Incendiary: Chris Cleave

Having read Chris Cleave’s second novel (On the other hand) I was intrigued to read his first. Incendiary is a novel-length letter from a working class wife and mother to Osama Bin Laden, following the death of her husband and son in a suicide bombing of Arsenal football stadium, which ultimately claimed the lives of over 1000 people. As I worked my way through the story, the striking similarities with the dreadful bombings in London, now known as 7/7 (July 7th 2005), convinced me this was a fictional parallel story feeding on that event, which had claimed the lives of 52 people and injured 700. I had this confirmed (or so I thought) by the publication date on the front credits page, which was 2005, and I assumed this had been quickly written in the months following.

So it came as a big surprise to find out later that the publication date had, in fact, been July 7th 2005, the very day of the London bombings. My first reaction was that it had been an amazing stroke of coincidence, almost prophetic. In any other circumstances, this coincidence could have meant the meteoric launch of a new writing career, but for Chris Cleave and his publisher, it meant just the opposite. The trauma and carnage that stopped the country (and many parts of the world) in its tracks simply consumed all the available column inches in all the media, and a work of fiction from an unknown author was never going to poke its nose through the dense smoke screen.

However, undeterred, Cleave went on to write a second novel, and on the success of that his first novel eventually became a bestseller. Worth reading. I would recommend it highly.

Are cyclists really like this?

When I go out on Sundays with my cycling club, St Ives CC, I frequently sit with cycling companions at the cake stop listening to all kinds of banter, usually about the world of racing and cycling kit. If you are part of that world, you will find this video clip very funny and, maybe, a bit self-revealing. If you are not, watch it anyway………………you’ll learn a thing or two!

World Book Night 2012

You probably know that books feature prominently in my life, so (like last year) I’ve signed up with World Book Night so that I can share that passion and help spread a love of reading. I’m hoping to be one of 20,000 people chosen to give away 24 copies of my chosen book: Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, on April 23 to people who don’t regularly read. Last year I was one of 20,000 chosen to give away 40 copies of a novel by my favourite Latin American author, Gabriel García Márquez. The deadline to apply to be a giver this year is January 31 and you can apply as well or find out more by following this link http://bit.ly/beaWBNgiver

London belongs to me: Norman Collins

I picked up this novel with a certain foreboding: 736 pages of Penguin Classic print and no guarantee that the journey was going to be worth it. Written during the last war, it covers the very narrow period of 1938-40, encapsulating the months leading up to war and the first 12 months of the reality of  war and the carpet bombing of London. Norman Collins boasted a background of journalism, controller of BBC television and one of the co-founders of ITV, in a bid to disrupt the monopoly of the BBC.

You might expect a novel of such magnitude to spread its wings over a wide area of people, events and places, but the reality is that it is confined to the small community of families and individuals that live in one house in London: 10 Dulcimer Street. Without giving away too much about the characters and the plot, the whole novel is a bit like a soap opera. Although I have a particular dislike of TV soap operas,  because of the novel’s status as a classic piece of literature which uncovers, first hand, the reality of a segment of recent history, I found this compelling reading. The characters are stereotypical, but convincing and engaging nevertheless. The narrative has such an easy fluency and the story such an appealing cadence, that the reader is compelled to return again and again to take up combat with the dense print. It does not provide the page-turning frenzy of a John Grisham or a Dan Brown, but the pages turn nevertheless at a constant rhythm.

In its day, before the advent of  mass media, this was a million-seller. Penguin, in its infinite wisdom, are clearly justified in this re-print. It will not disappoint you.

The Outdoors Show: ExCel Exhibition Centre, London

Should you ever venture to one of the country’s mega-exhibition centres, you need to be prepared ………… The newly extended ExCel Exhibition Centre (in the docklands of London) is over 100,000 sq metres in size. If you can’t begin to imagine the enormity of that, try to picture 14 football pitches all located under one roof………..absolutely massive!! You will need comfortable footwear or even a pair of skates to get around, and expect to cover several miles in the process.

