Official spending money choice for November

I’d like everyone to read Kate Roberts’s Feet in Chains, originally published as Traed Mewn Cyffion. It’s essentially novella length, and traces the experiences of a Welsh family from the 1880s to the First World War.

I’ll talk about it in more depth when people start discussing it, but I should say why I like it. Even with my very poor Welsh, the spare, hard nature of the prose comes through. There’s a sense in which it’s the product of hard lives, poor soil, unacknowledged cultures left to cope with a world which cares little for them, but it’s also packed with beauty. As a fat cradle Catholic, I shouldn’t really give a damn about the mute suffering and self-denying nature of these people, but Roberts ensures that I do.

I think Roberts shares a lot with Chekhov (not the Star Trek helmsman), and that had she written in English, she’d be world respected.

The link is to the Amazon site – there are several used copies on sale, and lots of used copies here on ABEbooks. I have a copy to lend to people around here.

Autumnal challenge

I don’t know where most of you live, but here in Wolverhampton, the seasons are harder to discern, thanks to concrete, lighting and office life. So although I’m a bookish type, let’s go for something nostalgic. Go out, kick piles of leaves, get cold, then write a 250 word story or poem about it. Make every word count. If you’ve read the previous suggestion (Findings), then you’re probably in the mood for this one already.

A Response by Benjamin Judge to Kim McGowan’s October’s Choice – Findings by Kathleen Jamie

I have read a little bit in the way of ‘nature writings’ but I have always been a bit dissapointed. There seems to be little in the middle between the extremes of ‘Boys Own Adventures One Man In The Wilderness Seeing As Much As Can Possibly Be Seen’ and ‘Look At The Cuddly Wuddly Horsey Horsey Doggy Woggy Catty Watty Wat Wats’ Too often the writers over-riding passion overtakes their writing ability.

This then is why Findings was, to me, such a revelation. Firstly because the book and its author so obviously live and interact with the real world and secondly because it is so beautifully written.

I am intrigued by Kim’s question about whether this book has a ‘female’ author and what this means. There is obviously a world of difference between this book’s tone and something like Birders by Mark Cocker. This book is free from the predominately male need to catalogue, to list, to collect. It is about seeing and finding. However I am unsure whether this makes it ‘female’ because it is the first book I have read about nature in which I have continually thought “yes,that is exactly what I think”. Of course it could just mean that I interact with nature in a particularly female way. I can live with that. In fact, having been round many a nature reserve and countryside pathway and observed men’s reactions to nature, I would be quite proud to be seen as their opposite.

Anyway, before we stroll off into the realms of gender identity, can I just say that anyone who hasn’t ordered this book yet really should do. If everyone from now until doomsday recommends Onka’s Big Mokka by Toploader and Ben Elton’s Popcorn on a rotating cycle then this website will already have proved worth setting up for recommending this book. I can genuinely say it has changed by life. Not in a rubbish ’saw the light’ way but in a subtle, delicate way in making me look harder, more closely at what surrounds me. This all links up nicely with the September suggestion of walking around your surroundings with a camera. I might do that on Wednesday…

What really makes this book though is the language. It is no surprise that someone with such a grasp of words to compliment a gift for close observation is a poet. To put it bluntly the words are good. There are little repetitions of words and sounds that echo through the texts like a little heartbeat in this delicate yet powerful work. The descriptions are both poetically and scientifically pleasing. The book is intelligent, open, warm, funny…

 

Cynical Ben a winner at Manchester Blog Awards

Just a quick post to say enormous congratulations to my virtual friend Cynical Ben for being voted runner-up in the Best Personal Blog category at the Manchester Blog Awards - out of hundreds of  nominations! A triumph for the cerebral/colouring in without going over the lines! (delete as appropriate).

There’s a Guardian review of the glittering awards ceremony here.

