Hugh's 2018 reading and observing, part 1

A new year deserves a new thread. Happy New Year, everybody!

First book of the year is heading to be a DNF: Mastermind: how to think like Sherlock Holmes. Deadly leaden prose, and despite wittering on for pages about the Need For Closure, she never finishes a story. Has the thumbprint of an uninspired textbook for a course I care nothing for (I might have, once, but this one kills rather than fosters any interest.

>2 hfglen: Wow, a DNF right out of the gate! At least your reading year can only get better, right? :-)

I always look forward to your thread, Hugh! Even though the first book was a dud, I'm sure you'll add many others to my TBR list. And with my windows currently so plastered with snow that I can't see outside, I'm really looking forward to some warm southern hemisphere photos.

Happy New Year to you and yours as well! It will be fun to see your thoughts and your photos.

Happy New year, may the books only get better as the year goes on.

Happy New Year, and much reading pleasure to you!

Love having a personal perspective from your end of the world. Hope 2018 will be wonderful for you and yours.

Happy new year!

Sorry about the dud. Maybe you should go make some fiery curry to feel better? Burn away the brain pain. Happy New Year! So glad to have you in our world.

Ouch, a DNF right off the bat. May the rest of your 2018 reading be great. Happy new year!

Starring your thread once again. Happy new year.

>2 hfglen: my coworker threw this book in the trash last spring. I guess now I know why. May the rest of your reading year be worth finishing.

>13 catzteach: Despite predictions, I made it to the end. The book did not improve, and 2 hours after finishing I can confirm that this "self-improvement" book made absolutely zero impression, and your co-worker was wise in her action. The best that can be said for the book is that it may be useful as a cure for insomnia.

The Girl who heard Dragons. After the last one, where else to go but up? 15 short stories by Anne McCaffrey; the author's name has to be a guarantee of quality. One Pern, one, maybe two, from the "Ship Who" universe, the rest spooky.

Happy New Year to all, and many thanks for all the good wishes. May your reading this year be satisfactory in every way.

Happy New Year, Hugh!

I look forward to your 2018 words and pictures. You always have something interesting on your thread.

Too bad about the first book of the year. I have had similar experiences with books that are intended to help the reader develop in a particular fashion but the book's delivery undermines the book's stated objective.

Happy New Year, Hugh! Looking forward to following your reading and seeing more wonderful photos from you this year.

I hope the McCaffrey collection takes away the bad taste from the dud book.

The Great Arc. Why did such a short book (only 172 pages of text) take me so long -- near enough 4 months -- to finish? Not really for any deficiency in the writing. But it's mine, and so had no urgency to return it anywhere, so it kept being overtaken by library books. It's an account of the original trig survey of India, undertaken in the second quarter of the 19th century, and all the hazards, diseases and upsets the surveyors put up with. I couldn't help thinking how very much easier things are now with air / satellite photography and modern instruments. I suspect the assistant-surveyors, at least, would have found the 1960s-model tellurometer (invented, TA-DAA, by the CSIR here in South Africa) an absolute godsend. But they couldn't possibly have acquired one, and so had to make do with pencil, paper and lots of elbow-grease. Nevertheless, the job they did was outstanding. Not surprising that when the boss found that one mountain was specially high he wanted to name it after his predecessor, who pronounced his name EVErest, not EVER-rest. Worth reading, if you find a copy.

>19 hfglen: That looks intriguing. Did your print version include maps and illustrations? I see there's a text-only Kindle version, but I wouldn't want to miss maps if there are some.

>20 SylviaC: There are indeed maps (generally reproduced far too small) and illustrations (mostly portraits).

Natal: an official illustrated railway guide (1903). Historically fascinating, as the end of the Anglo-Boer War was almost still breaking news while this was being written. Much of the book is taken up with a stop-by-stop description of the rail journey to the interior, starting at Durban Point (the passenger terminal for shipping) and ending in Johannesburg. Although the latter was deep in the Transvaal, the line was operated by Natal Government Railways, and traffic to the goldfields made the line viable. And so we learn that Kloof is virtually uninhabited, and a good place for camping out "to those who are accustomed to it" -- an idea that would doubtless surprise the tens of thousands of historically unconscious residents and shopkeepers of today. But Krantzkloof itself is still breathtaking. The battlefields are described and illustrated in great detail, and evidently were the subject then already of a nascent tourist industry, and the government statistics tell us that at the time of writing the territory annexed to Natal from the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek was still too new to be organised in any meaningful way. Also interesting: in the pictures, there are no cars at all. Don't bother looking for this one: it's as rare as hen's teeth, and I am very fortunate that the @Railwaysoc library has a copy.

Currently reading: Dublin History & Mystery Walks -- an interesting counterpoint to the previous one; makes me think of Our Pete; and

The House of Wisdom

Both seem to be winners.

>21 hfglen: I'll hold out for a paper edition then.

>23 hfglen: ooh, both of these sound good.

I think The House of Wisdom sounds particularly interesting and I'm thinking it might appeal to my husband as well! I am adding it to my wishlist.

I think my husband would like The House of Wisdom as well. I think I’d like it, but it would probably take me a while to read it.

* leaves to check if the library has it*

Yay! Four BBs in one easy move!

>23 hfglen: I wish I'd had the Dublin book before my visit last year. If I go back I'll try to find a copy before I go.

Apologies to all who mentioned photos. The computer that has been giving trouble for the last 2 weeks has now finally died, and its replacement is only expected in three weeks' time. But hopefully when normal service is resumed, I'll have pictures of a truly remarkable archaeological site to share.

Many thanks to all for your kind words about the pictures so far.

I hope you did not lose any photos or documents when your computer died.

>31 pgmcc:

I'm sure he does regular backups.

>31 pgmcc: I'm told it's the main board, and the hard drive is unaffected. So I don't think I've lost anything (except time and money).

>32 suitable1: You have more confidence in me than I do.

>30 hfglen: I just got a new computer last night! My old one didn't die, it was just too old to put High Sierra on it and The Husband didn't feel comfortable keeping it with all the security issues that have come up. So I'm currently typing on a very fast, very spiffy Mac.

>32 suitable1: Was I wrong to read that as being dripping with sarcasm?

Ah backups. Something we all know we should do. But I, for one, am not good at it. I always think, "I should clean this stuff up before I do a backup, because there is so much fluff I don't need to save."

This is also why my house does not receive regular cleanings.

>34 catzteach: Why are you using a Mac when you a new computer?

>35 MrsLee:

I'm sure that everyone here in the Green Dragon knows to keep a regular backup. After all, it's not "if" there is a failure but "when".

>37 suitable1: But the failure could be a failure to take a back-up.

>38 pgmcc: Besides, "statistics" prove that failures always happen to other people, not me ;-)

>36 pgmcc: I’m a Mac gal. I have the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. I guess I could’ve started the slow process of switching, but I use Mac at school as well.

>34 catzteach: Macs are very rare here, and generally cost twice as much as the equivalent Wintel machine. I suspect these statements are not unrelated.