The Outdoors Show on January 12-15th was really made up of four different shows, which sounds like a bargain for one entry ticket. But really a false bargain……….you cannot physically do all four shows in one day (nor, I imagine, would you want to). It would be like trying to visit four large museums in a day………. (you know the feeling).

My primary interest, of course, was cycling, and it was good to discover a number of innovations and new products that will ‘tweak’ the interest of any serious cyclist. The big challenge is to allow your interest to be tweaked but to keep a tight grip on the credit card. You go to these events as a willing, pliable customer, and the exhibitors know it, and do everything to persuade you to part with your hard-earned pennies. However, there are many cost-free goodies for the punter too. The samples and freebies spill out of nearly every stall: pens, water bottles, puncture repair kits, T-shirts, competitions to win expensive bikes……… I made several rounds of the sports nutrition stalls sampling all of their wares (energy bars, energy gells, drinks…) and ended up so hyped that I had to jump on a turbo-trainer to burn off the excess carbs!

I remain convinced, however, that these expensive (and chemically enhanced) high energy sports products are really no substitute for nature’s wholesome alternatives: bananas, dried fruit ‘n nuts,  fruit juices….etc. It’s in such areas as these that you encounter the ‘clash’ of two cultures in cycling:  the mentality of the long-distance cyclist versus the short distance, adrenaline-rush mentality of the competitive cyclist. We may all look the same as we carve our way along country lanes in pelotons, but our individual goals can be very different.

Lost in Shangri-La: Mitchell Zuckoff

The opening chapters almost convinced me that I was reading one of those annoying ‘books of the film’. The structure of the early narrative, the gradual introduction of all the main characters, the film-script style of the writing………I was nearly convinced that this story had started life as a film. But I was wrong. What I was reading was the incredible true account of the US transporter plane that had crash-landed in the remote jungle of New Guinea, during the closing months of WW2. The flight had started as a simple sight-seeing trip for bored off-duty service men and women, but the combination of dense cloud and the inexperience of the pilot led to a crash in uncharted mountains that killed 19 of the 22 crew & passengers, and the bulk of the narrative goes on to cover the extraordinary tale of the three survivors and their encounter with one of the few remaining primitive cultures that had been untouched by the modern world.

This story may not have started life as a film, but I will be very surprised if it doesn’t make its way to the big screen in the next few years. It has all the hallmarks of a classic Hollywood blockbuster that will rein in some of the best of the A-celeb actors. But if it does, I am sure of one thing: it will not highlight some of the darker undertones of this “discovery” of uncharted jungle. It will focus on the heroism of the protagonists, but not the devastating encroachment on the indigenous community’s way of life. The Dani tribes-people had occupied this jungle for hundreds (even thousands) of years, untouched by invading and colonizing nations. In 1945 their culture was as pure and undefiled as any primitive culture could be. But their sweet-natured tolerance of the presence of the survivors, and their offer of aid, was their ultimate undoing. Their way of life and the jungle in which they lived was about to change forever. What appears to be a story of heroism, in reality, is a narrative about how the West (once again) colonizes and destroys a pure and undefiled culture.

Do cyclists improve with age?

I was born into a family of few sporting traditions. Apart from an uncle (who died in WW2) who had been a notable amateur footballer and an uncle in Ireland who had played hurling for Tipperary in the all-Ireland final in 1937, I had few role-models to follow. But my youth was dominated by sport, especially in my teens: football, cricket, tennis, ice-skating and cycling. In my 20s, these gave way to more racquet sports, principally squash and badminton until, one day, tired of pulling muscles, wrenching my back and twisting ligaments, I sought professional advice about which sports were the most injury-free. The two options I was given were: swimming and cycling. It was at that point, in my late 20s, that I took up cycling as a serious sport and (as the saying goes) have never looked back since.

Bill Duffin in 2010. Photo by kind permission of www.sarahbrookephotography.co.uk

But what I never considered at the time was the longevity of any particular sport in a person’s life. I know we can all pick out someone who might still be playing football, tennis or badminton in their 70s or 80s. Some may even continue aggressive contact sports like rugby into their later years, but the numbers are very low. If you look, however, at the growing number of people who continue enjoying (or even take up) non-contact sports in their later years, you will find that sports like running, swimming and cycling are going through a boom period.  If you were to draw a graph of these athletes’ lives, when are they likely to peak at their sport and to what age could they reasonably expect to continue?