I wasn’t placed.  There, I’ve said it.  I’m very jealous of Clever Ben but his blog is Ace and I’m really pleased that he’s received the recognition he deserves.

kim

Free Weekly Post 12 Oct

Here are some adverts by the Swedish director Roy Andersson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ofPRv29RMs

Andersson directed one of my favourite films – Songs From the Second Floor.

In an interview he suggested that this film is best characterised as ‘trivialism’, and that he had tried to explore issues throught the trivial of the everyday. I thought that this followed on from Plashing Vole’s September Choice. Unfortunately, this film is not available in the UK, but here is a clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so5M8Mgf50c

Free Weekly Choice 5th October 2009

Well, we had the main course a couple of weeks ago so I thought I would provide dessert. Here’s one of my favourites, lemon cheesecake- give it a go and let us know what you think and perhaps post your favourite dessert recipes too.
Happy baking,
Imaginary Friend

For base:
12-14 digestive biscuits
35-40g butter

For topping:
200ml sweetened condensed milk
200ml double cream
3 lemons (unwaxed)
200g Philadelphia cheese or similar

Melt the butter in a pan. Meanwhile, crush the biscuits finely in a bag using a rolling pin. Add the biscuit crumbs to the melted butter and combine well. Tip the biscuit mixture into an 8” loose-bottomed cake tin. Place in oven for around 10 minutes at 140C (120C in fan oven). Remove from oven and allow to cool thoroughly.

Grate the rind of the lemons and then juice them. Combine the rind and juice and set aside.

In a basin mix the condensed milk and the cream and then gradually add the lemon juice and rind- the mixture should start to thicken as the lemon is added. Once all the lemon has been added, place this mixture to one side.

In another bowl beat the Philadelphia cheese with a wooden spoon until soft and smooth. Gradually add the cream mixture to the cheese and combine well. Once all the ingredients are fully combined, tip the mixture on top of the cooled, prepared biscuit base and level the top. Place in the fridge for at least 6 hours until properly set, but if possible, it is best left overnight.

Once set, remove from the tin and eat!

You can vary this recipe by perhaps using some ginger biscuits instead of digestive, or using limes instead of lemons.

A point of order

Hello everyone,

There seems to be a little bit of confusion regarding postings. My fault I’m afraid.

Don’t feel you need to restrict your comments to the comments box. Everyone on the site is an author and welcome to post whenever they want. Please, please, please feel free to put your reactions to other peoples suggestions as seperate blog posts. The more that goes on the blog the better. Check out the lovely posts below for a glance at the future.

 

 

Plashing Vole’s tour of Wolverhampton

I went out last night during twilight. I’ve just moved from a Victorian slum to a converted warehouse in the city centre, which is very strange for a country boy.

Wolverhampton’s an odd mix. There are odd streets of surviving Georgian houses, but the majority of the city is Victorian industrial decay and post-war domestic decay. My circuit last night took me through the industrial area – I enjoy photographing ruin, and geometrical shapes, so I was quite happy. I’ve posted all the shots here, and will probably add to them as I find more time.

Click on the photos for bigger versions.

The building shell is interesting because it’s so geometric, and because it’s missed out the stage of ‘use’ between building and abandonment.

The blue houses are artists studios near my new home, and are rather sweet. Mummy’s shop is opposite my front door.

The Great Western pub is marooned amongst the decay, serving real ales and curly sandwiches to postal workers and refugees from bangin’ choon clubs.

I was pleased with the shots of the railway station carpark. By day, it’s a dank, mouldy incitement to demolition, but at night you get a glimpse of what the architect was trying to get at.

I was also pleased by the scaffolding cluster. With the mould and corrosion, it looked like a bundle of vines in an overly-humid jungle – the mix of industrial and organic worked quite well.

We’re watched all the time – I hope this is part of Bill Oddie’s Springwatch!

The way the paint’s peeled caught my eye for some reason

This apparently doesn’t refer to the redundancy terms currently on offer…

The shell was built three years ago, then abandoned – like the future.

