Why be like the other sheep?
This story seems heart-warming on the surface, but it has an undercurrent that left me feeling quite chilled.
By John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber
I’ve been picking motivational books up in charity shops again.
This one’s a fable along the lines of ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ only instead of mice this stars penguins. Continue reading “Our Iceberg is Melting”
If you haven’t got naked in a sauna with a group of strangers then you haven’t experienced Sweden properly.
Be honest now. Did you click on this page expecting to be titillated by erotic tales and salacious images? If you did, I have one thing to say to you … Continue reading “Getting Naked in a Swedish Sauna”
The first book I’ve read in a while from the BBC Big Read list
By Jacqueline Wilson
I haven’t read any of the books on the BBC Big Read list for rather a long time. I really need to get a move on with it as I’ve still got well over a hundred books to go. (I’m reading the long list of 200 books, rather than the more doable 100 top books – it just wouldn’t be me if I made things easy for myself). I want to read the books on the list, I just keep getting distracted with motivational books and Nordic-Noir. So to get myself back on track I started with something nice and simple and quick to read – a children’s book.
In case you don’t know, Jacqueline Wilson is one of the UK’s most popular writers of children’s books and even spent a couple of years as Children’s Laureate. She can attract controversy because her books tackle real-life issues such as divorce, adoption and bullying.
The Story of Tracy Beaker was the novel that gained Wilson recognition. Set in a children’s home, the story is told from Tracy’s point of view.
Tracy has never known her dad. She does have a mum, but as no-one knows where she is Tracy has convinced herself that she’s a busy film star in Hollywood and will return to collect her once she’s got settled down.
Tracy is very good at convincing herself of things. She constantly gets into trouble, but believes the stories she makes up to explain her actions. She never cries, but does suffer an awful lot from hayfever which explains her watering red eyes.
Although Tracy pretends to be tough, at heart she’s a little girl wanting to be loved. Preferably by her mum, but failing that (or in the meantime) by a lovely couple who would want to foster her and give her the life she wants (i.e. lots of trips to McDonald’s).
Wilson really does have a way with words and manages to portray the characters in such a way that convinces the reader. She doesn’t dress her stories up with fairytale endings or wicked stepmothers; Tracy has never, for example, had to live in a cupboard under the stairs like another famous children’s book character had to do. Instead she keeps it real, which probably explains both why she is so popular and so controversial.
I enjoyed the story and easily read it over a couple of evenings. It made a good first book to get me back to reading from the list. Who knows, maybe I’ll tackle Moby Dick next.
Or maybe not.
What would you do, if you weren’t afraid?
By Dr Spencer Johnson
I put this on my Amazon wishlist recently as I’d read good reviews of it. Lo and behold, the very next time I went into a charity shop, there it was sitting on the shelf. Of course I had to buy it.
I was quite surprised by how thin it is. And it has quite a big font size. And a lot of the pages are simple illustrations (of a piece of a cheese with a slogan written on it). And some of the pages are taken up with the foreword, reviews, an ‘about the author’ page … you get the picture. Continue reading “Who Moved My Cheese?”
Ann Cleeves is as good at telling stories as she is at writing them. She’s also full of mind-boggling facts.
Today was World Book Day. Instead of dressing up as a book character, I celebrated by attending a talk by Ann Cleeves at Bolton Library.
The library is fortunate to have lecture theatre and as we all threaded our way into the tiered seats I noticed that I seemed to be the youngest person there. That doesn’t happen very often! I don’t know why the audience was predominantly older people as I’m sure her books and the TV series appeal to a much wider age range than that which was represented.
Ann was relaxed and informal, inserting snippets of humour into her stories. Although she was stood at a lectern her style was more that of a friend having a chat over coffee than a professor delivering a lecture. She read an excerpt from Raven Black, the first book in the Shetland series and followed this with a reading from the latest addition, Thin Air.
She started by telling us a bit about her early life; how she had dropped out of university, believing she didn’t need an English degree to read books, and found a job in London. She didn’t adapt well to the hectic pace of the city and found her escape when she met a man who was about to leave for Fair Isle. He was to take up the position of assistant warden at the bird observatory there and wasn’t particularly enamoured by this opportunity, describing it as a bleak, windswept island in the middle of nowhere. Ann thought it sounded great. Fortunately the observatory was in desperate need of an assistant cook and so Ann travelled north to take up with the role, despite not knowing where Fair Isle was or being able to cook.
