Best Books

[anthonykay]

There's a disused quarry on greenhow hill opposite the church, I think it's known as duck street quarry. There is a very good level at the far end leading you directly into a sun fracture of the craven fault system. Very much worth climbing over the barbed wire for a look, it was extensively stoped.

The one I was referring to is Longcliffe Quarry (which I have mentioned on this forum previously, having used it on some of my longer training runs). Much used for rock-climbing https://www.thebmc.co.uk/modules/rad/view.aspx?id=2204 , also this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_czA4j-zjk , or simply lazing around by the "poolside" on sunny Summer days. Now fenced off, much of it with high industrial fencing (but there are ways through), with an impenetrable fence across the track that leads down to the only "beach"; which means that if you jumped in, you wouldn't be able to walk out unless you could scale the fence.

[Martyn P]

Am a few chapters in to Boff's book on Gary Devine, am enjoying it hugely. I wasn't so keen on Run Wild but this is a different book altogether and as much a social commentary on the time as about one exceptional fellrunner. Definitely one for the "must read" pile.
https://www.gnbooks.co.uk/product/faster-louder/

[Graham Breeze]

[QUOTE=Martyn P;677669]Am a few chapters in to Boff's book on Gary Devine, am enjoying it hugely. I wasn't so keen on Run Wild but this is a different book altogether and as much a social commentary on the time as about one exceptional fellrunner. Definitely one for the "must read" pile.


I understand the review in The Fellrunner starts:

Billy Bland reveals, on the cover of this biography of Gary Devine, his admiration for Gary’s
spirit of individuality as a race winner and Richard Askwith enthuses about its exhilarating
authenticity. So all I need add is that Faster! Louder! is a brilliant, effervescent, whirlpool of astonishment, revelation and laughter.

So presumably the reviewer quite liked it as well.

[anthonykay]

This is Going to Hurt. My son's girlfriend left it in the house, I picked it up, and I'm hooked (although only two chapters into it so far).

By the way, the author Adam Kay is no relation to me (as far as I know). Indeed, since he introduces himself as being from a Jewish family, it is likely that, as in my case, the name Kay was adopted by an ancestor settling down in Britain, as being simpler for the British to pronounce/spell than his original Central European surname.

[Mike T]

This is Going to Hurt. My son's girlfriend left it in the house, I picked it up, and I'm hooked (although only two chapters into it so far).

By the way, the author Adam Kay is no relation to me (as far as I know). Indeed, since he introduces himself as being from a Jewish family, it is likely that, as in my case, the name Kay was adopted by an ancestor settling down in Britain, as being simpler for the British to pronounce/spell than his original Central European surname.

I only read the section of the book that could be read online for free - I thought he mocked and exploited some of the patients he described, and decided not to buy/read the rest of the book.

I have only seen one episode of the TV series so far - it has a totally different feel, and I will watch the rest.

[Graham Breeze]

I only read the section of the book that could be read online for free - I thought he mocked and exploited some of the patients he described, and decided not to buy/read the rest of the book.

I have only seen one episode of the TV series so far - it has a totally different feel, and I will watch the rest.

I read the book on publication. I thought it very funny but misogynistically unpleasant and ultimately wearing. Kay was a comedian before he qualified as a doctor and has been for most of his life since he left the profession after failing as a doctor. [No shame there. He just followed his father into the profession]. He has therefore had many years of practice writing comedy to produce a well honed book on all that can happen in ops. & gynae.

A good writer can make anything funny - think The Office - so it isn't difficult with matters pertaining to vaginas and what goes into them and emerges.

I watched the first episode and recognised the stories from the book: the unsleeving, the kinder toy but, as with the book, I thought the joke or the shock value comes first. Any artist always puts the work first and truth comes nowhere. The great Randy Newman has said he will write about anything (ie the most personal circumstances)if he gets a song out of it.

In the book it is deliberately left unstated that Kay is gay (but it can be inferred) whereas in the TV show this is a big theme. I suppose having used up many of the good jokes in the first episode he has had to find something to fill out the rest of the series. Writers write what they know about and he knows more about being gay than being a doctor.

So I watched episode 1 and thought it was OTT to attract viewers, most of episode 2 before getting bored and switching off and then, wondering if I had been too harsh in my judgement, started watching episode 3 and concluded that I hadn't and I would rather watch Visconti's La Terra Trema which has stood the test of time over 70 years.

I doubt if anyone will be discussing Kay's work in 2092.

[anthonykay]

I only read the section of the book that could be read online for free - I thought he mocked and exploited some of the patients he described, and decided not to buy/read the rest of the book.