I see people in the world of competitive cycling breaking all kinds of records at ages when they really should be wearing slippers and smoking pipes. I cycle in the same club as the legendary 87 year old Bill Duffin who, in 2011, broke the national 10 mile time trial for his age group. He completed the distance in 28m 23secs, at an average speed of 21.15 mph……very good by anyone’s standards. Another octogenarian and cycling companion, Peter Etheridge, has broken 13 bones in his body in separate cycling incidents and is still able to put in very respectable mileages at a good brisk pace. Then I received this cutting from one of my brothers, telling me that Arthur Gilbert is still competing in triathlons at the age of 90. Is there no limit? Apparently not!

Two Hungarian novels

A recent city break to Budapest was the occasion for coming into contact with some of the rich literature to come out of Hungary. I really did not know what to expect. But, instead of buying copies of noted authors and being charged for excess weight on the return flight, I made a note of several authors and titles and scanned the local Library website when I got home. To my surprise, several were listed and within a few short days I had three in my hands.

Esther’s inheritance: Sandor Marai. A slim volume that can be easily read in one extended sitting, but a narrative that kept me spellbound throughout. The author had been an exile from Communist Hungary in California and, sadly, committed suicide just months before the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. His novel recounts the story of the unmarried Esther, now in her late 40s, who had been jilted 20 years earlier by “the only man I ever loved”, but who also happened to be an inveterate liar and thief. Lajos sends her a telegram to announce his return one day, and this sends Esther into a flurry of activity preparing for the day. Although Esther knows that Lajos is coming to cheat and lie, and rob her of her few remaining possessions, there is a curious inevitability about her willingness to be duped once again. The reader will naturally hope that Esther will exact her revenge on Lajos, but the impelling force of her past infatuation might once again reign supreme.

The Door: Magda Szabó. When I put this book down, I found it hard to understand how the plot had kept my attention for so long. I could say that the plot might be summed up in the following few words: a young female writer employs an elderly woman, named Emerence, to be her housekeeper, and the ensuing narrative explores the complicated ups and downs of that relationship. Szabó skilfully delves into the inner workings of the human psyche, exploring the incompatibilities of two divergent personalties: the writer who lives in a world of letters alongside a hyperactive domestic who has no time for reading and philosophizing; a woman who is deeply attached to her religious background against a woman who has almost made a career out of maligning the Church and a belief in God; a person who, through the growing success of her writing, finds herself increasingly controlled by the ‘will of society’ versus a lady who will do anything in her power to keep society at bay and prevent anyone defiling the inner sanctum of her home. This narrative almost has an autobiographical feel to it.

A speculative 17th century encounter………..

Edward María Wingfield

At a recent gathering at Little Gidding, we celebrated the memory of Nicholas Ferrar the man who, along with several members of his own family, established a Christian community at this remote spot in west Cambridgeshire. Amongst the many reflections and readings, I offered a highly speculative view of a possible chance encounter in the early 17th century. The story goes as follows:

During Tudor times, my home village of Kimbolton was dominated by the Wingfields, a family who had found favour with Henry VIII and were granted the estates of Kimbolton Castle and its surrounds. One of the Wingfield descendants, Edward María Wingfield, inherited the dissolved properties and estate of Stonely Priory nearby, and went on to distinguish himself by being elected as the first President of the Council of Jamestown, the first successful British colonial settlement in the US. Not only that, but he was also the only shareholder (and principal financial backer) of the newly founded London Virginia Company to accompany

Nicholas Ferrar

the colonists on their venture. The said company suffered major reversals in its short history, and many who had invested heavily in its fortunes paid a heavy price for their speculation. One such family was the Ferrar family. It is well documented that Nicholas Ferrar, politician and businessman, was so affected by the declining fortune of his family, that he gave up his life in London and retreated to the relative calm of the Cambridgeshire countryside, where he established a quietly retiring Christian community far removed from the hustle and bustle of the capital.