Over the next two years she got to know the island and the islanders well. Magnus, the eccentric elderly man in Raven Black, was based on one of the local characters she had shared many a dram with. It was during her time in Fair Isle that she also met her husband, a keen bird-watcher. Over the following years she had a variety of jobs culminating in her training to be a probation officer. Her varied life experiences have supplied her with material for her books.
Ann comes across as much a great storyteller in her speaking as she is in her books. She didn’t have notes, just let the stories unfold, and explained this is much the same way she writes her books. She doesn’t plot in advance, but rather starts with her basic idea and sees where it takes her chapter by chapter. Before she was able to write full-time, she would write for pleasure after a full day’s work. Her motivation was not knowing herself what was going to happen next and being just as surprised as her readers are today as the story unfolds.
The Shetland books came about when her husband wanted to go to Shetland to see a rare bird and she took him on a crazy day-trip as a birthday treat. Crazy because most day-trips don’t involve a long drive and a 14 hour ferry journey at either end of the day. As he went in search of the bird she wandered about noticing the stark contrast of black ravens against the white snow. Being a crime-writer, she mentally added blood to the scene to a create an even more powerful contrast. From this idea the first book was born; first as a short-story, then as a novel, then as a quartet and now as a longer series.
Shetland is one of the safest places I know. Ann knows this too and originally planned the book as a one-off thinking it would be too far-fetched to have so many murders in a placid archipelago of 22,000 people. As positive feedback poured in she realised that when it’s a choice between credibility and a great story, reviewers and readers will usually cast doubts about likelihood to the side and go with the story. And so the book became a series.
Ann shared some of her inspirations for the other books in the series and explained how she had chatted to a former policeman in Lerwick as part of her research. She was surprised to find out that in the case of an actual murder, the serious crimes squad from Inverness would not be flown in on a specially chartered flight, but would have to take the scheduled flight along with everyone else. Even if this meant waiting 3 days for the fog to lift before they could reach the islands. Bodies needing to be shipped to Aberdeen for autopsy travel on the ferry. An anonymous looking transit van is used to protect the sensibilities of passengers who may otherwise be perturbed to know they are accompanied by a corpse.
This is only a tiny part of what Ann shared with us. She spoke for the best part of an hour and then answered questions. One topic she was particularly vocal about is her support for libraries. She has never taken part in any writing courses and, as mentioned above, didn’t complete her degree. Instead, avid reading has taught her all she needs to know about writing. Libraries give people the chance to read no matter what their budget. They give people the chance to read authors and genres they might not be prepared to try if they had to pay for the book. She pointed out that the combined creative industries bring £8.8 million an HOUR to the UK economy. That’s nearly £80 billion a year. I struggled to get my head round this, but it’s true: the figures are there on the government’s own website. The creative industries which include, not only publishing, but also film and television programme making (all of which rely on writers), provide 1.7 million jobs and make up 5% of the total economy. With these facts in mind, government cuts to libraries and the creative industries seem not just misjudged, but downright foolhardy.
Following the talk everyone moved to another room for tea, biscuits and book signings. I filled in the feedback form, still flabbergasted by the statistics and with a head buzzing with all stories Ann had told. This was a far better way to celebrate World Book Day than merely dressing up as Harry Potter or Where’s Wally.
Following in the tracks of Selma Lagerlöf.
Selma Lagerlöf is one of Sweden’s classic authors. She lived from 1858 to 1940 and worked as a teacher until the Swedish royal family persuaded her to give up teaching and supported her financially so she could develop her writing career. (Note to self: write to Queen and ask her to support me to give up teaching so I can write full-time).
Although she’d been writing since childhood, she wasn’t published until 1890. Once published there was no stopping her and it was only five years later that the royals began supporting her along with the Swedish Academy.
She travelled and some of her novels are set in the places she visited such as Italy and Jerusalem. In 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I first came across her when I was researching my trip to Sweden and looking for books to read by Swedish authors who write outside of the Nordic-Noir genre (of which I’d already devoured massively).
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, published in 1906, tells the story of a young boy who misbehaves and is rather nasty. He is shrunk by a passing elf and ends up on the back of his famly’s white goose just as it decides to join a flock of passing wild geese and migrate to the far north of Sweden.
The book is all about the adventures he has travelling the length and breadth of Sweden with the geese.
Lagerlöf was commissioned to write the book by the National Teachers’ Association and it was intended as a geography reader for schools. She spent three years researching wildlife, geography and folklore before eventually publishing the book in 1906.
Although the book was intended for children, its remit made it a useful resource for me. I learnt a lot from it, as well as enjoying the story and her style of writing. It was in this book that I first heard of Skansen, a place I made sure I visited and spent a wonderful day at when I was in Stockholm.
