen receive me too!

I have a friend who thinks they should only be paid for the days they work!

Jenn - where people are coming together and deliberating in a civil and respectful way in spite of differences is truly inspiring.
Isn't that us all on LT?
I'm not at all sure that uncontrolled government spending is quite the answer either - the Keynesian idea of spending your way out of recession. I think it is more a case of planning properly and realising where is the need and directing the funds there. May main bugbear is the selfishness of "free trade". Countries can never, because they are constituted differently, compete on equal terms in the world market and everyone should stop pretending that is the case. The people in the so-called developed world should get used to paying a little more for goods and trade it off by having the people from those nations make them for them. The job of government is to plan properly so that the maximum numbers of those wishing to work can do so.

Lori - You know I don't see it getting better before it gets worse still. The economy isn't growing at a sustainable or as it is increasingly service driven, at a real level.

Donna - Snakes are not my favourite of God's creatures I must say. I don't think I would have been picking bottles off the street in competition with a rattler thank you very much indeed.

Kath - In Singapore the original Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew awarded himself a huge salary in the 1980's with the statement that as CEO of the nation I should get rewarded for its success. Given the state of the American polity surely they should be sharing in its comparative failures and not having pay increases either.

Rebecca - I am not perhaps the best fellow to moderate on working hours since I spend most of my waking hours in my den of an office surrounded by my minature army of devotees who seem to think the office is more a youth club than a place of business. I suppose it is what you do and not always how long you take doing it.

Hi Paul- big issues on the table here.
My dad grew up poor and as a consequence, when his business started to earn him/us money, he loved buying us things. I remember this happening when I was about 11 or so. He has never been able to resist it since then, and I always attribute it to the huge difference in his vs his kids' upbringing.

But he somehow managed to be generous with giving, and still instill a sense of financial independence in us kids. He reckons this is the only topic of lively discussion in his household now, that his partners 4 grown children still come to her with their hand out on a regular basis, and that us, his kids, dont.

in my den of an office surrounded by my minature army of devotees who seem to think the office is more a youth club than a place of business
haha, my dads office was at our house in my older childhood years, and I loved hanging out in there with him. Not sure he loved it as much.....
"daaaaad?....."
*5 minutes of elapsed time*
"................mm?".
lol

Harking back to #176 - I know who at least one of the Goldwater 40% was - my mother and possibly all of the voting adults in the family as well. I think probably they either voted for him or did not vote for President at all that year but claimed to have voted for BG as they were all terrified of Mother. She was a tartar who ruled everyone by fear of retribution.

Hi Paul, I hope you are having (or had) a nice weekend. Your mention of the various brands of soft drinks made me smile. For the longest time I thought Irn Bru was a brand of UK beer. I think that was because I remember first reading that name in a Rebus novel, and if he was drinking it I could only assume it was beer!

Megan - I can picture your father planning and plotting his photographic expeditions and developing & viewing his work in the quiet disturbed by his daughters. Must have been fun growing up. My father in fairness was a good provider to the family but would not countenance gifts at any time other than birthdays or christmas.

Charlotte - hahaha I wondered whether my jibe would get any admissions or not! At least it wasn't you my dear!

Judy - Irn Bru has the habit of colouring your tongue and I dread to think what it does to your stomach! Great tasting though and most definitely non-alcoholic.

20.

The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell (Category Challenge: Historical Fiction 2/13)

This tale of gold, indians and derring-do is very much in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The King's Fifth is the sovereign's share of the treasure buried by young Esteban de Sandoval and which he is incarcerated for. The King wants his shares and Esteban recounts his tale to the courthouse.

There is good and evil a plenty here; greed and the material side of existence are held up to examination by what becomes in effect a moral tale. Readable, enjoyable but not especially memorable as there are too many gaps and question marks about the plot to be entirely convincing. As a primer for the more classic works of adventure it is not a bad starting point.

6/10

Must have been fun growing up
Dad had a photographic shop til I was 9 ish...then he had a photo library from home. I loved both as any office has a fresh supply of stationery, and I loved pilfering pens. Still do.
My dad was such a thoughtful gift-giver, he had a 100% satisfaction rates from us kids as kids. I think it is because he is just a big kid himself, something I can relate to well now that Im an adult!

>198 PaulCranswick: why does 6/10 sounds so much less than 3/5? It hasnt grabbed me unfortunately, in spite of that shining sliver medal slapped on the cover.

>198 PaulCranswick: Hmmm a grade of D, or 60%, isn't too awfully enticing. Pass, thanks.

I sure do not like the increasing divisiveness I see and the increasing isolation of people My part of Canada, we have a great mixed culture! That's what I love about Vancouver and area. We have a so called highway of heaven, with a mosque beside a buddist temple, beside a Mennonite Church, beside a Jewish school , besides a Catholic church. The city gives so - called Temple Tours , to help everyone understand everyone better. We have a huge mix of different races and backgrounds here and I really think that we are the richer for it! Just today I was chatting with my neighbours, who adopted a baby from Japan, and dad is teaching her Japanese and mom is teaching her Portuguese and both are teaching her English. I really love that about where I live and Paul, you to are in a " mixed marriage ' and I'll bet you feel the richer for it!