I have only seen one episode of the TV series so far - it has a totally different feel, and I will watch the rest.

From the two chapters that I have read so far (and I haven't watched the TV series), if he has been mocking anyone, it's the other doctors (and himself). He seems to be quite sympathetic to most of the patients.

One incident in Chapter 2 that had a resonance with me was where a patient's excrement was a worrying colour, which after much research was diagnosed to be due to severe beetroot consumption. I once went to my GP when my urine was deep red . . .

[Graham Breeze]

From the two chapters that I have read so far (and I haven't watched the TV series), if he has been mocking anyone, it's the other doctors (and himself). He seems to be quite sympathetic to most of the patients.

One incident in Chapter 2 that had a resonance with me was where a patient's excrement was a worrying colour, which after much research was diagnosed to be due to severe beetroot consumption. I once went to my GP when my urine was deep red . . .

I suggest you drink younger vintages.

[felltrumpet]

Yesterday, my children came back from the library with ‘Wild Fell’ by Lee Schofield.
He is an ecologist and RSPB manager for Haweswater and their 2 farms there.
I’ve just finished the first third in which he starkly sets out the lack of biodiversity and flowers, in particular, in the Lakes.
Very well written and balanced, so far.
A lot more likeable than the ‘posh’ Rewilding tome based around Knepp and George Monbiot’s contributions.

[Mossdog]

Tenuous connection to fell running, but it is Cumbrian related and anyway I couldn't find another general book thread in the search bar..

Just been reading...Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma

This is a military memoir of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser, the author of The Flashman Papers series of novels, and this book was first published in 1993.

I found it full of fascinating, uplifting, humorous and thoughtful recollections of a private soldier, then aged 19 years old from Carlisle, in the Border Regiment of the 14th Army (the forgotten army).

Here's a taste, as it won't suit everybody, particularly those of 21 Century sensibilities. But, if you love Cumbrian humour and griping jests, it's one not to miss. I'd post some trigger warnings, for the overly sensitive, but that would be to employ an audacious pun. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I can't imagine it being included on the BBC's R4's A Good Read.

"Then suddenly we were through, and the shelling stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Hutton had been right: the closer we got, the better. Only a few hundred yards of broken ground separated us from the line of ruined buildings beyond which the gradual slope began, and the Japanese guns, on the reverse slope, must already be at maximum depression—in other words, they couldn't shoot low enough to hit us. Then there was small arms firing to the right, and we were ordered to take up firing positions in a cluster of low hillocks; I believe, but am not certain, that the right-hand company had hit bunkers, and our advance checked while they were cleared. Anyway, we were halted long enough for an incident which I blush to record, because it was too damned silly for words, but since I am writing a faithful record I can't very well omit it.
We were lying among the hillocks, watching our front and listening to the firing on the flank and the occasional whit! of a shot overhead, cursing the blazing heat and lamenting that we had no chaggles with us, when Grandarse asked Wattie for a drink from his bottle, a request answered in that comradely spirit for which Nine Section was celebrated.
“W'at's wrang wi' thi own fookin' bottle?”
“It's roond back on us, ye gormless Egremont twat!
It's lyin' atop me bloody arse, that's w'at's wrang wid it!” “Well, oonfasten the bloody thing!”
“Look, bollock-brain, if Ah oondoo the bloody straps Ah'll nivver git them doon oop again!” Grandarse, being portly, might well have had difficulty re-threading the two straps from which his bottle hung below the
small of his back. “Ye want us runnin' at bloody Japs wid me bundook* in one hand an' me bottle in t'other?”
“Awreet—Ah'll oondoo it for thee mesel'. Then we'll baith git a drink— oot o' thy bottle!”
“Ye miserable sod, w'at difference does it mek w'ee's bottle we soop frae?”
“That's w'at Ah'm sayin'! W'at fer should we use my bottle ’stead o' thine? Y'are always on the scroonge, you! Guzzlin' big-bellied git!”
“Reet!” roared Grandarse. “Stick yer effin' bottle oop yer goonga, an' Ah hope it gi'es thee piles!”
“Ah, give ower, ye bloody bairns!” snapped Forster. “There's a fookin' well ower theer, wid watter in't. Use that, an' stop natterin', an' keep thi bottle till efter.”
This sounded sensible, since water was liable to be precious by the end of the day, and the well was in plain view just outside our position, a circular mud wall enclosing the well-head. Grandarse, however, was hygiene conscious.
“It'll be full o' shit, like that ’un we used last week, an' foond there wez twa deid Japs in't. Bloated tae boogery, they were.”
“Weel, ye took no ’arm!” said Forster. “The purification pills does the trick. Ye've got toons o' the bloody things!”