An Adventure on the Old Silk Road. How much of the route travelled and described in the 13th century by Marco Polo can a modern traveller hope to see? Most of it, if you're John Pilkington. He couldn't get into Syria or Iran, which is understandable, and Afghanistan has long been unreachable. But he covers the rest, mostly overland. On foot, riding a camel, hitching lifts on almost anything that goes, by train and only when all else fails by air. A great book for armchair travellers, but I'm glad it was him and not me that did it.

>42 hfglen: That one sounds good. You have grazed me, and if I didn't have over a thousand books unread, I would probably go get it now. As it is, if it comes my way, I won't pass it up. :)

>42 hfglen: I love the sound of that one.

Curtain: Poirot's last case. Must be just about one of Mrs Christie's last, too. A satisfyingly complex mystery, with plenty to engage the famous "little grey cells". Just a pity that Poirot treats Hastings with such rock-solid contempt.

Just heard a statistic that will, I suspect, cause particular alarm and despondency in our favourite pub. This programme reports (from about 24 minutes in) an entirely legitimate poll indicating that some 20% of Brits can't name a single author of "literature" -- even if you include writers such as J.K. Rowling. Ouch.

>46 hfglen: I wish I could be surprised at that but so many people I know don't read at all and can't see the point - one person recently said 'I don't bother wasting time with books, because if it's any good they'll make it into a film or TV series'. I think it's a great shame, but unfortunately am no longer surprised by it.

>45 hfglen: You know she wrote Curtain during the Blitz but having come through the bombing of London, she held on to it for 30 years -- held in a safe -- with the understanding that it would not be published until she was nearing the end of her own life? (Actually, she died in 1976 and Curtain: Poirot's Last Case was published in '75.)

>48 jillmwo: I didn't. Many thanks for that gem.

Reread of Secret Britain. Considering that I last read it in 2010, I feel justified in enjoying it all over again. It's lots of little short bits, ideal for reading in bed before drifting off to sleep.

The Mystery of the Blue Train. A classic Agatha Christie, selected for reading while away. Enjoyed as such -- the story is surely far too well known to need a summary, especially as the edition in the library is a tie-in to an ITV series starring David Suchet as Poirot.

The 50 greatest train journeys of the world. Oh to be infinitely wealthy with infinite time to sample, well, most of these. Not sure I really want to do the Lima -- Huancayo (Peru) trip, as I have no head for heights. But the UK, US and Canadian ones, definitely! Preferably with lots of breaks to spend time with fellow Dragoneers, and to see the sights. If money were no problem, a comparison of the comfort available on Al Andalus (Spain, 5' 6" gauge) with that offered by Rovos Rail or the Blue Train (South Africa, 3' 6" gauge) would be interesting. Do I give the impression of being in a railfan phase?

>51 hfglen: I know it's not considered to be one of her best, but I enjoyed that one as well. It closely resembles one of her short stories (I know that the short story title has the words Plymouth Express in it, but I can't pull the full title out of my memory this morning.) At any rate The Mystery of the Blue Train was one that she wrote because she was under contract to her publisher to deliver SOMETHING. The memory is willing to confirm that it was written shortly after the end of her first marriage.

>52 hfglen: Is there a comfort difference between different gauges? Are the cars smaller on a smaller-gauge rail?

Heather, yes. It shows in several ways, and I'll now confuse you by dividing "gauge" into "track gauge" (the distance between the rails) and "load gauge", the cross-sectional size of the cars that can use the track without crashing into platforms, overhead furniture, bridges and tunnels. South African "standard" load gauge is unusually large considering the relatively narrow track, so you may not notice that the compartments are all that cramped in our Blue Train or Shosholoza Meyl services. But ... there's no way you could run a TGV service on Cape Gauge track -- it'd derail or fall over on the first sharp curve; this is why even our fastest trains take 25 hours and a bit to do the 1000 miles from Pretoria to Cape Town. Spanish-gauge (also Irish, Russian and Indian) carriages should be both wider, allowing a few inches' worth of more comfort in the compartments, and should be steadier at speed.

Of course when you come down to the really narrow gauges like the Welsh mountain lines, or the Darjeeling Railway or our own "Apple Express" -- all about 2 ft or 2' 6" -- the rolling stock is tall, narrow and uncomfortable, and the top speed is glacially slow.

Does that help?

yes, thanks! I recently read a historical fiction novel set in the American west that involved the newly-laid railway system, and there was mention of a difference in track gauge on different lines - something about using narrower ones on rails that go over the Rocky Mountain ranges. This stymied the bad guy because his personal train car designed for wider rails between large Californian cities couldn't go east over the mountains and would have to take a longer southern route to circumvent the mountains.

So the physics of different gauges being used for different types of terrain makes sense to me, but I was curious whether there was also a discernible difference to the passengers.

What is the most interesting train trip you've experienced?

Yes indeed! By all accounts Colorado is hog heaven for narrow-gauge buffs. The bad guy in your story might also have noticed the generally el-cheapo construction of most narrow-gauge lines (underpowered locomotives, lightweight rails -- limited load capacity -- go round any obstacle rather than through or over it yadda yadda yadda). A propos different gauges, as anybody ever used the gauge break on the Franco-Spanish border as a plot device, I wonder? Apparently the Spanish decided on 5' 6" rather than the standard 4' 8.5" as a defence against invasion from France.

Most interesting train? Interesting question. I'd have to include our very own Umgeni Steam Railway, not only because once a month I get to hear the conversation of the guys who run it and restore the rolling stock, but also it uses the Natal Old Main Line to the interior, which is interesting in its own right. Marginally less interesting is the now-defunct Banana Express, which used to be a preserved narrow-gauge (2-ft) line that took tourists from Port Shepstone to Paddock. Lovely scenery, but so slow that the local urchins could step on and off without danger as it passed (and I suspect that standing on the couplings was hardly less comfortable than the cramped, hard wooden seats). I suspect that the Bluebell Line deserves honourable mention, but I'm inclined to award the prize to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is a rack-and-pinion line. Mind you, the Paris-Geneva TGV was also special ... It was fun to watch the traffic on the road next to the line as the train picked its way slowly through the pass through the Jura just before Geneva. And there was this car busting a gut to keep up with the train (by that time going relatively very slowly). Then I saw the car was a Porsche.

Happy Belated New Year, Hugh. I'll be watching you. ;o)

>58 clamairy: And to you too, Clam! I hope you find something worth watching ;-)

And now that the new and improved MacHinery is (mostly) up and running, here is the sunset that should have ended the year last month.



Seen in September on Prince Alfred's Pass, between Uniondale and Knysna in the Western Cape

>60 hfglen: Lovely! Glad your computer woes are (mostly) over.

>60 hfglen: That is magnificent.

>60 hfglen: whoa! What a sunset!

Thank you, everybody!