Selma moved to Falun in the Dalarna region of central Sweden in 1897. Consequently, the Dalarnas Museum in Falun has a permanent exhibition on her and her work, including a replica of her study.
How wonderful is this study? I want one just like it.
She lived on the hill overlooking the town on what just happened to be the street where the prison I was staying in was. I tried to find her house, but as far as I can make out it no longer exists. Which is probably why her study is in the museum.
As well as the exhibition on Selma Lagerlöf, the museum gave an interesting overview on the culture of the region.
Paintings pictured different aspects of the culture and daily life. There were some great ones of the mine in Falun.
The local traditional costume is so colourful and detailed.
Dala horses are iconic images of this region. They have been made and sold since the 17th century. Even today the genuine articles are still hand-carved and hand-painted in the traditional colours.
The horses are decorated in a folk art style known as kurbits. This style was used on material, walls, crockery … just about everything that could be painted or printed really.
But back to Selma … the more I learn about her, the more I think I have in common with her. I made a list:
So to continue following in her tracks, I just need to:
Don’t mock! It could happen!
From East Africa to the Arctic and Antarctica. Including Shetland. Gavin Francis has led my idea of a dream life.
Last night I went along to Lerwick library to listen to Gavin Francis talk about his two books. I can’t believe I’d not heard of him before as I consider myself to be quite aware of all the travel writing books on the Arctic and Antarctica. I only knew about last night’s talk because of an article in the Shetland Times promoting the event. The article mentioned he’d started his Arctic journey in Unst which is another reason I’m surprised not to have come across him before as I’d thought I’d read all the travel writing books which mention my favourite island in my favourite archipelago.
Gavin Francis is a medical doctor who had spent some time working in East Africa and at the end of his stint he felt the need to go somewhere completely different to the heat and crowds of Africa. The Arctic is a bit different to Africa so this was where he headed using the Great Bear as a defining boundary (he visited places the constellation can be seen from) and concentrating on the European Arctic rather than the American.
He followed a route that led him from Shetland to the Faroes and into Iceland and Greenland, before exploring Spitzbergen and Scandinavian Lapland. To add extra interest to his journey (as though these places aren’t already interesting enough!) he followed routes documented by early writers. Shetland, for example, was written about over 2000 years ago by an early Greek traveller, Pytheas, who visited around the time the brochs were being built. As his journey went on he followed the writings of far more up-to-date and modern explorers e.g. the Vikings.
Obviously he didn’t get cold enough in the Arctic because not long after he headed off to Antarctica to spend a year working as the resident doctor on British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Base. It took a while to get there on a boat that went via the Falklands, South Georgia and Bird Island. Once there it was all hands to the deck unloading two thousand drums of kerosene. A couple of weeks later, when the unloading was done, the ship left and it was time to settle in to life with just 13 other people.
About half the people on the base are scientists of various disciplines and the rest are support staff, such as the doctor, a chef, mechanics and engineers. He says he hasn’t gone into much detail about his role as doctor due to there being so few people it would be too easy for people to know who he was talking about and this would of course break medical confidentiality issues. Instead he talks about his time spent partaking in non-medical activities, such as trips out to visit the neighbours; a colony of emperor penguins. With the onset of 24 hour darkness there was plenty of time to observe the night skies and become familiar with constellations and blase with auroras. He also found time to write ‘True North’, his book based on his Arctic travels. Since returning home to Scotland he has written his second book; ‘Empire Antarctica’.
His talk last night, was divided into two half hour sessions, one for each book, with a 15 minute break between and a Q&A session at the end. The talk was engaging and interspersed with a few short readings from his own books and those of relevant others. He also passed around a few artefacts, such as his boots and gloves (big, bulky, heavy) and an emperor penguin egg (pointy, bumpy, slightly larger than a duck egg). The library was full, with people even sitting upstairs in what would have originally been the choir (it’s in an old church). Many of them were older and although there were a lot of locals present, there were tourists other than myself. I sat next to a Dutch lady who was in Lerwick with her husband on their yacht. They have sailed all over the world, including all the places Gavin spoke about. They funded their nomadic, floatational lifestyle by running a yacht business and the lady also wrote books and magazine articles on sailing and their travels.
Now I have even more ideas buzzing around inside my head. I love all the inspiration I get up here from all the amazing people I’m constantly meeting. I hope I continue to get ideas and inspiration from Orkney, though I’m sure I will. I leave on the ferry tonight.
Thrills and spills galore in this page-turner set in Antarctica.