I LOVE the highway of heaven and Temple Tours. No wonder I like Vancouver so much.

>201 vancouverdeb: that sounds great Deb, here in my town we have suburbs/areas that are predominately populated with one ethnic group. People stick together and then we wonder why there is misunderstanding. it irks me.

>>198 PaulCranswick: So, just read Stevenson?

Megan - hahaha I don't think I have grown up that much really either. Kyran and myself have been forced out of the house today to get our unkempt hairs cut. Both of us laughing like hyenas because the two places we go to are both closed for Chinese New Year holidays.

RD - I'd give it a C and not a D but that's not enough to push it to others. I have another of his on the shelves but I don't think I'll be buying a whole lot more of his books.

Deb - I actually feel poorer for my marriage; literally and financially poorer although oftentimes blissfully happy. I don't really think of my bunch as being mixed race much because it doesn't make any difference to them or me where we live. Vancouver is noted as a cosmopolitan city but Malaysia is a natural confluence for three separate eastern cultures Malay, Chinese and Indian and mostly they get along fine. We have 17 days of public holidays here due to everyone embracing everyone else's festivals.

Reba - I must visit Vancouver one fine day.

Megan - The South Island does seem quite homogeneous racially other than the smallish pockets of Maoris. Have to say though that I have rarely felt more welcome anywhere than in NZ.

Ren - hahaha, good point.

#192 : Rebecca, I wholeheartedly agree with your friend.

How goes your search for a barber today, Paul?

Hi Paul,
gee, your thread is so interesting, even not wanting too I still got sucked into reading whole posts...I have so little time to read all, but will make it up in the weeks to follow.
Just few fast thoughts and I run :)

Post Office - feel sorry for the workers, not that sorry thinking that a business is a business and needs to grow and diversify.

Feeling over privileged - today is so easy to forget how life can simplified and how many of the things we buy we do not need or use.
But oh, the fun of buying and what an art it became in the last 20-30yrs. How specialists made sure that we want more stuff, we crave more stuff.
We are all in essence poor, I do not think that more then 10-15 of population can consider themselves rich. But we still buy more and accumulate more.
Now we have diseases that show our "more" principle of life. And really, why would we blame ourselves, or our kids for it? Is it not the creed and propaganda we absorb daily from the second we open our eyes to the one we fell asleep?

I live too in a place where cultures are accepted and mixing quite well. For us any foreigner is still that exotic and mysterious person that we always thought lived better than us, more interesting than us so we embrace them all in some level.
Maybe some made for themselves a bad name in Bucharest, but the country as a whole is a place where being foreign makes you feel like a king sometimes :)

Kisses Paul and hope you have a great day, left you a coffee at my corner...

Looking at your Friday book haul with a bit of envy. Nothing too serious, but P and I were talking today about putting me on a book budget.
Yep, you guessed, it. We met with our tax person. :-|

Paul - you're amazing - can't believe you can read all these books, adding a set of serious challenges to keep it interesting and then maintaining such an interesting thread.

1965 RETROSPECTIVE

FROM MY MUSIC COLLECTION

This time a choice between the Dylan's albums, the Fab Four and two good Johnny Cash LP's

1. Bob Dylan - Bringing it all Back Home (by a whisker)
2. Rubber Soul - Beatles (in splendid transition from fabness to greatness)
3. Johnny Cash - Orange Blossom Special (what a great title track)
4. Rolling Stones - Out of Our Heads (Eminently possible to get satisfaction)
5. Kinks - Kinda Kinks (gets slaughtered these days but I loved my vinyl copy of this)
6. Otis Redding - Otis Blue (Soul music doesn't get any better)
7. Them - The Angry Young Them (the world meets Van the Man)
8. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (supreme is the right word)
9. Frank Sinatra - September of My Years (One of my fav Frank 60's albums)
10. The Animals - Animal Tracks

1965 AT THE MOVIES
1. Doctor Zhivago
2. Cat Ballou
3. The Sound of Music
4. The Ipcress File
5. Shenandoah

A SELECTION OF BOOKS FROM 1965
1. Dune by Frank Herbert
2. The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark
3. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
4. Lost Empires by J.B. Priestley
5. English History 1914-1945 by A.J.P. Taylor
6. The Making of the President : 1964 by Theodore H. White
7. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
8. The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre
9. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
10. A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger

1965 events
January - Winston Churchill dies
February - Malcolm X is killed
March - Aleksei Leonov is the first man to walk in space
April - The centenary of the end of the American Civil War
May - Cassius Clay defeats Liston with the punch that never was in their rematch
June - Australian forces arrive in South Vietnam
July - Medicare is established as Dylan goes electric.
August - Malaysia expels Singapore from the Malaysian Federation.
September - Thunderbirds are Go!
October - The Moors Murderers are arrested in Northern England
November - Death Penalty is abolished in the UK
December - Somerset Maugham (one of my favourite writers) dies

Caro - no haircutting today as all were (thankfully closed). Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Liliana - Thank you for your lovely and thoughtful post. I will be along soon to slurp at my coffee. x

Ellen - Fortunately book rationing is not yet in effect in Kuala Lumpur chez moi as I will again demonstrate in the next post.