Did I say I was away for most of last week? Went with a couple of archaeologists to Border Cave, which was fascinating and a good opportunity for pictures. So here is a view of the Ingwavuma Poort, through which the Ingwavuma River flows from Swaziland into South Africa, where it joins the Pongola before reaching the sea in Mozambique, at the Maputo estuary. The eagle-eyed might just spot the village of (you guessed it) Ingwavuma on top of the Lebombo ridge, all of 2000 feet above sea level. The Swaziland border is at the foot of the slope on the right.



Er, yes. The track in the foreground isn't an official road. The road itself ends a few hundred yards behind the camera, at the site museum.

>60 hfglen: & >64 hfglen:

Great pictures

>64 hfglen: I'm drinking in the depths in that photo. I can imagine it was breath-taking in person. Lovely.

>53 jillmwo: Many thanks for that! You are indeed our local tame world expert on Agatha Christie mysteries.

>65 pgmcc: >66 MrsLee: Thank you!

>66 MrsLee: Lovely indeed but ... just for the snowbound Dragoneers: the temperature was about 36°C / 95°F in the (minimal) shade, high humidity, lots of malarial mosquitoes. But a fascinating place nonetheless.

>66 MrsLee: it is gorgeous! I'm doing a project with my kids where they are making stop motion movies. I have given them all little toys to use. A couple of the groups received African animals: giraffes, lions, rhinos, hippos, camels, and gorillas. One group separated their animals into "African" animals and "jungle" animals. I had to explain to them that gorillas were African and that Africa has deserts and jungles. They were boggled. I should show them this pic.

>69 catzteach: By all means show them this one, and tell them with my compliments that we saw giraffes in a game reserve (and hippos in a river next to the town where we had a lunch break) on the way home a few days later. If you like I can post (or send you by Dropbox) pictures of the Namib Desert and southern Cape forests. Might help if you tell the kids that from where they live to New York is about the same distance as from Cape Town to Nairobi, and from Nairobi to Cairo or Alexandria is the same again -- Africa is a big place! (AFAIK camels originated in Asia, and gorillas also don't really belong with the rest.) But yes, on a good day in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, halfway between home and Ingwavuma, you could hope to see giraffes, hippos (easy), lions and rhinos (rarer and better hidden).

>70 hfglen: pics would be awesome! I do have a drop box account because of school but haven’t used it in a while. What info do I need to give you?

>71 catzteach: I think it would probably be a good idea to tell you what I'm thinking in a private message, for added "security".

>72 hfglen: Aw, Hugh! You're amongst friends. Write down your password. We will all look the other way.

>73 pgmcc: I would imagine he's looking for something to write it down on.

Hugh, I have pen and paper right here. Go ahead and read it off to me. I may have just missed the bit about whether you used password-1-2-3 with a capital or a lower case P.

We know he uses a strong password just as he backs up his computer regularly.

>73 pgmcc:-75 :-Þ~~~ I'll keep my password to myself, thank you. But I've sent Cindy some pictures (which will be repeated here in due course, so you kibitzers won't lose out).

4:50 from Paddington My weekly ration of fiction. Miss Marple in this case. And there are trains (GWR, surely) that are an important part of the plot.

Here's one of the pictures I sent Cindy.



This is a part of the Namib Desert, looking inland from Rössing hill, a short distance east of Swakopmund. Some years after this picture was taken (in 1970 -- no it hasn't aged all that gracefully) much of this scene was dug up for a uranium mine.

I thought the derivation of the name Swakopmund might be a bit "ripe" for the kidlets Cindy teaches -- at least the little girls. But the Dragoneers may enjoy the story. Remember that Namibia was a German colony until 1915 and (unlike Tanzania and Cameroon), German is still widely spoken there. So you can guess that "-mund" is a river mouth; sure enough the town sits between the Atlantic and the north bank of the Swakop (German spelling) River. Now this river flows -- possibly the wrong word -- through a desert, and so it only has surface water in it for a few hours at a time, possibly twice a century. But when there is water, it signifies a flash flood up in the mountains a couple hundred miles away, and so the water sweeps all before it, and arrives at the town bearing trees, drowned cows, dead dogs, corpses and all manner of rubbish, in a soupy yellow-brown muddy matrix. And so the local Khoikhoi name -- spelt approximately Tshoax!aub -- is appropriate, and is officially translated as "anus full of diarrhoea".

>78 hfglen: I had been thinking of a stew until I got to the last phrase of your last sentence.

>78 hfglen: very cool pic! I can’t wait to share them with my kiddos! I’m thinking I’d have to edit the story of its name a bit. I think the kids would think the story pretty riveting!

>78 hfglen: In the midst of reading a book about Euphemisms, my brain is now working on some classroom suitable euphemisms for "anus full of diarrhoea." Of course the playground version might be a butt-load of crap. ;)

Yes indeed. I hae'd ma doots about sharing that one with the kiddos. Here's a view of the river mouth and the town, taken in 1998. (I used colour negative film, as it was cheaper and the scanner could make a quasi-reasonable guess as to the correct colours.)

Fascinating, Hugh. Keep them coming!

>83 clamairy: Your wish is my command! Here is the other picture I sent Cindy.



It shows the start of the Circles in a Forest Walk at Jubilee Creek near Knysna. The walk is named after the book, and maintained to commemorate the author, Dalene Matthee, who is buried just to the left of the picture.

And this week's picture ...



Clearly this animal is a gi-ant: the fruit is a sour-plum, and is about the size of a prune. Looks delicious, but believe me, you don't willingly taste one a second time. They are seriously sour! (Seen last month at Ndumo River Lodge in the furthest north of Kwazulu-Natal; Mozambique is barely 10 km away as the crow flies.)

>85 hfglen: That is just Not Fair that such a lovely fruit is inedible.

Unreliable Sources by John Simpson. Delivers rather less than it says on the cover, and is frequently tedious (at least to this non-Brit) in doing so. A rather verbose selection of some events of interest to the British press from between 1899 and 2009, and quotes from how the British press, radio and TV saw them. I frequently got the impression that the world outside of London and Manchester (until the Guardian moved) doesn't exist for the author. Pity -- this could have been a good book.

How the Zebra got its stripes by Léo Grasset. Produce of the author's fieldwork in Zimbabwe, and a highly entertaining bedside read. Small stories of how nature works, in particular the animals. Somebody once (it might even have been in this pub) pointed out that books translated into English are much rarer than the other way round; if this is a typical example of what we English-speakers are missing then we need to redress the balance ASAP. Thoroughly recommended.

>80 catzteach: By the way, how did the kiddos' project go?

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. Evidently a re-read (quite probable; I'm sure I remember some of the stories from my y00t), but I don't recall seeing C.P. Snow's introduction before.

>89 hfglen: They are still in the planning stage. I shared the pics. They loved them! They think it's cool that I know someone in Africa. :) They are still at the age where they aren't sure what's a state and what's a country. But they do understand that Africa is far away and different. Their projects won't be completely done until June. And then we will have our school's Film Night. We all dress to the nines and put out the red carpet (literally), we also have people be the paparazzi and we show the films to the parents. They are quite awful, but the parents love them! It's a pretty fun night.