My speculation was this: had Nicholas Ferrar and Edward María Wingfield ever met each other? Were they even known to each other? If not, were they to have met, I wonder what they might have said to each other?

I reckon there is a ‘talking heads’ dialogue somewhere in this.

To glean or not to glean……….

High winds, fallen trees, traffic disruption and closed roads, sounds familiar? Police arrive, tree surgeons follow closely behind to remove the offending trees in order to allow normal life to continue (ie. the morning rush to work). What had all this to do with the medieval laws that permit gleaning?

Now you may think (as I did) that gleaning was all about the poor in history having a right to clear up the chaff after the

The Gleaners by Millet

crops had been harvested……the bits of the harvest that reapers were happy to overlook because it was too much work for the meagre returns. Well I met a gentleman recently, in my village, who helped me to revise my thinking. With his chainsaw, he was in the process of  cutting up a huge tree that had fallen across the main road, and the expression on my face seemed to elicit (unprovoked, I might say) a long and interesting explanation of what he was doing. Well, I could see what he was doing…..but he really wanted to explain why he was doing it.

The tree had been on the edge of a private garden, but had fallen across the public highway. Now had the tree fallen across the garden, it would have been a different story. But the highway, in medieval terms, was the ‘King’s Land’ (meaning, I suppose, that it had some kind of common ownership), and that anything that should fall onto this land could be claimed by members of the public.

So I told him about my habitual fruit foraging and apple-scrumping in the autumn, and asked him if I would be protected by this 1000 year old law. “Of course”, he said, “you have a perfect right to any fruit that hangs over or falls onto public land. Better still, though, why don’t you go throwing apple and pear cores along the verges and in 6-7 years time you can harvest fruits wherever you want!”    Now there’s a thought………..

Notes from a Big Country: Bill Bryson

When you pick up a book and begin reading it, you usually have to make some mental shift to engage with the writer’s style, use of language, direction of story line…..and much more. Some of these shifts are so acute you will either falteringly read your way through the entire text or you will give up after the first few chapters. I find that if I cannot ‘connect’ with an author’s style or storyline within 20 pages, it goes back on the shelf or back to the library.

Bill Bryson, however, is a writer I connect with immediately. He is a keen observer of life. After spending many years living here in the UK and revealing all our foibles to the world at large, he returned to his native USA and discovered that, after so many years away, there was much about his own country that was ‘foreign’ to him. He has a sharp eye for the minute detail of life, and his observations (even when at their most critical) all seem to emerge from his own fundamental love for his homeland and fellow Americans.

This makes an ideal bedtime read. The chapters are made up from his weekly columns to the Mail on Sunday over an 18 month period, so they provide ideal ‘reading-bites’ to send you gently into the world of nod!

A victim of statistics?

I like to think that most of my cycling is done purely for pleasure, but sometimes there are telling moments that reveal other driving forces. Many roadies keep detailed statistics of every ride and training session throughout the year, and in the run-up to New Year’s Eve, you may sometimes notice numbers of lycra-clad mile-eaters out storming the lanes and byways, sometimes in weather conditions little suited to riding two wheels (as I discovered three years ago when I came off on black ice). What they might be doing is ‘chasing stats‘. Let me explain.

The only numbers I record throughout the year are the distances of each ride and, early on in the year, I look at my pattern of rides and try to guess my annual total 6-7 months in advance, and somehow this becomes my target (which for 2011 was going to be 9000 miles). Before I set off for Tenerife on December 13th, I had noticed my current total was 8348 miles, which meant covering 652 in the last two weeks of the year if I were to hit my notional target. Now this is all going to appear (especially to the non-cyclist) a bit ‘sad’ and ‘anoracky’, because there are no prizes and awards, and no coaches or personal trainers goading you on.  I went off to Tenerife for a week and covered just under 400 miles, leaving about 260 to complete over the Christmas period.