Tracey - lovely to see you making your debut over here! Blushing in the undeserved praise. I am one of the wheezy boys when it comes to the book reading stakes. Suzanne, Susan, Luci, Amber, Dejah, Lori, Emilie and Morphy among others (wow all ladies!) are the "serious speed readers in these parts, but I do try to make this little spot in the ether as welcoming as possible.

My Dutch friend Jos is back in town so the ladies and we got to stuff our faces in Bangsar and then I sneaked off and added the following:

1. A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
2. The Dying Minutes by Martin O'Brien
3. Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
4. The Battle for Singapore by Peter Thompson
5. Inside Hitler's Bunker by Joachim Fest
6. Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies

Hey! June 1965 Important Event - Morphy was Born!

Dune is a good read. Although the only movie I've seen is The Sound of Music.

*caterwauls, "The hills are alive... with the sound of music..."*

Morphy - I wished I had realised earlier as I was genuinely struggling to come up with something of significance for June!

Scarborough South Bay does look glorious! And Edith Sitwell sounds like quite the witty lady. That is why I try to avoid flattery; as nice as it sounds I grow wary of people when I hear it.



I love Leela as a companion. :) The Doctor and her had such a funny relationship. Louise Jameson still looks the same now, and Tom's voice hasn't changed a bit!

Have to say though that I have rarely felt more welcome anywhere than in NZ.
Hooray!
We aim to please.

Making potato and mozzarella pizzas for tea. Really, its a great combo. I recommend everyone try it, dont forget the rosemary!

August 1965 I was born! Love the year in review. The music is still amazing after all these few years. I've read all the Dune books. The first is the best. Then it becomes rambling. I've also read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I haven't seen the Ipcress File but I've seen the rest of the movies.

Potato and mozzarella pizza sounds wonderful, Megan! What else do you put on it? Is there some kind of sauce?

The Beach Boys had a new album in 1965, and Help me, Ronda! was one of the songs.

Along with the Kennedys, King, Lennon, and the twin towers, I also remember where and when I was for the Challenger disaster.

Eris - Very subtle way of expressing that The Doctor has subtlely aged!

Megan - Sounds delish. I am a very herbal sort of guy; I remember surprising Hani with a roast leg of lamb liberally marinated with garlic and rosemary and proudly presented with parsnips and roasted potatoes, SWMBO looked impressed and then told me she was allergic to lamb.

Roberta - The music of 1965 is the start of a golden era as far as I'm concerned when the rock n roll bands realised that there were few limits to their music.

Julia - I imagine a pesto sauce to bring out the flavours more and have the basil and rosemary competing for the affections of my palate. *goes into the kitchen to wipe the saliva from his chin*

Roni - I have two Beach Boy LPs from 1965 but their really serious stuff (Help Me Rhonda aside!) was to come a bit later IMO. The Challenger disaster certainly caused the USA to reappraise its commitment to space.

Oct 1965 -- first time Reba left the U. S. Spent 9 deathly seasick days on the North Atlantic before arriving in Lisbon and falling totally in love with foreign travel.

Went to the little Books On The Nightstand Meet-Up at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle and bought: Buying The Farm: Peace and War on a Sixties Commune. Now that's what was happening at least in some areas during the Sixties. Communes!

Hope all is good for you this New Year, Mr Paul. I was taught to say something like Gung Hay Fa Choi

Seattle is a very multicultural city and I always had Chinese, Japanese, Cambodians, Vietnamese, and most recently Indians, Pakistani, Russians, and north Africans in the schools where I taught. We did celebrate Chinese New Year, for sure.

How fitting, Paul, that you posted the 1963 retrospective on my actual birthday! Too bad I wasn't hanging out on LT that day.

What incredible conversations happening here.

Your thread is a safe, wonderful place to share thoughts and feelings...Thanks for this.

I am so far behind! Aaarrgghhhh! Some nice book-buying, Paul - and I love the meander down memory lane. Gotta love Van the Man. The very first LP vinyl record I bought for mytself (out of Xmas money from by grandpop) was (no, not Rubber Soul!) but Mary Poppins so excited to have an LP of my own! (Oh, ok, further confession - the next year I bought The Sound of Music). Just finished Disco for the Departed which puts my Dr Siri total at six of the series, now. Oooh - watched an episode of Inspector Montalbano over the weekend. It was just wonderful. I want to move to Sicily immediately.

