pumpkinstrokemarrow

At around the same time the BH had bought a couple of turkey drumsticks, which must have come off some monstrous turkey and which cost £5 the couple. Roast they did one meal for three and some sandwiches for one. Quite respectable eating, not quite on a par with the beef, but certainly very good value and easy cooking.

Yesterday to Tooting where we made two acquisitions. One CD containing the Encyclopedia Britannica from the Fara charity shop and one book, 'In Araby Orion', borrowed from the Wetherspoon's lending library.

Started off quite pleased with myself as CDs were said to be £2.50 each and I got a boxed set of two for £2.50. Perhaps the assistant got it right in that I would not have paid £5. I think she thought about it. Not too bothered at this point that it came from long-ago (in multi-media speak) 2004 and that it was the standard rather than the deluxe edition. Then noticed an elaborate serial number and started to worry whether I would be able to load the thing. Is it like Microsoft where you have to read the long number over to their computer which then gives you another long number to type into your computer? I needn't have worried. The thing loaded up fine on PC No. 1, only requiring one to type the long number in. Plus something called Quicktime wouldn't load for lack of something. Loaded it up on PC No. 2, the one that FIL uses, without any bother. The whole point being to give him something to vary his computing diet a bit, his PC not being connected to the Internet despite frequent pop-ups about wireless networks being detected. Not mine. Then I thought I had better have a go with the thing. First, tried what was called the atlas and that was pretty hopeless. As the proud owner of a car boot sourced Britannica Atlas on paper, which I think rather good, I was expecting something of the same sort. But not at all. As far as I can see the only thing the atlas does is display rather elementary maps of any country or such larger area as you care to nominate. Second, tried asking it about Macbeth. That seemed a bit better. It listed all the dozens of articles in which Macbeth got a mention and invited you to display any or all of them. Not all at once that is. But the standard of article was not that good. I'm sure that I've got a version dumbed down from the paper job for the CD job. Integration of pictures, tables and text fairly creaky too. Third, tried Waterloo and got what I thought was a reasonable, one screen summary of the battle. But rather thin: not even enough to deal decently with history homework. I am sure there would have been a lot more had I bothered to look in our ancient Chambers. Plus, in Chambers, the whole thing has a more scholarly tone. You know what you are getting and where it comes from.

In the interests of testing bias, tried Aspern, a battle I know something about from the historical novel by one Rimbaud (not the poet, another one). This did not rate a proper entry at all. Tried Austerlitz, as big a deal for the French as Waterloo is for us. This did attract an entry, perhaps two thirds the size of that on Waterloo. So bias present but not awful. Tried a few more topics, much the same sort of thing. And it was rather slow. A lot slower than using Wikipedia despite being offline.

So, all in all, not impressed. I might just about have got my £2.50 worth, but I am glad I did not pay the proper price, which I suppose to be of the order of £20. The thing falls between two stools. It does not have the comfortable solidity of a proper paper encyclopedia, nor is it a very good computer tool. Maybe a CD package is not the way forward. Should I investigate the online version for which I have got a free trial? Is it worth my quality time, given the experience so far?

'In Araby Orion' was a rather interesting, if odd, book. A short story about an attack on Jericho, published in 1930, a memorial to a Lance Corporal killed in an attack on Jericho, as part of Allenby's army, in 1918. Written by Edward Thompson, first edition, ex libris Norman Stayner Marsh. The tone reminds me very much of that of the more or less contemporary 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom', while not attempting to do anything so grand as this last. A much more modest affair, in every sense of the word. The copy that I found is by no means the last as Mr G. knows all about it. There is a recent, illustrated reprint from the US. Mr G. even knows about Norman Stayner Marsh who was, it seems, an eminent lawyer who was an honorary fellow of Oxford's Pembroke College and who rated an obit. in the Guardian. Born in 1913 and I am pretty confident it is the right chap given the style of the book plate.