Prehistoric Times and the Men of the Channel Islands – Joseph Sinel

On a whim I decided that this would be a good book to read, purely for the joys of random knowledge,  and the title told me exactly what I would be learning about.

Just from the cover alone I was already conjuring up vast tracts of time, movements of people and water, as well as all the associated bits of bone, tools and burn marks on rocks.

I wasn’t disappointed.  The reader is treated to a short preface where Sinel   romantises over epochs and the long journey taken by both humans and landscape.  He does this in a pleasingly poetic fashion by tracing the history of a  humble tree.

Being written in the early part of the 20th century a few terms are explained for the lay person, these terms I believe will be generally understood, or at least familiar to the modern reader.  Clarifications are all well and good if the rest of the text is up to it, and Sinel’s writing is clear and always interesting, he is both knowledgeable and enthuisastic about his subjects and it makes the book a joy to read.

Our journey goes all the way back to the land bridge,  the subsequent flooding and retreating of waters, a look at the wildlife and plants over time, a breakdown of classifications of different eras and sub eras of ages, and the occupations of the islands.

In Possible Proximity to Madness

Waiting for a bus on one’s lonesome is usually a fairly boring experience but seeing a bus pull in with the destination Halfway emblazoned on it had me amused for at least the five minutes it took for mine to show up, on time I might add as well.

The natural first thoughts of any sane person is to question the nature of reality when confronted with such a questionable vision, of which challenge I gleefully accepted.  Of course it would be foolish to concede to the obvious explanation that there is in fact a place called Halfway, for its much more interesting to indulge in some exercise of the musing muscle instead, of which I did:

• If Halfway is a destination then surely it is indeed the whole way and so halfway is a different destination contrary to what is being advertised?
• Halfway would be a stop en route to the real destination but how do you define where that would be with no clue to the actual distance?
• Why is the imposter Halfway masquerading as the last stop, wouldn’t a more subtle con trick be to change the name instead?
• Perhaps Halfway is a staging point, a hub for ultimate destinations somewhere, paradoxically being both a destination and a stopover.
• But then the question would be what constitutes halfway in terms of the word?  Mirriam-Webster defines it in two ways, one being not total or complete, so to some extent if you will.
• So that means that the actual Halfway, be it the ‘destination’ or the actual distance on the route to a place cannot be clearly understood without some prior knowledge.
• Is it perhaps halfway to all places in the same distance radius as it is from where Mansfield is situated from it?
• If you asked for halfway, would you have to pay the full fare for Halfway?
• How could they charge you when the above definition means halfway doesn’t have to actually mean halfway
• Is there a place called Fullway?

I could have gone on all day with such thoughts had my own wheeled demon not fortunately arrived  and I had to do battle with sleep as seems to be the way of late on a bus at mid afternoon but there you go, a little insight into the mind of Ste J and it didn’t cost you a penny.

World in a Cup

“We didn’t underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought.” – Bobby Robson after playing Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup.

I promise not to do too many world cup posts as I know a lot of you probably aren’t to concerned with the final destination of the trophy, however it would be rude of me not to stick in a bit of football speak as a huge wodge of the world’s population will be obsessed by the on field antics for a whole month.

In fact I do love the getting together of nations, the hopes and dreams, the history, stories, individual memories and of course the opening ceremony.  It is a feast that will hopefully be worth the four year wait and will be another way to bring us bloggers even closer together.

For the next few weeks I am aiming to do a post each week on a football book (or perhaps individual fascinating story if inspiration strikes) as well as carrying on with my usual reviews, thoughts and possibly something a bit different if I get the inspiration.

I am hoping to present these books in a way that may possibly interest the non fan…I don’t mean to presume that I can entice you to pick up the book yourself, that would be a bonus but is possibly a little to like wishful thinking.

What I really want to attempt, is to show an aspect of the game perhaps not thought about by the casual or non fan that may persuade you to enjoy the game with a different view.  Unsurprisingly the books I will review will be more to do with the theory and perspective of the game rather than autobiographies and such that will have limited appeal.

Derision Vision

It’s taken me a bit of time to come to terms with the music event of the year but I am finally recovered enough to speak of watching a re-run of the Eurovision Song Contest.  Every year I prepare to be amazed by this celebration of the avant-garde. Each year it I am blown away by the extraordinarily entertaining mish-mash of utter strangeness which demands to be delighted in.

Deep down we all secretly think that other nations are a bit strange with their different ways and ideas and here is the one time of the year where it is socially acceptable for you to indulge in national clichés and gentle merriment at the expense of our European brethren.  A chance to allow your bewilderment to be satiated for over three hours of faintly terrible but brilliant music and characters.

There is something for everybody, it is a true celebration of lowbrow culture, campness and pure cheese, it is a kitsch spectacular and it is impossible not to love, Take Frances upbeat sounding song about a man who has everything he wants but can’t grow a moustache or the  Russian twins who started singing with their hair entwined…the show gets away with it because it’s just too ludicrous.