>91 catzteach: Then I have time to share some wildlife pictures and more scenery. If you read to them, I wonder if I should recommend Harry Wolhuter's Memories of a Game Ranger, which includes the horrendous story of when he was attacked by a lion.

Stray thought, with some mental gymnastics. Let them imagine how long it takes to fly from Oregon to New York. Then imagine starting from Cape Town (in the south-west corner of Africa). That length of flying time will take you to Nairobi. To get to the north (Mediterranean) coast of Africa from Nairobi is as far as you've already come from Cape Town.

In the meanwhile, strength and good luck to all of you.

>91 catzteach: Another stray thought: There's a group based in Pretoria that make TV series (broadcast on Sunday evenings here, so we've just finished this week's episode) of their expeditions across Africa. They sell DVD sets of the completed series, which is good. The downside is that the commentary is in Afrikaans, but two series have English subtitles. I don't know if you feel for blowing money on these, but if you do the self-explanatory titles are "Die Groot Skeurvallei / The Great Rift Valley" and "Op die Ewenaar / On the Equator" and the website is www.voetspore.co.za , which has a shop. By my thumbnail calculations they charge the equivalent of $30.50 for a 4-DVD set.

And today's picture: in honour of @catzteach's kiddos, I present a lousy picture of a giraffe drinking at a waterhole near Berg-en-Dal restcamp, in the south-west corner of the Kruger National Park (taken in 2015).

>94 hfglen: that pic is awesome! I’ll show it to them. I think I may have to do a quick unit on Africa.

>94 hfglen: There is no such thing as a lousy picture of a giraffe drinking at a waterhole. Agreed with >95 catzteach: that the picture is awesome! (It's the candid element that makes it so incredible -- and real. I've come back to look at it several times this evening and to marvel at the idea of being present at such a scene.)

>95 catzteach: In case they ask, the birds are Red-billed Oxpeckers. They eat the ticks that parasitise almost everything that walks around the bush (if the kiddos are of an age to enjoy Piers Anthony-type puns, these pests are often sep-ticks and can drive their victims fran-tick). The birds were driven to extinction in South Africa by the toxic dips used by cattle-ranchers, but have been re-introduced from "up North" into the Kruger Park. And they have lately been found to be not quite the little feathered angels we thought they were -- they also drink the blood of their hosts.

>96 MinuteMarginalia: You are too kind. It's amazing the photographic sins that can be hidden by a bit of judicious cropping of a low-res image ;-)

>94 hfglen: Great picture.

Stop giving away your picture secrets. It does not diminish the effect or the awesomeness with which you are regarded.

>97 hfglen: They are vampire birds! My kiddos are young: 8 and 9. They will get a kick out of the birds drinking blood.

>99 catzteach: Then they need a decent picture of one! They mostly eat ticks and other external parasites, so they do more good than harm. Here's one sitting on an impala; seen in Kruger Park in 2009 (urk! a year before the kiddos were born!).

Great shot of a demonic looking avian.

>100 hfglen: What >101 pgmcc: said!

That red eye does make it a bit creepy. I’ll show it to them tomorrow!

You have introduced them to Flanders and Swann's Hippopotamus Song, haven't you? I'm tickled pink at the thought of the kiddos singing "Mud, mud, glorious mud ...". Picture following in due course.

Edited to correct spelling

>104 hfglen: I had never heard that song before. Delightful, and I'm hoping my husband hasn't heard it either, because I'm leaving the YouTube page up for him to discover this morning. :) He has a great fondness for all things hippopotamus.

Good heavens, Lee! You must have had a Deprived Childhood. It appeared in our family on vinyl in about 1958, and so when my parents sent me on a schools package tour to Europe in 1965/6, I took great pains to convince the Powers that Were that the one show I wanted to see above all other in London was Flanders and Swann's "At the Drop of Another Hat". I was successful, and so can claim that I have actually seen them perform The Hippopotamus Song, Live, albeit a long time ago.

>106 hfglen:
My hat off to you, Hugh. Flanders & Swann live is a wonderful memory to have. Flanders & Swann live and singing The Hippopotamus Song is just off the scale.

And here you have "a regular army, of hippopotami", but probably not "all singing this haunting refrain".



Seen at Mlondozi Dam in Kruger National Park in 2015.

And, at last, another book completed. After all, we are held together by a love of reading, aren't we?
The Secret War by Max Hastings. (Can somebody please explain to me how LT manages to twist that into "A man called Intrepid"? The actual book is a right brick, at over 600 pages of often heavy going. In it you will find studies of the codebreakers and "dirty tricks" departments of all the major combatants in World War 2. Sir Max's view of these organizations is often, justifiably, jaundiced; he offers plenty of evidence supporting the idea that the term "military intelligence" is an oxymoron. Interesting, nevertheless.

>109 hfglen: I have a number of Hastings's books but not this one. I think you can chalk up a direct hit.

*carves notch in edge of keyboard*

And another one finished: the estimable Miss Marple and The Body in the Library. What can I say that hasn't been said a thousand times already? Only that I'd like to see the movie one day.

>112 hfglen: The Body in the Library was the first Agatha Christie I read.

>113 pgmcc: "Vecchia, ma ancora bella"

Next up is Gender, Modernity and Indian Delights: the Women's Cultural Group of Durban, 1954-2010 -- why am I not surprised there's no touchstone? As this is inevitably very political, I probably won't review it here. Suffice to say that embedded in the politics is the story of one of my favourite curry recipe books.

ETA: As the group is almost exclusively Muslim, a review would also contravene the ban on discussion of religion.

>114 hfglen: Indeed!

Curious Minds -- another Janet Evanovich, and so it delivers pretty much what one might expect. Absurd characters, plot and action, but the Feline Overlord (Overlady, actually) was well pleased that it kept the lap she was using as underbody heating stationary for a couple of hours. The hoomin needs these mental palate-cleansers from time to time, and cannot record a moment's dissatisfaction with this one. Great art it isn't, but the mental image of the denouement is good comedy.

Continuing MrsLee's evidently neglected education, may I introduce The Gnu? Here is a White-tailed Gnu or Black Wildebeest -- old news, as I'm sure you already k-now w-ho's w-ho. Seen in the Camdeboo National Park at Graaff Reinet, September last year.

>117 hfglen: That is the end of the gnus. Now for the weather forecast.

Ah not so. Here is a gnother gnu, a Brindled Gnu or Blue Wildebeest (Kruger Park, 2015)

I think gnus are great.

Just catching up on posts and loving all the pictures and the tales to go with them.

How big is a gnu? They look pretty big.

Didn't Flanders and Swan also have a gnu song?

I had to look it up:

https://youtu.be/OPgo6s1lBbw

And that's why the references above looked familiar. And then I realized you already had a link.

>122 catzteach: They stand nearly as tall as cows, but are more lightly built. Astley Maberley's (wonderful English name, that, and the picture on the dust cover looks the part) Game Animals of southern Africa tells me that the Blue Wildebeest is about 51 inches tall at the shoulder, and weighs about 475 pounds. The Black Wildebeest is slightly smaller at 46 inches and 400 pounds. The book is old, so the measures are Imperial not metric.