Sadly, I have to admit that, for a period of 10 days, my principal driving force was to reach 9000 miles, but the weather happened to be great (though windy) and it all turned out to be a great pleasure anyway. Going into New Year’s Eve I noticed that my tally was just 3 miles short of the target (unbelievable, I know….). It was a fine morning and I fielded the suggestion to Jenny that she might like to go for a tandem ride, and we could stop for a cup of fine coffee (always a winning move!) at a nice little tea room in Sharnbrook…….. and she accepted ;0)  So I had the pleasure of surpassing the target in the company of my wife who was, of course, sharing the pedalling (though many passers-by claimed she was not!)….. is that cheating, I wonder?

Because of trips and extended travelling without a bike in 2011, I had gone two whole months with scarcely any mileage, but this was off-set by intensive expeditions and tours: to Santiago de Compostela (1400 miles), Fuerteventura (252 miles) and Tenerife (390 miles). If you like cycling to targets, may your wheels carry you safely to your destinations.

Is Tenerife still pro-Franco?

As I was making my second ascent of El Teide, from the north of the island, I passed through extensive woodland called Esperanza Forest. I had heard rumour that, hidden in the forest in a remote spot, there was still a monument (an obelisk, in fact) commemorating the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Not only was it a memorial of that tragic war, but it also honoured the role played by Francisco Franco as the leader of the rebel forces. I simply could not believe that 36 years after the death of Franco, such monuments were still allowed to stand.

I sought assistance from several locals to find the spot, none of them ecstatic about answering my questions, and this is what I found (see photos). In an age when dictators around the world are tumbling like ninepins, I gazed upon this cruelly majestic memorial that marked the spot where the rebels had held the fateful meeting that sparked the movement of troops from north Africa into Spain, unleashing a three-year bloodbath that claimed over 1 million lives. As I drew closer, I saw that it was not wreaths, bouquets and candles that honoured the space around the obelisk, but broadly-painted graffiti and slogans that shouted to the world “Death to Fascism”, “Canary Islands Free & Independent”,”Out with Spaniards” “They will not pass” (a Republican slogan during the war). And I noted around the base of the monument that visitors had relieved themselves copiously as a mark of ‘respect’………………

A local website tells me that the Canarian government had made a unanimous decision to erase this monument from the face of the earth…………….. but that was nearly 4 years ago :0(

Tenerife: the enjoyment of pain?

Focus Cayo Carbon

Is it madness, stupidity or both that entices a seemingly sane human being to spend a week pedalling the contours of Tenerife? Now, those of you who have been to Tenerife probably remember the nice cosy things about the island: warmth, sunshine, pleasant sea temperatures, good food and wine, nice drive to the top of the

Relief model of Tenerife

volcano El Teide…….. To appreciate the sinister side, however, you really need to scale the top of El Teide (the highest mountain on Spanish territory) on a pair of wheels.

El Teide 3718m

I mean, how do you explain to normal human beings that some cyclists love to feel gut-wrenching pain? And for it to go on continuously for 4 or 5 hours at a time? To experience ascents that take you into ever-thinning oxygen levels, but the effort required to continue climbing remains the same? Then, when you are looking forward to the 30 mile downhill from 10,000 ft, your whole body freezes with the inactivity of the descent and the wind-chill, and your hands seize up applying the brakes to prevent yourself going into a head-spin over the side of the mountain? When you get to the bottom of the mountain, you are so chilled to the bone (even though it’s 25C at the bottom) that you struggle to dismount from the bike. You go into the nearest café and order a glass of very hot milk spiked with a large shot of brandy. And when you have thawed out……….. well, of course, as to be expected in a masochist, you begin planning your next ascent from a different side of the mountain ;0) Does this make any sense to anyone?

During the quiet week before Christmas, when prices were cheap and the numbers of tourist low, I ‘snuck in’ a week before the onset of the festivities. But instead of laboriously packing one of my own bikes, I decided to hire one from a dealer on the island, which actually cost about the same as freight prices for sports equipment. I had ordered an aluminium-framed road bike (for 90 euros) but ‘sadly’ they had to upgrade me to full carbon for the same price. I said to the German dealer: “What a pain!” and he replied “Are you complaining?”. I said “No, it’s just British humour”, to which he retorted “And my reply was just German humour!”

Above the clouds

(game, set and match to him……..). If you ever hire a bike on Tenerife, I would highly recommend Bike Point in Playa de las Americas.

