Welcome!

Welcome to "Bits for Brits" - a forum for British members of LibraryThing.

Many thanks to our American friends for creating LibraryThing - it's a great site. But I thought it'd be nice if Brits had a group of their own where we can discuss, well, anything really, but in our uniquely stiff upper lipped way.

Do feel free to post a message, but make sure you remember to say 'please' and 'thank you', and don't jump any queues ...

What a top hole idea old bean!
Well done. Maximum points.

A British group is a good idea, but there is already a "Brits" group with 21 members (http://www.librarything.com/groups/brits). Is this group different in purpose?

Admittedly, this may be easier to find than the other group, which doesn't currently show up if you search for "British".

Yeah but the other group says it's for Residents of England, Scotland etc. which seems a little exclusive to a non-resident Brit like me ;-)

WOW! Adding my library to the most commonly shared books list made us look at little one dimensional didn't it?

Fair point, Sodapop. (Or should that be "jolly good show"?)

Goodbye Bill Bryson. Hello Mick Inkpen.
BoPeep we seem to have taken control of the shared books list.

LOL. There aren't that many groups where Kipper would predominate (not even the Picture Books group, I fear).

Belonging to this group is sort of like riding the tube - Everyone wants to say something but they're just too polite and reserved to go first. :-)
So I'll ask a question. I saw, somewhere on LT, a book about the Shipping Forecast. (Not too many things more British than that right?) Has anyone read it? Was it good? Should I read it? It sounds like it might be interesting but I'm a bit worried it might be a dry, fact filled volume full of nautical references.

There you go, I've overcome my traditional British reserve and piped up.

Intrigued to hear what this book about the Shipping Forecast is. Puts me in mind of Blur's song 'This is a Low' one of my fave tracks of the '90s.

Now I'm attempting to think of other authentic British subjects to base a novel around? How about a morris dancing amateur sleuth? Or a bunch of characters who meet in a queue?

I don't know that song. I Will have to look for it. But that reminded me of another song. It's about the BBC's weathermen. I can only remember part of one line and it's playing in my head like a stuck record. Can anyone help identify?
? ? (person's name) is a weatherman and so is Micheal Fish."

It's "John Kettley (sp?) is a weatherman"! Damn, now it's stuck in MY head too!!

I have that record - John Kettley Is A Weatherman by A Tribe Of Toffs...

Anyway, the shipping forecast book is: Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly. It was read on R4 about 18m ago I think, and I read it at the beginning of this year. It's a really great travelogue - he visits obscure lumps of rock in the middle of the North Sea, Lundy Island off the coast of Devon, and so on. There's quite a lot of alcohol involved. :-)

Ahhh John Kettley. Thankyou! Now at least the whole line will be stuck in my head.
Bopeep, I'm definitely going to get a hold of that book now. Sounds like something I will enjoy.

Belatedly, let`s go back to message # 10 - the authentic British morris-dancing amateur sleuth etc.

What about a murderer who stops to pick up a bag of chips on the way home after the crime ?

For some reason, that just makes me thing of "Midsomer Murders" and how a small English village has a death rate roughly equivalent to the Somme.

In turn, your comments reminded me of Holmes` rather dark view of the countryside - "Look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness..." etc