Nice book haul, Paul ...and what, pray tell, did you stuff your face with in Bangsar, curious minds enquire?

#225 : Pru, which episode of Inspector Montalbano did you watch? I love that series, both books and the TV series. The first time I watched it was a little jarring for me because I had such a different vision of how Montalbano should look in my mind. But having watched 17 epis thus far, I can't even remember what my original vision of him was.

Hi Paul. Delurking before I miss your entire thread. Love the trip down memory lane, music, films and books, and I am jealous of your latest book haul. Hope you manage to get the haircut soon and that you have a great week ahead. Cheers!

#166 - Hi Paul! Now I know why we share all of those Trotsky books! I've toned it down a bit in recent years too, but I probably don't approach centrism. Now I will go back to never mentioning politics on the internet. : )

#197 - no I didn't vote for Goldwater, but then again I was only 11. I have to confess that if somehow I'd been eligible, I probably would have done because I, too, was terrified of the Tartar and would have thought that she could tell if I hadn't voted as she decreed.

I know I'm late, but a double my usual Friday helping ?? Plus another 6 yesterday? *faints*

I love those retrospectives, and I had a look on my own birth year 1971 on wiki. While some of the movies and music of that year were at least famous, there's almost nothing to show for on the book front. It was also one of those years where the Pulitzer for fiction was not awarded.
But hey - the UK and Ireland got decimal coinage that year. I'm sure that was a smooth transition. :-)

Hi Paul, after skimming my way through two previous threads I have finally landed on this on - Thread 9! I have been enjoying the retrospectives you have been posting. Have a great week!

#207

I don't feel as sorry for the postal workers as I do for me. I depend on the USPS. Lots of people in the U. S. do. For us it is an essential service. Not everybody in the U. S. owns a computer or has one within a decent driving distance. The little town from which I am hale only got cable TV in about 1995 and for most there is no wireless service for computers, only dial-up. The slow killing of the USPS is the result of a general deterioration in a philosophy of doing something for the greater good. It might be OK to not deliver mail on Saturday's in a city because residents can probably get those services somewhere else, but out in the rural areas those services are harder to come by and probably require traveling some distance.

"The slow killing of the USPS is the result of a general deterioration in a philosophy of doing something for the greater good." I agree whole heartedly, and think this is the central political issue of the day. I wish more people embraced the idea that doing for all, even those most in need, is doing for each. I am expressing this idea awkwardly, but what I am trying to say is if my neighbor is hungry, I am diminished. When my community lacks some basic services which most others receive, my community is hurt, and so am I.

Oh, well, bleeding heart liberal, I am.

>213 Morphidae:: I love the word "caterwaul" :)

Okay - so I admit to skimming. The King's Fifth sounds fascinating. The only book I've read by Scott O'Dell is Island of the Blue Dolphins, one of my favorites growing up. I'm certainly putting The King's Fifth on my TBR! Thanks, Paul!

I wish I had a like button for posts 232 and 233... Very eloquently said!

I'm so glad that your book acquisition project is still healthy!
And I had no idea that Dune was published in 1965. I read it in college (so, around 1980, give or take a couple of years) and I guess I thought I was reading something just a wee bit more contemporary. Of course, if I read something now that was published "only" fifteen years ago, I don't think of it as musty.

Sorry all for a complete day away from LT. Went off with three sets of family friends to have the kids ice skating (in Malaysia of all places) and then we played ten pin bowling as couples. SWMBO and I won one of the three games you'll all be pleased to hear although I am fatigued by the weight of having to carry the dear lady throughout.
After that onto a seafood restaurant with (are you reading this Caro) butter prawns in oatmeal, kankong belacan, crispy squid, clams in a hot black peppery sauce, sea bass fried and served with soya sauce, crabs with curry leaf and gallons of chinese tea. I also amazed the crowd by successfully guessing to the nearest ten RM the bill.

>235 weejane:: That's the only Scott O'Dell I've read too.

Reba - a few weeks of sea-sickness is the way to guarantee a permanent love of travel!

Karen - Your chinese salutations are close enough to be understood which is the most I can manage myself too!

Anne - I also missed your birthday and will drop across shortly to make amends.

Linda - You always have the capability to make me blush and smile at the same time. Thank you.

Prue - I hated musicals when I was a kid until I saw Oliver! and was swept away completely. The very first record I bought was a single of "Don't it Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" for me old mum. My first long player if memory serves was "The Sound of Bread" and "Out of the Blue" by the Electric Light Orchestra.
The shows of Montalbano make being bald a distinctly attractive proposition! I mean if you are able to capture the girls without any locks......

Caro - We went to a spot called Dancing Fish and had a Sundanese feast with barbequed fish, keredok, spicy chicken in kicap, terong, cumi-cumi bakar and a host of other things.
I also see the baldy fellow now when I'm reading Camilleri despite certainly never imagining him hairless before the TV show.