My week consisted of 6 full days on the bike, nearly 400 miles and over 40,000 feet of climbing. There are very few flat areas on the island, so be warned. Of the 36 hours I spent on the bike, I reckon at least 30 were spent ascending, sometimes continuously for 4-5 hours. Your overall average speed will be low (mine was only 11mph). But whether it is for base training for the coming racing season or simply for the pleasure of scaling the heights, Tenerife is a great place for getting a good dose of ‘winter pain’!

The ubiquitous Red Bull cans

Above Los Gigantes cliffs

Rancho Canario stew: delicious!

Not a crib, more an entire Bethlehem………

Bethlehem scene

I need to make these observations before Christmas is upon us. I have just come back from a week cycling the volcanic contours of Tenerife and, one day, as I was wending my way through a series of villages perched on the slopes of the volcano, I chanced upon a remarkable scene. Here in the UK, representations of the infant birth are encapsulated by a crib scene, large or small, the focus of which is the birth of the child Jesus. In Spain, they are much more elaborate affairs. Many families and community associations spend months building a whole Bethlehem scene, that can take up a whole room of the house or, as in this case, the whole parking area at the front of the house.

Here, they have used a lot of re-cycled material. Car tyres, painted green, represent the Christmas tree. Plastic containers have been used for houses and buildings. If you study the detail, you will find carpenters and blacksmiths in their workshops, farmers ploughing their fields, millers carrying sacks of grain, women about their domestic chores, children playing in a field. And if you look harder still, you will eventually find the stable with the new-born child and his parents, Mary and Joseph, and somewhere in the distance the Three Kings will be spied making their way to the Bethlehem, following the star. The whole effect of this representational art-form is to remind us that Jesus was born into an environment that was filled with the normal workings of a busy community, and none of this came to a standstill simply because a child was born. It all seems to further reinforce the humanity of the Christ child.

Ah, there's the crib scene!

....and the three kings en route

The past catches up with me!

The bimonthly Cycle Magazine landed on our doormat last week. This is the principal publication of the Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC), the largest national organisation in the country representing the interests of cyclists like me. For me, the magazine is compulsive reading; not a magazine that I dip into like a buffet spread, but one that has multiple a la carte dishes that I ‘eat’ my way through methodically, looking forward to the ‘desert and coffee’ at the end. With pen in hand, I underline, circle and make margin notes against things that I need to re-visit when the leisurely read from cover-to-cover is over. Some of the items need some kind of immediate action (eg. the transfer of dates to the diary), others need investigating further (eg product reviews), and others simply merit a second read (especially the well written articles on adventurous expeditions around the world). It took me the best part of a week to meander through the 84 pages until I got to the last section entitled Travellers’ Tales, a section where readers can submit a short, pithy account of some major cycling experience they have recently enjoyed. In this edition, the section was dedicated to the famous and well-travelled LEJOG (Land’s End to John O’Groats), a 1000 mile route that will challenge even the most experienced cyclist.

The first article described the experience of a blind ‘stoker’ riding on the back of a tandem captained by a sighted rider. The second was written by a couple of newly-weds who decided to spend their honeymoon riding from north to south. The third, entitled End to End at 80, was an astonishing account of 80 year old Clive Williams, who had not only completed the distance, but had done so in only two weeks, averaging about 70 miles per day. Then, as I began reading the last account, entitled Riding into retirement, I suddenly had a feeling of deja vu. I read the first few lines, looked at the two small photos, looked for the credits………………. and you could have knocked me over with a feather! I was actually reading about my own End to End ride completed back in July 2008, just a few days after my retirement from teaching. This was an article I had submitted over three years ago, and it was only now seeing the light of day! Is this an example of ‘good things happening to those who wait’?

The Diary of Anne Frank

One of those fondly-remembered books of my early years of reading, I found a return to it in later life especially rewarding. Even now I still struggle to correlate the maturity and expressiveness of Anne Frank’s writing with the reality of her tender age. Her two years of incarceration in a ‘Secret Annexe’ in German-occupied Holland happened during her formative early teenage years, when most youngsters have their minds on things other than serious reading and writing. But her declared intention of becoming a journalist and writer in later life provides the background to the deep urge she has to express her life in words and, in the process, to keep depression and despair at bay during the difficult years of isolation.