I played them the Hippopotamus Song today. They thought it was weird. It was definitely more folksie than they are used to. They did like the pics of the gnus. :)

In my defense, I grew up in a tiny (pop. 300 at best over a very LARGE area) community in northern California; no TV in my house until the mid '70s. Burl Ives was our go-to folk singer. :) I am glad to catch up on my education though. My dad would have loved those guys, because he was always singing silly songs. One-eyed, one-horn, flying purple people eater being one of his go-to tunes.

>126 MrsLee:
"Come on let's crawl, to the ugly bugs ball..."

Fond memories of Burl Ives.

"I'm too old for girls and I'm too young for women.
They call me Mr In-between."

Spectacular photos, Hugh. Love them all, but the 'hippopotarmy' is very special. :o)

>119 hfglen: Extraordinary! (And I suppose it's survival, but the way their hides blend so beautifully with the landscape makes the picture even more arresting.)
>126 MrsLee: PPE was one of the first records I owned ("Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flying purple people eater" -- I think I can still do most of it from memory.)

>129 MinuteMarginalia: Quite correct about the coloration. Though they stand out like sore thumbs three weeks after decent rain, when the vegetation is green. One day I should post a picture of a zebra, which is said to have given the Royal Navy in World War 1 the idea of dazzle camouflage.

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park. It is truly amazing that a group of 9000 people (at maximum strength) could work flat out throughout World War 2, and not a word was breathed by anybody (except for a few spies passing their product to the Russians) at the time or for 30 years after the war ended. This book is part history, from interviews with the survivors, part description, part biography and wholly fascinating. It includes a couple of chapters about the estate after the war, and the doings of the Bletchley Park Trust since the 1990s, which other books on the subject don't. I would expect Pete to love it, when the weather lets up and he can move again.

Cindy, I do hope the pictures and info I keep sending for the kiddos aren't adding to the stress levels. Assuming that I'm not guilty of adding to the stress and unhappiness, may I offer an elephant, drinking from a reservoir unavailable to other animals (who get to use a trough nearby). Seen in Kruger National Park, 2009.



No Flanders & Swann; for one thing their Elephant isn't on YouTube; for another I can't see them getting tongues or minds around "an introverted elephocentric hypochondriac".

>132 hfglen: The pictures definitely are not adding to the stress levels! The kids and I love them! I'll show them the elephant on Monday. We have a drive through park in my state called Wildlife Safari. After all these pics, it would be fun to go visit it again and see all the animals in person.

I meant to add on #132. There's a reserve called Tembe on the northern border of Kwazulu-Natal, specially for ellies, which migrate between there and the Maputo Elephant Reserve (south bank of the Maputo estuary; it's the peninsula that sticks up towards Inhaca Island). The migration route crosses a densely populated area and so the animals are regularly poached. Kruger also borders on Mozambique, and in the northern part the border fence is down because this is now part of a "transfrontier park" -- we're told that there's little to see on the Mozambique side but subsistence farmers, half-starved cows and dogs. Theoretically this allows the ellies free movement, but most of what moves freely seems to be poachers. And so the Kruger and Tembe ellies all know that seeing humans means being shot at, and they respond appropriately; you approach at your peril, and should always be ready to get the h*** out as fast as possible. On the other hand, the Addo ellies have lived at peace with their human neighbours for generations -- Victorian big game hunters saw to the extinction of the genes for big tusks, and so many of the Addo population are now tuskless -- and simply couldn't give a tinker's about these tin boxes that buzz around their reserve. So you can get up close to them without anybody batting an eyelid.

>132 hfglen: Love that photo.

>134 hfglen: That's sad and hopeful. I had no idea that there were naturally tuskless elephants. I imagine that helps reduce poaching somewhat since aren't they mostly poached for the ivory?

>134 hfglen: at least those ellies know to run. Poor things. Poachers suck!
I didn’t know there were tuskless elephants either!

>135 Narilka: Quite correct. The locals may well use small amounts for food and "traditional medicine", but not enough to show on the average carcass.

ETA: Seeing @theexiledlibrarian was looking for holiday ideas, Addo is well within day trip range of the beaches at Port Elizabeth. They have comfortable accommodation of varying degrees of affordability, including a private tented camp (sleeps 8) that is the closest approach I know to heaven on earth -- fantastic view, no electricity, no mobile-phone reception, beautiful forest ...

Gender, modernity and Indian Delights. Meh. From time to time there were indications that hidden in the writing a good story was struggling and failing to get out. However the book was evidently written to gain academic brownie points rather than to be read. And so the story of the group that produced a classic and very recommendable cookbook (Indian Delights) is buried in jargon, name-dropping and Political Correctness. One might be surprised that there is no touchstone for the cookbook (represented by 18 copies on LT) but less so by the book in question (2 copies).

>133 catzteach: Google Maps suggests this would be a weekend rather than a day trip. A worthy idea, but coming and seeing them "for real" would be better ;-)

>138 hfglen: I believe there is a glitch with touchstones today. Hamlet brings up "no results." There is a thread in Bug Catchers about search being down as well, perhaps it is affecting touchstones?

>140 MrsLee: Search worked for me; at least, having failed to get a touchstone for Indian Delights, I searched in 'Your Books' for the compiler's surname (Mayat), and it produced the right answer and no other.

>133 catzteach:, continued. Somehow the mind's eye and ear supply me with the little horrors in your class (I'm sure they're not all angelic) quoting the man who taught me Latin in Standard 6 (8th grade). He wrote this on hearing the neighbourhood kids (the link goes to the original, politically incorrect version). I'm thinking of the last two verses:

Ag pleeez deddy, wont' you take us down to Durban,
It's only eight hours in the Chevrolet \now six; they've re-aligned the road\.
There's spans of sea and sand and sun
and fish in the aquarium;
that's a lekker place for a holiday.

(chorus)

Ag pleeeez deddy ...
VOETSEK!!!
Ag sis deddy if we can't graft to bi'scope
or go off to Durban life's a heng of a bore.
If you won't take us to the zoo ... etc.

>142 hfglen: my class is pretty good, really. We have some tough days every once in a while, but this year I’ve been blessed with no real behavior issues. I’ve done the trip to Wildlife Safari in one day. It’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive. But I’d love to come see them for real someday!

Am I hallucinating or is LT glacially slow today?

When @fuzzi posted her beautiful Bluebird, I mentioned that I found the coloration less strident than the African bird it reminded me of. Here's the bird I was thinking of, a Lilac-breasted Roller.



Seen in Kruger National Park in 2015. It's amazing the colours nature throws together that work, but would clash horribly in a human design.

>145 hfglen: Now that's just showing off. ;) I have seen women wearing all of those colors together. Especially women of a certain age down in the southwestern states here. It was a "thing" for awhile, in fact, whole houses were decorated like that. The original outshines them all though.

Wow! I’ll show my kiddos this one!

Those colors would be beautiful in a quilt.