I only discovered these a couple of days ago, behind my new home

Evening draws in over the station and the surrounding ruins

Underpass

Symbolizes what we do with our cities

Wolverhampton’s full of abandoned industrial buildings.

The Great Western

Berry Street Bookshop

Mummy’s shop

Scaffolding

October’s monthly choice

During October please read Findings by Kathleen Jamie.

Jamie is primarily a poet.  Two poems I particularly appreciate are ‘The Queen of Sheba’ and ‘Arraheids’.  Both are published in the Queen of Sheba collection; you can get the fulltext of the poems using a Google search though.

Findings is a collection of creative nonfiction prose pieces.

I have never willingly read a ‘nature’ book before, expecting them to be preachy and improving.  I read Findings because it was a set text, and I’m very glad I did.

In fact Jamie is tetchy when asked if she’s a ‘nature’ writer, replying that, ‘We are nature.’  Which made me realise that that is what I think too…

There are three particular aspects of Findings that readers might like to consider:

Is Findings written from a particularly Scottish perspective?

Is Findings written from a particularly female perspective? In contrast I might offer  The Wild Places Robert Macfarlane, which I feel is about observing but also conquering nature.

(Incidentally, calling Jamie a Scottish writer or a woman writer, or a Scottish woman writer  are all sure ways of provoking her ire too.)

Lastly,  does Finding pass the ecocritical test?

Ecocriticism is defined as:

`the study of the relation between literature and environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to environmental praxis. ‘ Buell (1995).

Alternatively, you could just read Findings and say whether you liked it or not.

ps Andrew Marr rates Jamie, need I say more?

cheers, kim

Response to September’s monthly choice

I’ve cheated in my task of viewing the everyday for revelations of truth and beauty.  That I’m a cheat is the first disclosure.

St Patrick's Chapel

On a Sunday in September I travelled with my youngest child to register at university.  After the queuing and form filling we drove to Heysham, an old village on the bottom corner of Morecambe Bay. The area is dominated by two advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors;  so implausibly big that they are almost certainly visible from everywhere on the planet.

We parked and walked for (about) half an hour and came to the ruined chapel of St Patrick’s where we photographed this group of rock-cut tombs. The chapel was in use 1200 years ago; it seems very close to the water now but I suspect erosion has brought the sea nearer.

We scrambled down to the beach and chanced on a man and a boy dabbling in a rock pool with a net.  We chatted for a while.  My daughter has worked as a volunteer at an environmental centre and knows a bit about nature and stuff.  The man was telling us the (incorrect) names of some of the little swimming things with such assurance that we didn’t want to contradict him.  It’s seemed appropriate that the  little boy believes his dad is omniscient for just a little while longer.

I photographed this coastal rock formation because I think it shows an unconformity; probably at least two unconformities.  An unconformity is a buried erosion surface dividing two periods of deposition which may have been separated by millions and most probably billions of years.  The underlying sedimentary rocks in the photograph are thinly-bedded siltstones, sandstones and mudstones which have been folded over by heat and tectonic activity deep underground. Over time those rocks have been exposed at the earth’s surface by a process of attrition.  I think the top layer of sediments under the turf will have been deposited in relatively recent times, at the end of the last ice age, as little as 12000 years ago; virtually within living memory.

We had a go at skimming stones but the pebbles are mostly hearty chunks of millstone grit and not very bouncy.  I would say that wouldn’t I.

They're the wrong sorts of stones...

Yes Mum, that'll be the problem...

On the way back to the car we went in the most peculiar shop.  The lady sews dog coats and peg bags on a machine, on the counter.  There are the oddest assortment of things for sale; used buttons, medals and improbable jewellery and CDs that come free with the Mail on Sunday.  I was tempted to ask for a packet of pea-flavoured crisps, just on the off-chance.  I’m only sorry I didn’t think to photograph her emporium.

A perfect day; my youngest child going to learn more stuff, a deity dad, 1200 year old rock-cut tombs, 12000 year old glacial deposits, sediments so old and folded it hurts my eyes to think about it – and a weird shop