Kim - I am not too bothered about a hair-cut actually; it is my sergeant-major in knickers who requires it! Kyran is even less enthusiastic about the prospect and seems keen on determining his own image to his small army of fawning female adolescent admirers.

Kerri - Often times I am a tad conflicted as I am supposed to be running a business at times but I don't think I would really ever be viewed as centrist either in all truth - I am just a wee bit more centrist than my Trotsky days. I think it is visions of SWMBO materialising with her icepick that has done it. Actually we do have quite an anarchistic relationship whereby I earn the money and she spends it - except that she doesn't realise that I have a private book slush fund!

Charlotte - Nurture over nature hahahaha. My father was so right wing that he thought Mrs. T was a socialist! I think his support for an intolerant platform and his prejudiced view of the world has in large part determined my opposite view of most things.

Nathalie - I use wiki as the basis for my meanderings down memory lane with help from several other sources. The music comes from my own collection and data base which is pretty comprehensive for 1955-2004. I don't buy as much music as I used to and, like my books I am normally a few years behind the eight-ball anyway. I will get to 1971 sooner than later - you spring chicken you.

Lori - Slowed up a fair bit as February bites into our activities as usual. I am astonished that I am nearing my tenth thread already and would be nowhere near it without all my lovely visitors.

Benita - Whilst smiling I do know what you mean. There is an irritating pre-supposition nowadays that everyone is on-line. Without any referral to me one my bankers (ok I use Citibank and HSBC for those interested) decided to have all statements changed to solely on-line, I hate to not receive my statements and think it is extremely presumptious to think that we would necessarily prefer that type of service.

Karen - It does look to me as if the USPS travails have got too much to do with politics and not enough to do with people. Why on earth would or should they be required to make more pension provision than other organisations by statute? Typical wrongheadedness that will only result in the people it, on the surface, protects being damaged by it.

Heidi - Not sure that you would like the word quite so much if you had heard Belle, my youngest daughter, sing!

Brit - Skimming is far better than my recent absenteeism and I may to do some of my own just to give a semblance of an appearance of catching up. The King's Fifth wasn't bad but it was read amid a period of real hits for me and this probably downgraded it a little for me.

Heidi - You're right. Not anywhere near enough community spirit these days - it is all about self self self.

Ellen - Age creeping up isn't it when we think of periods in excess of a decade as being nothing much! I know exactly what you mean as I consider anything post-war as contemporary!

Es - It was my first by him and I have one more but it isn't the one that got the rave(r) reviews.

21.

This Sporting Life by David Storey (Category Challenge Sports 2/13 - Rugby)

This is a wonderful evocation of Northern life set in the grim, industrial West Yorkshire of the late 1950s. I can see the tatty remnants of the places in which I grew into adoloesence in the sepia-tinged images Storey creates of our shared upbringing. The Bull-Ring and the back yards and the liniment warming thighs on cold February mornings are all there in this tale of Art Machin coming into his prime as a small town rugby professional and his concurrent struggles with family, friends and the love of his widowed landlady. There are misunderstandings and heartaches aplenty along the way as Machin realises that there is much more to being accepted and successful than bulldozing his way through a scrum of bodies. I too grew up in a rugby background. Being small, nimble and innately crafty I was ideal to play as a scrum half as well as being daft enough to get up every time I got knocked down, which was frequently. My dad was a professional scrum-half for Wakefield Trinity and Featherstone Rovers in the 1960's although his love of money and working away kept him from a fuller career with the oval ball.

This would not be for everyone as it is a very Northern English sort of tale. I am Northern English and can proudly say - I loved it!

9/10

>238 PaulCranswick: I also amazed the crowd by successfully guessing to the nearest ten RM the bill.
I love that game! I suspect I'd lose if you were playing though ;)

Glad you loved your latese read! I wont partake I think, although, I am still inteding to read a rugby related book this year called Somebody Stole my Game by Chris Laidlaw. It is about the professionalisation and commercialisation of rugby. As it has those themes, I have an interest in it :)

I too grew up in a rugby background.
That makes three of us then! You cant help but do that here. But I thought in Britain it was just for rich folk? "Public" school kids.

Megan - As you know there are two main codes of Rugby. One using 15 players called Rugby Union which is that at which the All-black excel above all others. There is also a 13 a side game called Rugby League originating in the North of England and played everywhere too although it lacks the popularity of the rich-man's game.

Paul its often just referred to as 'League' down here which explains Megan being so remiss ...... also more working class & treated as such.

Alex - It was a working class game because it broke from union on the need for the players to receive compensation for time off from their mines or factories which was refused by the amateur game.

You purchase books at an amazing rate Paul! I confess that I know nothing about Rugby, but I am known as a bleeding heart liberal by my friends and family!