Her deep desire to be much more than ‘just a housewife’, to become a famous writer and live on in the minds of people long after her death, made the following words her epitaph:

‘I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and express all that’s inside me!’

If you haven’t re-visited this book for many years, or even read it at all, I would recommend it highly.

You know what I mean…….?

We Brits famously use language for a variety of reasons other than to mean what the words actually say. Take, for instance, the notoriously increasing use of reverse psychology in teenage language over recent years. Years ago, when something was exceedingly good, it was either ‘fab‘ or ‘ace‘, or some other monosyllabic grunt that obviously meant ‘very good’. But as we entered the nineties and noughties, these expressions morphed into ‘cool‘, ‘wicked‘, ‘sick‘, ‘insane‘ and ‘dark‘, and a plethora of other words too rude to mention here.

This habit of understatement (even reversing the meaning) really hit home a few years ago when, near Alicante in Spain, I entered our hotel restaurant one morning for breakfast and asked the waiter how he was (¿Qué tal estamos, hombre?) and he answered in a most uncharacteristic way for a Spaniard (No muy mal). I had never heard anyone ever use that expression before. So I asked him what he meant by it. And he replied “Well it’s what you British people are always saying: not too bad“. Now this got me thinking. What do we Brits actually mean when we say “not too bad“?

David Cameron

Are we simply undecided about our current condition and this is a convenient way of sitting on the fence? Are we afraid of really declaring our cards by saying we feel great or awful (as the case may be)? Or is it simply unBritish to be upbeat about our own physical and mental condition? What would a psycholinguist say?

Linguistic subterfuge in our use of language was further confirmed when a friend passed on an Anglo-EU Translation Guide. At the moment of writing, our Prime Minister, David Cameron, is confronting some of our EU partners with some very tricky questions and possible changes to the constitution of the European Union. I am absolutely certain that language will be very carefully selected to both declare our intentions publicly and to hide some of our real goals and objectives, with the hope that much will be lost in translation anyway. But back to the Translation Guide. It would seem that the reverse psychology of teenage language is also shared by adults at all levels. When someone says “I hear what you say“, does that mean they are really listening? No not at all. It really means “I fundamentally disagree with you”. But a non-British person may not appreciate the subtlety. So too for the following: “With the greatest respect” (I think you are an idiot), “That is a very brave answer” (I think you are insane), “Very interesting” (That is clearly nonsense), “You must come to dinner” (I’m really just being polite) “I only have a few minor comments” (I think you should completely re-write this) and my favourite “I’m sure this is my fault entirely” (It’s actually your fault entirely).

One of the plainest speakers in recent times has been the King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos. A few years ago at the

Juan Carlos, King of Spain

Ibero-American summit, when Hugo Chávez was at his most rumbustious, Juan Carlos lost a little of his customary self-control. Chávez said some very negative things about Spain and Spanish politicians, and the King lost his rag just inches away from a live microphone, saying “Why don’t you just shut up!!” (¿Porqué no te callas?). A most unkingly thing to say at any time. The nett effect was that this linguistic sound-bite circulated the globe virally in a matter of seconds, it was picked up by a ring-tone company, and by the end of the

Hugo Chávez

day they had sold over half a million ring-tones of the King shouting to Chávez “Why don’t you just shut up!!” For a brief moment, the King had done wonders for a small sector of the Spanish economy. And this led to many other spin-offs: mugs, scarves, T-shirts, framed wall-mounts, bracelets and a host of other things, all proudly displaying the defiance of their King in front of the iron man of Latin America. In fact my own study is now draped with a large scarf which shouts at anybody who comes in with the intention of disturbing me: “¿Porqué no te callas?“

What goes around, comes around.

There is an unwritten code amongst roadies that you should always stop when you see another cyclist in distress. The distress could be mechanical or personal, but your offer of assistance could be the only hand-up that comes their way. It happened to me over two years ago when I came off my bike on black ice and broke my femur. A passing cyclist (who happened to be driving to a meet-up point with a fellow cyclist) stopped, called an ambulance and stayed with me till the paramedics arrived. I was eternally grateful to him and to a local resident who stayed with me until I was whisked off to hospital.