A murder mystery from which I learnt about some Hebridean traditions.
This is the first in a trilogy of murder mysteries set on Lewis, the largest and most northerly island in the Outer Hebrides. Black houses were the stone dwellings lived in by people across the islands until relatively recent times. They were known as ‘black’ houses because the fire in the middle of the main room and lack of ventilation led to them being constantly filled with smoke. The white houses that came along later were basically modern houses, with a hearth and chimney to allow the smoke to escape.
Edinburgh detective Fin Macleod is sent to investigate a brutal murder in the north of the island. He is chosen firstly because he is investigating a similar murder in Edinburgh and it’s possible it’s the same killer, and secondly because he is originally from the village in which the killing has taken place and speaks Gaelic.
Through a series of flashblacks told in the first person we learn about Fin’s early life on the island. These are intertwined with the present day investigation which is told in the third person. As secrets from the past are revealed Fin is dragged personally into the case.
The local men are about to leave on their traditional annual guga hunt. Guga are young gannets and as seabirds are protected under British law. However, an exception is made allowing the men of Ness to carry out their hunt once a year as it is seen as an important local tradition originating in times when the guga would have provided essential food throughout the winter when the weather was too bad for fishing.
The men are going to Sula Sgeir, a desolate rock out in the Atlantic. Once there they will be cut off from the mainland for 14 days until the fishing boat that delivered them, returns to collect them. The time on the weather beaten rock consists of long days of hard work and primitive living conditions. Fin took part in the guga hunt the summer before he left for university and knows full well what it entails. In the story his old schoolfriend’s son is about to make his first trip.
The book provides quite an accurate description of the tradition with just a few details changed – the number of men who take part is increased from ten to twelve in the novel, and the rock is never actually referred to as Sula Sgeir. Wanting to know more about the tradition I googled it and came up with this BBC web page based on a documentary made a couple of years ago by Mike Day. The page includes a series of short videos which were quite interesting and helped me to see how close the book was to the reality.
Did I like this book? Yes, for the knowledge of the guga hunt I gained and yes it was an entertaining story. I didn’t like the switching from first to third person, though I could see the reason for this (kind of). I also wouldn’t class it as one of the best books I’ve read in this genre, but it’s certainly not the worst and so I probably will read the rest of the trilogy.
This is book #57 on the BBC Big Read list.
This book is number 57 on the BBC’s Big Read list and is a children’s book.
The Swallows are four children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger, who are spending the summer in the Lake District with their mother, baby sister and baby sister’s nurse. Their father is away at sea but has given permission by telegram for them to take a boat and a couple of home-made tents and sail off to an island in the lake to camp by themselves.
The children spend most of their time in a make-believe world where the lake is a sea with the North Pole at one end and the Antarctic at the other. They have renamed all the places around the lake and so the river leading into it has become the Amazon, the village has become Rio and a pool part way along the river has become the Octopus Lagoon. They use sailor/pirate/explorer words for everyday things and people. The local people are referred to as natives and the charcoal burners as savages; a snake is a serpent; lemonade is grog; they don’t go fishing, instead they go whaling.
The children quickly settle into a peaceful routine on the island, but then find themselves under attack by a couple of Amazon pirates. The arrow-firing Amazons are two sisters, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, who are also staying by the lake with their mother. The Amazons have their own boat and had previously claimed the island as their own. They do not take kindly to the intruding Swallows and the two sides declare war. However, they are soon united in battle against the mean Captain Flint (aka the Amazons’ Uncle Jim) who lives on a nearby houseboat.
Adventures follow and the Swallows and Amazons find ‘treasure’ which had been stolen from Captain Flint. This endears him to the children and he gives them his parrot and agrees to lead them on a bigger adventure the following summer.
The book was first published in 1930 and the story is set in the 1920s. It always shocks me a bit when I’m reminded of how big the gap between the classes was in those days and how the working classes would be treated as so inferior. This is the case with this book. The children, with their naval father and baby sister’s nurse, are obviously middle-class. The local farmers and villagers refer to them as Master Roger, Miss Susan and so on. When a policeman comes to the island to follow up a complaint from Captain Flint the Amazon sisters, who know him, are downright rude to him and talk down to him as though he is a naughty boy – ‘as long as you’re good we won’t tell your mother’. The policeman is frightened and chastised and hastily leaves.
All in all, I enjoyed the book though I’m glad I don’t have to teach the children – I think they’d be damned annoying and precocious in real life and I doubt I’d last a day with them before I’d be sacked for insubordination!