1968 retrospective

From my Music Collection

1. The White Album - The Beatles
2. Beggars Banquet - The Rolling Stones
3. The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks
4. Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
5. Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix
6. Music from Big Pink - The Band
7. Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
8. At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
9. Sweetheart of the Rodeo - The Byrds
10. The Move - The Move

Films from 1968
1. Oliver!
2. The Lion in Winter
3. The Odd Couple
4. Bullitt
5. Rosemary's Baby

The Books of 1968
1 A Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines
2 The Public Image by Muriel Spark
3. Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
5. Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
6. Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
7. True Grit by Charles Portis
8. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
9. Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
10. My Michael by Amos Oz

The Events of 1968
January - The Tet Offensive in Vietnam
February - Madison Square Garden opens
March - Bobby Kennedy throwns his hat in the ring as LBJ withdrws his own
April - Martin Luther King is shot dead
May - In Paris the students riot as Apple Record is formed (events unrelated apparently)
June - Bobby Kennedy is assassinated in California
July - Saddam Hussein become vice chairman of the ruling party of Iraq after a coup
August - Soviet tanks invade Czechoslovakia
September - The English cricket team withdraw from its South Africa tour as the South Africans refuse to accept the presence of D'Oleivera a mixed-race player in the England team.
October - Jackie marries Onassis in a modern day Beauty and the Beast tale.
November - Nixon wins the White House
December - Nixon marries Eisenhower (Nixon's daughter and Ike's son that is)

Thanks Deb - I am reading and accummulating quite steadily this year. I have always seen Canada as quite a liberal place in truth and the cosmopolitan nature of the place I have seen you celebrate is a testimony to that.

#244 But I thought in Britain it was just for rich folk? "Public" school kids.. It depends where you are. Rugby union in most parts of England is much more of a middle-class sport (as Paul says rugby league is different). In Wales (actually South Wales as they don't play too much rugby in the north) it is much more egalitarian and played by everyone.

Just passing though and now, wishing I had potato and mozzarella pizza...

Love your year by year retrospective's, Paul! So, either today or tomorrow it must be my own birth year. Definately, have to check out what were your faves then :)

Wish you a lovely day :)

>234 Esquiress: Es, well, you certainly couldn't call what I do "singing." Ha!

Quite right Rhian - Rugby is certainly not the preserve of the rich in Wales.

Kath - I had a lovely steamboat dinner this evening - healthy and delicious.

Bianca - The problem with my music collection from 1968-1975 is that I have so much stuff that to select only ten is really difficult. 1969 coming up soon.

Morphy - I'm sure you sing like a nightingale.

A nightingale with a 2x4 stuck in her throat and tonsillitis.

*waving*

Good day! I was lucky to find Buying The Farm: Peace and War on a Sixties Commune Sunday when I went to a small Meet-Up at the Elliott Bay Books in Seattle. Talk about visiting the past! Starts out with 1967 and the formation of the Liberation News Service, an all hippy/radical news service intended to circumvent the bias of the Establishment Press. You can fill in details, I'm sure. I knew some of the folks involved in this epic story of youthful idealism smashing headlong into Reality. Fascinating stuff!

Just sayin'......

I missed my birth year of '64... Interesting to look at the year from these perspectives. I have read none of the books you highlight, and seen very few of the films. As for music, my collection of LPs from the whole of the 60s consists almost entirely of Dylan (with a bit of Baez and some other folky/singer songwriter stuff). You must have been very busy building up such a wide selection of music from your birth decade...

I've been enjoying your 1960s reviews, Paul!

Morphy - hahaha I wonder if there are many Karoake joints in Minnesota?

Karen - With the comings and goings at chez moi I often think we are starting a commune of our own. Kyran has his half-English-half Polish girlfriend, Natalie, here today and she will stay over in a room stocked full of girls. Yasmyne's friend Sophie (half Malay/half Dutch) is also here as is Belle's friend Michelle (half Welsh/half Indonesian) so with my sister-in-law, wife, coffees maker extraordinaire Erni and our three cranky felines it is a veritable free-for-all today.

I have a quite wide folksy type of collection from that era Genny with Dylan, Baez, Donovan, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, The Watersons, Fairport Convention, etc etc etc.
Choosing which ones to put down isn't easy and I ought really to have included Fairport Convention's debut in my 1968 list.

Thanks Darryl and I have been enjoying your meandering through the great and good of the African diaspora in literature in the last week or two.

Wasn't the book Kestral for a Knave made into a movie? Seems that I saw it somewhere.

Good morning, Paul.
1968 -- Now you're getting into territory of which I have actual memories! :-D
I have read and adored True Grit and there are a few more on that list that I would like to read.

I have a very visceral memory of seeing "Bullitt" with my mom. I was eight years old and the chase scene almost made me dizzy. I LOVED it. These days it would be considered very tame but it was very well done and cutting edge at the time.