>146 MrsLee: You leave me no choice but to show off some more. I was highly amused on Thursday during a tour of the nearest thing Durban has to a Stately Home, to be told by one of the participants that the local coastal Strelitzia, which is an indigenous "garden thug" in our garden, is spread by monkeys and Purple-crested Turacos. I've often kvetched in the pub about the resident monkeys in our suburb, and yes, we have turacos resident in the garden; unlike Victorian children they're heard but not seen. So I had to look in Wikimedia for a picture, and found this one taken at iMfolozi, just 200 km up the road.

>148 hfglen: It's like an ugly bird that went to makeup class and didn't listen to the part about subtle eye shadow! Um, I've had a gin drink, so maybe I'm speaking out of turn?

Our peacock is the closest thing to that glorious color here. Most of our birds are pretty dull in comparison. Although some of our hummers could keep up.

>149 MrsLee: ha! An apt description!

>149 MrsLee: LOL! An ugly bird with a raucous voice indeed.

>145 hfglen: How beautiful!

>148 hfglen: Lovely colours on the head but it's definitely missed the mark somewhere in carrying the outfit through.

>148 hfglen: He is clearly showing his dinosaur ancestry.

Here's a rhino for @catzteach's kiddos. No data for this one -- rhinos are the most heavily poached of all our large game animals. And so these days it's almost inevitable that a visitor to a game reserve where they live will at some point think they've wandered into military exercises, with both army and air force participating. Not so, it's just that army, air force and nature conservation work together to comb the place for poachers 24/7/365. So if you come, stay in your car and make sure you have your permits to hand at all times! (Some goons on both sides are known to shoot first and ask questions afterwards.)



'Fraid I can't do a gorilla or a camel for the kiddos. You need to go to Uganda for gorillas, and their national parks charge a fortune for the privilege. IIRC they mentioned something like US$400 per person per day in the relevant Voetspore episode, and there's no guarantee that the gorillas will want to be seen.

Like I said, camels are of Asian origin, and in Africa are only seen as working beasts. Sudan coins and stamps up to 1956 had a picture of a messenger riding one. The police in Upington had a camel corps briefly up to WW1. I could ask around for period pictures if you're desperate.

Those birds are just gloriously plumaged. (Plumed?) Love the other photos, too.

I didn’t know camels were originally from Asia! I will show the kids your pics tomorrow. They’ll love the rhino!

Reading hasn't entirely vanished behind the obligations of RL, just the reporting of it.

It's All Greek to me! is a delightful tale of an Englishman who buys a ruined house on a Greek island, does it up and is still living there 40 years later, told with much humour (do I detect a faint memory of Three Men in a Boat?). The villagers remind me strongly of the Johannesburg Greek community I knew in my y00t. Recommended.

A brief history of everyone who ever lived. The name of Adam Rutherford may be familiar to BBC Radio 4 listeners as a remarkably good science broadcaster -- think of The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry among others -- but I'd not seen his writing before. I was in no way anywhere near disappointed. This book is a fragrant blend of genetics, genealogy and cutting-edge genomics, flavoured with very English wit. When I think back to the truly dreadful undergraduate genetics lectures I endured, it is doubly remarkable that this book manages to be both thought-provoking and a page turner at the same time. Enjoy a cast of, not thousands, but billions, including Neandertals, Denisovans, Charlemagne and Richard III. I think Pete would like this one.

>158 hfglen:

A bullet with a name on it!

>158 hfglen:. I think you might be correct.

>159 suitable1:. Will you look at my back, please? Is there a big target painted on my jacket?

>160 pgmcc:

I see a little Post-It note that says "aim here".

>161 suitable1: Just as I thought.

Thank you for having my back.

>158 hfglen: - you caught my interest with your previous comment about that book, and my library actually has it. It is now in my possession...

This evening's Voetspore had a mini-fact that @catzteach's kiddos would almost certainly like when they're a year or 3 older. You saw how ungainly they are drinking water, right? So an obvious question asks itself. Turns out they give birth standing up. Nearly all giraffe babies come out feet first, so they don't have all that far to fall, and very few get beaned while being born. We also learned that a newborn giraffe stands 1.5 m (nearly 5 feet) tall and weights 100 kg (220 lb). Thought that one was too good not to share.

So here's a giraffe enjoying a tasty snack, as this week's picture.

The photos are amazing (as always) as are the tidbits of commentary that you throw in your charmingly off the cuff manner. I wouldn't have known that one wouldn't be able to find gorillas in South Africa nor that there was a camel corps in World War I.

>164 hfglen: what do you mean by “beaned?”

>167 catzteach: Hit on the head, in this case by a rapidly rising patch of soil.

>166 jillmwo: Except, of course, for the late lamented Max the Gorilla, who lived in Johannesburg Zoo and whose finest hour was when he took out a burglar single-handed. The burglar shot him, and poor Max had to spend some time in hospital.

Finished reading Murder on the Orient Express, which one maybe should have done many years ago. Well written and immensely crafty as always. Yes, one can see that she used the train often when going to Mesopotamia with her archaeologist husband. The background rings true, and is described in loving detail, which I enjoyed. I shall donate the book to the @Railwaysoc library.

I am glad you enjoyed Christie's novel. The question is whether you were startled by the resolution? If you've seen one of the many film adaptations, then was your reading in any way spoiled? I go back and forth on this issue of how adaptations influence our enjoyment of the actual text.

I didn't see it coming, indeed. I haven't seen any film adaptations, though evidently the cover of my copy is derived from a still from a recent one.

I had thought of raiding the picture archive for some other African antelopes that Cindy's kiddos might see if they were to come here and view the bush "for real". But my eye was waylaid by another Technicolor bird, again not altogether rare. And so this week's offering is a Malachite Kingfisher.



Although you tend to see them near water, clearly they eat more insects (like this unlucky grasshopper) than fish.

>173 hfglen: Oh, I was afraid that was a frog in its beak. So pretty.

>173 hfglen: he’s beautiful! They loved the other bird pics. And one kiddo commented that it looked like a dinosaur.

@hfglen, I just wanted to take a moment to say that I too have been loving all the pictures of your local wildlife that you’ve been posting.

>176 YouKneeK: i agree - they're amazing and it's fascinating to hear about them too.

Thank you, all. You inspire me to continue with the pictures.

South Afrika is fantastik. How I wish that the title was inaccurately spelt. That is exactly as it appears in the book, and the author's idiosyncratic spelling is only one reason why the book was a pain to finish (and I only finished it because I had no other library reading matter). The utopian idea of a land without politicians is not without charms, but this book does nothing to sell the idea. Indeed all the effort the author puts into it ends up being counterproductive due to his style (strongly reminiscent in its way of what the Australian team were caught doing to the ball in the cricket Test the other day). When will I learn that books produced by unknown local micropublishers are at least as likely to be lemons as the self-published variety?

The Life and Times of Charles II. I like this series. The books are short and to the point, and filled with apposite, attractive illustrations. Restoration England must have been a pleasant place, at least if you were wealthy and not too prominent. But would a resident of the 21st century want to live there, or even visit? Probably not.