But we have to bear in mind the reciprocal nature of giving and receiving. Just the other day, I passed a young cyclist walking by the roadside, pushing his bike up a hill. I stopped and asked if everything was OK. There was a long pause while he stopped, unplugged his iPod earphones, and eventually said: “Wha’s tha’ yuh said?“. I repeated my concern and asked if I could help him. “Ah, naw mate….. it’s just this bugger of a hill….I’m completely f…..ed!”. So with a clear conscience, I climbed back on my bike and enjoyed my descent down that very same hill.

The very next day, 20 miles into my journey to meet up with some cycling friends, I punctured. It was a complete blow-out. I was riding on the rims before I could stop the bike. So I inserted the new spare tube I was carrying. The tyre proved impossible to get back on without a tyre lever, but I knew using a tyre lever ran the risk of pinching the tube…….which, of course, I duly did. So my only spare tube was also punctured. Then, by chance, a passing motorist stopped and offered assistance, declaring he was a cyclist himself, and would I care to drop by his house in the next village where he could give me access to his workshop. Ten minutes later, he was offering me a brand new tube and a track pump to inflate the tyre. He would accept no payment for the tube, but simply asked me to say “Hi” to some of his friends he used to ride with in his racing days.

Jamie Carpenter is a Home Improvements Craftsman by trade. If I were to contract someone to work on my house, he would be the kind of guy I would trust.  If you live near him and need such services, look him up. He lives in Cranford, Northants  Tel:01536 330617 Mob:07870 442018  Email: email@carpecraft.co.uk

Pilgrim: James Jackson

When I was an undergraduate student, I remember attending a seminar entitled “The value of 3rd rate fiction”. I wasn’t sure then how such classifications worked in the world of fiction, but there was a sense (almost a snobbish sense) that if a novel proved to be massively popular (what we now call a ‘blockbuster’ or ‘best seller’) there was something intrinsically flawed about it. Using the same arguments, if what you are reading now is a veritable ‘page-turner’ and you can’t put it down until you have finished it, the author must be appealing to the lowest common denominator amongst his/her readership. Now, I am not going to argue for or against this notion, but I do remember Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code preventing me from catching a few hours snooze on a trans-Atlantic flight a few years back.  I held him personally responsible for my extended jet-lag over several days!

I am not sure what historians, in general, think of historical fiction, a genre which has become extremely popular in recent years. From my limited experience, some of it is very good, and some…………well, very bad. The popularising of history can, when the writing is good, bring the past alive and give us a vivid insight into significant events, but when the writing is bad, mediocre or sensationalist, you wonder why a publisher ever entertained it for publication. I liken the reading of the latter to a very hungry man who hastily decides to buy himself fish and chips from a nearby van. The smell of the batter and vinegar lures him in, the golden brown of the fry-up makes him salivate, he eats the whole of his serving with relish………then, as he licks the grease from his fingers and wipes the vinegar stains from his chin, he really wishes he had opted for a salad for the sake of his health.

So, is this my verdict after reading Pilgrim by James Jackson? The year is 1212, and the Pope has called for another crusade and some 40,000 children pledged to win back Jerusalem and find the Christians’ most treasured relic, the True Cross, which was lost to the Muslims. The narrative follows the fortunes and misfortunes of this band of children as they make their way to the Holy Land. The narrative has you turning pages almost quicker than you can read them. To satisfy the hunger created by curiosity, you want to find out what happens on the next page, then the next page………..until at the end (as you lick the grease from your fingers and wipe the vinegar stains from your chin), you really feel as if you should have been reading something more challenging and instructive like War and Peace, or I, Claudius, or Don Quixote of la Mancha (the best unread seller in Spain, discounting the Bible). Maybe the fact you didn’t choose any of the latter says something about you or the intrinsic value of the former and, instead of relegating the former to the status of ’3rd rate fiction’, it should be valued as exactly what it is…………….. an entertaining page-turner.