Arrrggh! 70 posts behind!

Just time for a "hi" and "how are you" Paul....

Benita - It was indeed and a good one too. Yorkshire actor Brian Glover was the awful bully in the movie which was written and set in an area close to my old home.

Ellen - I was toying with Stevie McQ's other one from that year The Thomas Crown Affair with it's delicious chess seduction and great theme song but the smashed cars did it for me in the end!

Tina - If I was only 70 behind on so many of my favourite threads I would be heaving a huge sigh of relief! Lovely to see you.

Paul, are you going to continue your yearly retrospectives into the 70s? Pretty, please?

Katie - At least until 1980 methinks. 1969 tomorrow (my time).

Hi Paul!
I don't know how, but you are doing great on your reading ;-)

Wishing you a fond farewell until we meet again on your new thread!

Still here?!

*tick*

*tick*

*tick*

Cee - New thread tomorrow sometime?!

Nina - Yes
*tock*
*tock*
*tock*
xxx

>245 PaulCranswick:/246 Hmmm, am I being teased about not knowing much about rugby here?
Well- It may be me who didnt recognise the All Blacks Captain when he came into work one day, even after he told me his name, but I do know that there is rugby union, and rugby league ;)
So, your book is about League then Paul? My lovely other likes league, and intends on Wilbur playing it over union, as he is an aspiring working class hero.

What I Know About Rugby, by Little Richie D., age 53 and a half

Muscular men play it in minimal clothing, therefore It Is Good.

The end.

RD- LOL
Thats the reason my mum loves the Australian Rugby League! Tighter/shorter shorts than here you see.....

#271 It may be me who didnt recognise the All Blacks Captain when he came into work one day, even after he told me his name - I'm surprised you haven't been deprived of your New Zealand citizenship for that!

>256 Morphidae:: Morphy, you are hilarious :D

Hi Paul. Now that you're up to 1968 you're getting into my teenage years and I'm remembering more. I liked your two wedding announcements for the year. ;)

actually (nott to nitpick) Nixon's daughter married Ike's grandson, not his son

>273 SandDune: I did get a lot of schtick from my colleagues for a long time about that one. I was thinking, who does this guy think he is just expecting to get in to the see overbooked Sports Doctor at the last minute.
He said that the Doc had said it would be OK, so I called through and sure enough, the Doc said it would be fine :)

Hi Richie McCaw! *blush*

Enjoying all the discussion and reviews of various yearly offerings in music and books.

My stepfather voted for Goldwater. He couldn't wiggle out of it since we all know. Plus he wouldn't anyway.

Hello Paul - Loved your review of This Sporting Life and I remember loving the book as well - think I read it when i was living in Britain. It was a great era in British writing, I think - loved The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Friday Night, Saturday Morning (is that the right title?) Hmmm. Not to forget Room at the Top. You have been doing some fabulous dining! Luck lucky man!

Megan - I didn't state that it was rugby league in my review so all the masculine teasing of your rugby comments are not in order! Not sure tho about encouraging Wilby as I don't have that many rugby friends with a full set of teeth or decently shaped ears.

RD - Trust you dear fellow to cut to the absolute essentials of the sport,

Megan - It is true as well. I was watching a game on TV the other day my own Wakefield Trinity versus Hull Kingston Rovers and couldn't help but notice that the clothes were not as comfortably fitting as when I was fumbling around on a rugby field.

Rhian - Hahaha - I think if it was in most other countries you wouldn't be expected to recognise the rugby captain but in NZ isn't he akin to Beckham's status in the UK.

Es - Morphy certainly has her moments I would concede especially when it comes to her hilarious choices of reading materials! (she knows I'm kidding)

Pat - The weddings were somehow appropriate to the times weren't they? Would Onassis still be able to pull the chicks these days I wonder? I suppose that was a real case of money talks.

Reba - Thanks for spotting that one. Very sloppy from me I must say. Excuse? I was 2 years old at the time.

Megan - Wonderful! Not only did you not recognise him but you also reminded him that humility is the best policy. From what I can see he behaved like a real star and didn't give you one of those "Do you know who you're talking to?" moments.

Lucy - In retrospect the USA may have got out of Vietnam sooner had Goldwater won - he would have probably nuked the place.

Prue - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning my dear but your combination is probably a better fit for modern times with people working less hours! The food during the holidays here has indeed been great.

Enjoying everything that's going on here Paul, as usual:-)

Thank you Bonnie!

Since I missed the entirety of this thread, I will wave before it becomes yet another one!

Let's close out the 1960s before I make another thread:

1969 retrospective

From my music collection

1. Arthur - The Kinks
2. Abbey Road - The Beatles
3. Let it Bleed - The Rolling Stones
4. What We Did on our Holidays - Fairport Convention
5. Nashville Skyline - Bob Dylan
6. Tommy - The Who
7. Green River - Creedence Clearwater Revival
8. My Way - Frank Sinatra
9. From Elvis in Memphis - Elvis Presley
10. With a Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker

1969 at the Movies
1. Women in Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. The Wild Bunch
4. Paint Your Wagon
5. Easy Rider
6. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
7. True Grit
8. Midnight Cowboy
9. The Italian Job
10. They Shoot Horses Don't They?