Just for Easter, let's have a change from animals, at least partly. I offer the excuse that the yellow flowers of the Mickey Mouse Tree would be appropriate for now if they were having spring (we see them in September-October), but now we get the fruits, and can see the source of the name.

>181 hfglen: What was it called before there was a Mickey Mouse? Can you eat the fruit? Very pretty, or colorful, looks kind of like a trap, meaning one of those plants that lure things in to eat them and then somehow end up eating the thing they lured in. Or something. Maybe my allergies are affecting my mind.

What excellent questions! The alternative name is Natal Plane -- werlll, it comes from Kwazulu-Natal and (true to the conventions for giving English names to plants) bears exactly no resemblance at all to a plane tree. You may not find the fruits rewarding -- the flesh is very thin -- but birds eat them. The structure there is topologically similar to a strawberry, two to five black seeds with thin flesh sitting on a bright red, fibrous base. To a bird, that's a great big illuminated sign saying "Eat me! Spread my seeds!" And they do. If your allergies are working on your mind, they're only supplying a bit of extra horsepower.

Wild as it Gets. The author, Don Pinnock edited Getaway magazine (one of our better dream-building offerings) for some years, and if this book is not entirely composed of his columns from there, it certainly reads like it. Which is far from being a crime. He details his adventures in various desirable places in southern and, occasionally, East Africa. While it would require the income of a multimillionaire to duplicate what he describes exactly, there are plenty of downmarket (or possibly real-world) alternatives. Highly recommended to the kind ladies of the GD who say nice things about my pictures. But what a pity the publishers saw fit not to include a single one of the breathtaking images that are part of the Getaway brand!

Britannia's Daughters. A study of Victorian womanhood throughout the Empire, sorted by theme. So if you want to know how 5-times-great Aunt Jemima coped in Australia, you could have quite a lot of searching to do. And if the said Great Aunt lived in the Cape Colony or Natal, you're essentially out of luck. The writing is adequate if not outstanding. It leaves me profoundly glad I came along a century later, and am of the masculine persuasion.

Koh-i-Noor. Before the diamond found its way to the Sikhs, its history is murky and uncertain in the extreme. From about the 18th century it is very well documented, and (as may possibly be expected of a large and valuable jewel) a story of theft, treachery and bloodshed. William Dalrymple tells the early story, Anita Anand takes over for the 19th century. Both accounts are very well told.

>173 hfglen: Love this one so much.

Thank you, Clam.

This week's is again for @catzteach's kiddos. A male kudu is one of the more stately residents of the bush, and if they look at the sign on the gate in the picture of the forest way back when, they'll see that the SANParks logo is a stylised kudu head.



So what can we tell the kiddos? See the white stripe on his face just below his eyes? The theory goes that the benefit of that is that when he's browsing by moonlight, that reflects just enough light that he can see what he's eating. And yes, they do move around at night. In the drier parts of southern Africa main roads are adorned with "father christmas crossing" signs, warning of free-range kudu. The animals have the alarming habit of waiting in the dark on the side of roads, and jumping immediately behind the headlights of passing cars, with effects that are almost always fatal to all concerned. Kudu are hefty beasts: I was quite surprised by a "teenage" female that lives at Swadini Resort in Mpumalanga, and has formed the habit of bumming fruit off the tourists. She was not quite full-grown when I saw her a few years ago, and already stood so tall that I had to hand the apple up to her -- so over seven feet floor to eye.

Oh my! He’s gorgeous! I’m not at work today, but I will show them this tomorrow. They are going to love it. Methinks I might have to do a unit of Africa this spring.

That theory regarding the stripe below is eyes is intriguing. I've never heard of anything like that before --- a species developing their marking for purposes of nutrition (as opposed to developing marking for purposes of camouflage.)

I forgot to ask: Does he shed his horns? They are amazing!

>191 catzteach: No, he's not a deer.

17 Carnations. Good heavens, when the British Royals produce a black sheep they certainly don't do things by halves! Edward VIII seems to have behaved quite consistently like an impractical, spoiled brat at all times and in all places. This is the story of his very questionable behaviour with relation to the Nazis before and during World War 2, and the cover-up afterwards. It is well known that the Queen Mother couldn't stand even the very idea of her brother- and sister-in-law, and on the showing detailed in this book, one can only admire her good taste. Although one thinks at least once on each page that both Windsors needed a hearty klap for whatever was being described, this remains a riveting book, and I wouldn't have missed it for worlds.

Hidden Johannesburg. (dud touchstone removed) Gorgeous pictures of 28 significant buildings in the town I grew up in, with minimal text. So how many of these buildings do I recall from then? Not much more than half of them. Some, like Park Station, the Catholic cathedral and the Freemasons' Hall, are unmissable. Others, one went past often enough that they seeped into the mind anyway: the Lions Shul, Northwards (Randlord palace in a very prominent place) and Villa Arcadia (another one). But a surprising number are genuinely hidden, and require effort to seek out, for example the house L. Ron Hubbard lived in when he was here, ditto Mahatma Gandhi, and a few others. Some, like the Old Fort, weren't accessible when I wur a lad, and one, Nizamiye Mosque, didn't exist until a year or 2 ago. To me the book raises some questions I could probably answer if I put some effort into it. So St. George's Parktown is a design by the great (indeed, legendary in this country) Sir Herbert Baker, but who built the little old St. Martin's where I went to Sunday School, or its more recent and much bigger replacement? St. John's School is another Baker offering (actually, mostly his partner Frank Fleming, in all probability), but who did St. Stithian's, which looks very like the pictures of the Freemasons' Hall? Stray comments: House Hubbard is claimed as a totally new design for the town, yet I recall going to play with a kid in my primary school class a good 5 years before House Hubbard was built; the kid lived in a house his father designed, that was in many ways almost identical to the younger putative "original". And one I couldn't have gone into back then because of the licensing laws: there's a most interesting write up of the Radium Beer Hall, oldest pub in Johannesburg and beloved watering hole of the author Tom Learmont, who has received favourable comment here in the GD. If you like stunning pictures of architecture and its details, this is one to look out for -- probably not all that easy to find outside South Africa.

ETA: Tried the touchstone again, as this is the only copy of the book on LT; still nothing. Try searching on the author, Paul Duncan (the LT entry probably conflates two different people.)

This week's picture: the other end of the animal kingdom from last week's kudu. Saw this dragonfly just outside the Kruger Park a couple of years ago.

>194 hfglen: that sounds l8ke a fun book!

>195 hfglen: he looks like he’s wearing armor (did I spell that right? It looks funny to me.)

>195 hfglen: Hugh, that is a super dragonfly photograph. They are fascinating creatures.

>195 hfglen: my attempts to photograph a dragonfly have not been so successful. I can't get that close. Are you using a telephoto lens? or just convincing them of your benign intention?

>198 Darth-Heather: Telephoto lens, quick reactions, cropping quite hard and dumb luck. The last being arguably the most important.

