Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Battersea Library
Can't resist wandering into a passing library, in this case on Lavender Hill. Large red building from the glory days of local authorities in London. Presently sitting in something called the Exchange Group, some kind of a training outfit, which also provides public access for £2 an hour. Trusting people; no log-on pack drill, just sit down to a running PC and get on with it. Pay on exit. And rather more comfortable than your average internet cafe, quiet with bags of space. No prams up your elbow. In a large room at the top of the building, open to the roof and complete with large skylight and a balcony with fancy wooden balustrade running around the whole, about 10 feet from floor level. Wonder what the idea was originally?
Some development back at Epsom. By lunch time the DSL light on the router was flashing slowly but continously. Even managed a connection once but it dropped out as soon as I tried to fire up the PC and did not come back again. And our next door neighbour has Orange for half what I am paying.
Caught an interesting film called 'Tsotsi' on BBC4 the other day. A channel which from time to time shows interesting foreign films, usually at around 2200. So a few months ago they did a series of three films from the Middle East and this one was from South Africa. Just the one white chap in the cast, in a fairly minor role. Very affective film after a few bottles of Newky, with life in shanty towns looking really grim. Story of a young man with a terrible upbringing who turns into a terrible, murderous young man - but who is redeemed, after a fashion, by the accidental acquisition of a baby - this last being eventually returned to the owner in good condition.
Finished an interesting book called 'The White War' shortly afterwards, being the story of the Italian efforts to grab a chunk of the Austro-Hungarian empire during the First World War. Interesting business of a nearly brand new country looking for war to build up the nation. Also the business of natural boundaries; they had done alright in the west and the north with the border running along the top of the Alps but the situation being more complicated to the east - with lots of people who were either not Italians or not wanting to be part of Italy already living there - rather more people than were involved across the water in Palestine. The war was a very bloody business in spectacular (and very cold) country with some tremendous ups and downs towards the end. Italian war aims did get toned down by the other winners but there were a lot of losers in the lands allotted to Italy from the carcases of the Austrian and Turkish empires and the whole business seems to have opened the way for Mussolini. Good book with lots of good background for those, like me, who know next to nothing about recent Italian history; only let down by very poor maps. My atlas (from the Polish army cartographic service via Robert Maxwell) did not have a big enough map of Italy to fill the gap, although it did help. The book was new from Epsom library and I was it's first customer, picking it up from the handy new book stand, from which I have plucked decent books before, some even previously reviewed by the TLS. We deduce that Surrey has a decent acquisition budget. Maybe I should try ordering something really high-brow plucked from the NYRB.
Some development back at Epsom. By lunch time the DSL light on the router was flashing slowly but continously. Even managed a connection once but it dropped out as soon as I tried to fire up the PC and did not come back again. And our next door neighbour has Orange for half what I am paying.
Caught an interesting film called 'Tsotsi' on BBC4 the other day. A channel which from time to time shows interesting foreign films, usually at around 2200. So a few months ago they did a series of three films from the Middle East and this one was from South Africa. Just the one white chap in the cast, in a fairly minor role. Very affective film after a few bottles of Newky, with life in shanty towns looking really grim. Story of a young man with a terrible upbringing who turns into a terrible, murderous young man - but who is redeemed, after a fashion, by the accidental acquisition of a baby - this last being eventually returned to the owner in good condition.
Finished an interesting book called 'The White War' shortly afterwards, being the story of the Italian efforts to grab a chunk of the Austro-Hungarian empire during the First World War. Interesting business of a nearly brand new country looking for war to build up the nation. Also the business of natural boundaries; they had done alright in the west and the north with the border running along the top of the Alps but the situation being more complicated to the east - with lots of people who were either not Italians or not wanting to be part of Italy already living there - rather more people than were involved across the water in Palestine. The war was a very bloody business in spectacular (and very cold) country with some tremendous ups and downs towards the end. Italian war aims did get toned down by the other winners but there were a lot of losers in the lands allotted to Italy from the carcases of the Austrian and Turkish empires and the whole business seems to have opened the way for Mussolini. Good book with lots of good background for those, like me, who know next to nothing about recent Italian history; only let down by very poor maps. My atlas (from the Polish army cartographic service via Robert Maxwell) did not have a big enough map of Italy to fill the gap, although it did help. The book was new from Epsom library and I was it's first customer, picking it up from the handy new book stand, from which I have plucked decent books before, some even previously reviewed by the TLS. We deduce that Surrey has a decent acquisition budget. Maybe I should try ordering something really high-brow plucked from the NYRB.
# posted by Jim @ 9:28 AM 
