Monday, August 16, 2010
Reading on the train
Feel the need for something to read on the train the other evening, bought at LRB for once in a while, which turned out to be quite amusing if not terribly informative. I suppose it is the silly season. We start off at the back page which featured some pornographic stories by a novice author who also appears to be a farmer's wife from somewhere in Alberta. And I had thought that Albertans were upright, church going folk. At least the ones who are not into oil. Then through the small ads. including a reasonable crop of lonely hearts. Onto the display ads. including three of a psychotherapeutic nature, one of which advertises a campaign to stop the dastardly government plot to bring the shrinks under the auspices of something called the Health Professions Council. A gang which appears to look after what one might call the tier 2 health professions - that is to say the foot people, the camera people, the physios. and so on, but not the doctors, dentists and nurses. Presumably the shrinks regard themselves as tier 1. Perhaps they should not worry too much; the council may get the Cameron cull.
Back to the front where we kick off the main business with a three page lament of the demise of French food and French cooking. Very foodie, very Islington. Or perhaps Oval these days.
Back to the back again where a proper lefty tone is restored with a three page rant about the iniquities of big oil in general and BP in Louisiana in particular.
Somewhere in the middle I came across a review of a book with title 'Eighteenth-Century Ireland' and subtitle 'The Isle of Slaves'. At the time I read this as yet another rant by some Irishman about the iniquities of the Brits. two hundred years ago. When will they move on? They have been independent for getting on for a hundred years now. Yawn, yawn. Re-read the review yesterday, in a more sober frame of mind, and find that the thing was not quite as much as a rant as I had originally thought. Pointing out, for example, that the Presbyterians in the north did rampage and riot for much the same reasons as the Catholics in the south. Neither lot much liked the Anglicans in the chair. That the population of Ireland was proportionately much bigger then that it is now, perhaps half that of England & Wales rather than a tenth. That at one point it was up to 8 million. Clearly the potato was a wonderfully productive crop in a good year.
It then dawns on me that I had some time previously read a review of this same book in the TLS where the subtitle was given as 'The Long Peace'. With stuff about how, despite all the talk, the Ireland of that time was a prosperous and pleasant place in which to live. Intrigued, off to Amazon to buy the paperback version, reduced there from £19.99 to £14 something, pushed back up to £16 something by postage and packing. Hopefully, some day soon, I shall be able to make my own mind up about the reliability of the reviewers of these illustrious organs.
# posted by Jim @ 3:58 AM 