1969 - A selection of Books
1. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
2. I Sing the Body Electric by Ray Bradbury
3. The Hired Man by Melvyn Bragg
4. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
5. Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene
6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
7. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
8. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
10. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

1969 EVENTS
January - Last public performance of the Beatles atop the Abbey Road studios
February - Yasser Arafat becomes PLO leader
March - John marries Yoko and goes to bed for longer than is strictly necessary
April - De Gaulle steps down as French leader
May - The first American dies of AIDS
June - Stonewall riots in New York signals the start of the Gay Rights movement
July - Neil Armstrong takes one small step for man
August - Charles Manson kills Sharon Tate and 6 others at her home in California
September - Gaddafi takes charge in Libya as Scooby Doo hits the screen; the world is undecided as to which should be taken the more seriously.
October - Willy Brandt becomes German chancellor
November - SALT nuclear disarmament talks start in Helsinki
December - Altamont Speedway free concert closes out the decade with violence and four deaths

Waving right back at you Stasia - I am the most guilty of all for neglecting threads this past week or so.

Errrrmmmmm August 1969? Woodstock? Not *quite* so much of a downer as poor Sharon Tate's grisly demise.

ETA but thanks for the Stonewall mention!

>281 PaulCranswick: From what I can see he behaved like a real star and didn't give you one of those "Do you know who you're talking to?" moments.
Youre right Paul. He was quiet and unassuming, and in my defense, he had only just become the All Black captain. And I had just been living in Perth for the 3 years prior, so was not in the know at all about the state of the national team :)

RD - Did toy with Woodtock and British troops going into Northern Ireland but poor Ms. Tate's demise seemed to encapsulate the era going wrong of a sudden.

Megan - I saw him on a TV programme whilst in New Zealand and could see he was a down-to-earth fellow. The cauliflower ears ought to have given you a clue.

>289 PaulCranswick: OIC...the sour end of the Summer of Luuuuv...yeah, I get it.

*sigh*

What a great year for music, books and film was 1969! With the exception of Paint Your Wagon, I've seen all of those films and several are absolute favourites.

Prue, Midnight Cowboy has held up amazingly well based on a re-watch last year...and Paint Your Wagon isn't one I'd recommend spraining something to get to see.

1969 was a good year.
Abbey Road --- one of my all-time favorite albums. Still.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid --- Newman and Redford when they were young and both still handsome (Newman stayed that way, Redford not so much)
Several excellent books, especially I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (for anyone who hasn't read that one, just do it).

My mother wouldn't let me see Midnight Cowboy (I was, after all, only 9 years old) and I still haven't seen it.

This is fun, Paul!

*heads to bed singing "She came in through the bathroom window
protected by a silver spoon
and ..."*

Well if its tight pants & muscle you enjoy , AFL shd be on your dial ...... just saying

1969 nice Vintage ......

1969: Arpanet was founded - the prerunner of the internet and for the first time the Nobel price for economics was awarded (thought as additional bits of info)

Prue - I look at 68-73 as the absolute tops musically. To be honest I have that much stuff for the year I was struggling to crop it down anywhere near 10.

RD - Would be my single favourite movie from the year followed by Butch and Sundance.

Ellen - I also adore Abbey Road and still wouldn't pick it as album of the year. For me that honour goes to Kinks' Arthur which is absolutely beyond superlatives.
Their song "Young and Innocent Days" closes the 1960's appropriately:

"Young And Innocent Days"

I look back at the way I used to look at life
Soft, white dreams with sugar coated outside
It was great, so great
Young and innocent days

I wish my eyes could only see
Everything, exactly as it used to be
It's too late, so late
Young and innocent days

I see the lines across your face
Time has gone and nothing ever can replace
Those great, so great
Young and innocent days

Alex - erm well tight pants and muscle wouldn't help me so very much in truth, but I think SWMBO would welcome the change.

Paul - Economics became an issue after the 1960s when everybody realised that the world economy was in an oil bind so it was quite right that it be only recognised in 1969 by the Nobel committee. Thanks for Apranet mate as I must concede never having heard of it before.

Paul - welcome. The history of the internet is interesting but filled with many little details liike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
And thanks for all the music and movie titles - all the big guys. Wasn't also Donaovan's Atlantis from 1969? In Germany there were Peter Alexander and Heintje (I couldn't stand this teenager..., but my mother liked him)

>285 PaulCranswick:: Err hmm HMMMM...

*tick*
*tick*
*tick*

BOOM.

Ten threads already?!

Enjoying the tour of the 60s -- a lot of memories there!