>196 catzteach: Like all insects, he wears his skeleton on the outside, and so he's armour-plated.

Love dragonflies. I have some spectacular large orange ones in my pond each year. At least, I hope I do. Always relieved and glad when they make their appearance.

What is it that people love about dragonflies? I include myself as one of the dragonfly lovers, but when you look at them they could have been designed as a creature people would be terrified of.

Perhaps it is their lack of stinger or possibly it is their size that takes them into the realm of animals, as opposed to bugs, that we can anthropomorphise.

I do not know the answer but I think they are great.

Perhaps it is their mind-control capability that has us all lulled into a false state of security and that they are really aliens who are working to take over the World.

In the late summer we get dozens of the really big blue Emperor dragonflies, and I can watch them for hours. The way that they execute 90 degree turns at high speed, and zig zag between each other is incredible.

Sometimes a big swarm of them will come to our field while my husband is mowing (we think the mower kicks up bugs that they want to eat) and sitting there surrounded by them looks just like the scene where Harry Potter is trying to find the flying key :)

Rooms of one's own. Not quite a "book about books", this one is about the author's adventures in trying to see the rooms where 50 important authors wrote their major works. In many cases he succeeded, as more than a few are kept as museums by the (English) National Trust and similar bodies, while others are hotel rooms, or have been turned into B&Bs. Only a relatively few places appear to be saddled with curmudgeonly owners, or to have been demolished. His comment on J.K. Rowling's writing place bears quoting; I find it delicious: "Tables where J.K. Rowling sat and wrote are becoming as ubiquitous as beds in which Queen Elizabeth slept and bars in which Hemingway drank." I like it when an author spices what could be a desperately, worthily dull subject with a sense of humour. I could imagine more than a few Dragoneers enjoying this book.

The Old Illovo. I won't even try for a touchstone here. The book is an object lesson in how not to write history, but for all that is not totally without value. The Illovo in the title is one of South Africa's major sugar companies, and so the story is relevant to pretty well any resident of Kwazulu-Natal with an interest in history (there is one in the GD besides myself). Unfortunately, the text consists of almost totally undigested reminiscences from a number of sources -- the good news is that most of them were close to or participants in the events described. There are illustrations, possibly all that could be found, but the reproduction is all too often dire. Possibly the best part is that the book is only 118 A5 pages long, including the index. Sources are not cited.

I am reminded that the longest farm name in southern Africa is said to be (the legendary?) Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein (spring where someone once shot two buffalo stone dead with a single shot) -- believe it if you will. And so I offer @catzteach's kiddos two Cape Buffalo, and a calf.

The Elephant House coffee shop in Edinburgh is where J.K. Rowlings wrote in her early days. It is a lovely place to visit. You can see Edinburgh castle from the window and there are old houses that will remind you of the village near Hogwarts (Hogsmeade).

http://www.elephanthouse.biz/

The Elephant House website has an extract from a documentary about J.K. Rowlings in which she is interviewed in The Elephant House.

Thank you, Pete! For many years I had a dear old "honorary aunt" (distant cousin, if you're being pedantic) who lived in Bruntsfield Place and, on a couple of occasions, took (and gave) great pleasure in showing me around Edinburgh. I think that on at least one occasion she walked me past where the Elephant House now is (before it was thought of); the view brings back memories! And yes, the place features in the book in #203.

>207 hfglen:
I am glad I brought happy memories to mind for you.

Early one Sunday morning I decided to step out and find South Africa. Over a period of about a year (evidently 2015/2016) he went on 12 day walks (one or two a tad longer), which he records in this book. And so he explores on foot important parts of four of South Africa's nine provinces. The walks vary between 2.5 and 24 km, and probably anybody reasonably fit and prepared could undertake them, though in more than a few cases one may consider one's time better spent at the sites rather than walking there. In the first one, for example, most of the walk is through the suburbs where he spent his childhood (fascinating to him but arguably meaningless to the vast majority of Dragoneers), but the destination gets scant mention. You would need to search elsewhere to discover that part of the erstwhile Modderfontein Dynamite Factory is now a museum, and elsewhere on the site one finds a craft brewery and coffee roastery, and a highly-thought-of restaurant.

While I do not seem to be able to enjoy reading at the moment, I am enjoying reading your thoughts about your reading. :)

>210 MrsLee: Thank you! It's just a pity that so much of it is of such purely local interest therefore hard to find elsewhere, and you're so far away. Still, I shall now permanently muddy my name in this esteemed pub by admitting that I switched this afternoon from the Trudi Canavan I was reading to one the library system produced against all expectation: Crewel Lye, a Xanth book (horrors, but right now I need the pun-ishment). I'll get back to Ms Canavan in due course.

A propos puns. Last night I went to a l-o-n-g meeting of the Railway History Society, where there was much discussion of a collection of railwayana they're in the process of buying for our museum. Included (or not, as the case may be) was a garment said to be a station foreman's jacket. More warra-warra that it was rather a small jacket. "Oh" said I, "a station 3-and-a-halfman's jacket, perhaps?" It got the discussion moving again.

Crewel Lye. Xanth as ever was; Somewhere I gained the impression that the early stories were in some way more satisfying than the later ones. Not necessarily, IMHO. Though I do wonder what became of Jordan the Barbarian after the events in this story -- I have a vague idea I've read one with him in it.

>213 hfglen: I haven't thought about Xanth in forever. I remember enjoying about the first 10 as a kid before they started to bother me. Not sure I'd have the same result these days.

Have I introduced you-all to this guy before? He's a Blue Agama lizard, and one sees them from time to time in the Kruger Park. I'm told they're much rarer here in Durban; when we had to call the snake-remover a month or 2 back he found a baby one hanging on for dear life to the duvet in the master bedroom, evidently scared out of its wits. He said we'd probably never see another in such a situation.

>205 hfglen: cool animals! We need to set up a day/time to skype or something. I do have the capability to do something, I will just need a tutorial from my IT guy.

>206 pgmcc: I am showing this pic to one of my students. She is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, so much so, she inspired me to listen (read) the book this year! When we did biographies, she chose JK Rowling. She'll love this picture. I could spend many an hour just sipping tea and looking out at that view!

>215 hfglen: He is amazing! I love the expression on his face! How big do they get?

>215 hfglen: He looks brilluant. I like lizards.

>216 catzteach: It is one of those views you can look at for hours...if you could. The first time I saw the view I could understand how Rowling got ideas for the book. It just oozes magic.

>215 hfglen:

Wait! Snake-remover is an occupation?

That is one colorful lizard. He almost looks spray painted :)

>216 catzteach: About 8-10 inches long, full grown. That's why the best place to see them is on a tree in a rest camp or picnic site in a reserve. Will repond to the rest by PM.

>219 suitable1: There's a group of trained and licensed herpetologists in this area who take time out of their day jobs to do it. Their services are rather necessary from time to time.

>220 Narilka: "He" is correct: the blue colour indicates that he's an adult male.

We're 1/3 of the way through the year, and this thread is getting long. Time to start a new one.