High Rise has posted two new book reviews, and I am thrilled to discover that I have actually read one of his recommendations! The reason I was so delighted to secure HR’s literary services, is that he is an intellectual giant, despite his penchant for a tasselled shoe, and I have always held him in the highest regard. He mixes in some dizzying company, and somewhere, I still have a photo of him singing a duet with Mick Jagger at some understated supper.
As an aside, it has always been a universal truth that when a hostess declares; “…it is all terribly casual”, the precursor to all understated suppers, you just know everyone will be in full fig, or wearing a Vietnamese smoking jacket embroidered by a homosexual Hoi An tailor, who once measured Truman Capote’s inside leg. This will be worn over Jeans that cost more than the jacket, which rests atop shoes that cost more than the dinner. There is often a Count, a rockstar and someone who was once married to Trump – or her PR person which is almost as interesting. Anyway, I digress…
High Rise’s first review is of a fabulous book by Susana Montes, Waiting for Robert Capa, the Hungarian-born American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history and High Rise gives us a flavour of its impact. You can click HERE to read it.
His second review is possibly the briefest you will ever read. The book is the one I can hugely recommend, having read it many years ago.
Elsewhere, I continued my quest, a couple of weekends ago, to find some sort of sport on which I could [a] get a handy angle and [b] wager AND watch. You might have noticed that our trip to Dannaro in Sweden’s Nordland for the trotting, only managed about 15% of that wish list, and, by the grace of God, may I never have to watch a trotting replay again. A couple of winners and a bad dose of seconditis did not leave me with the feeling that I had been involved in anything of merit. Not I think a sport for a gentleman.
News from the Home front is almost as sparse as the rest of the world. Two chickens have arrived to replace the brace that was stolen by some itinerant person who, to avoid any suggestion of a hate crime, wasn’t travelling. That brings the total investment in live chickens to just shy £75. Add to that the additional costs involved in feed, bins, wire, 2nd-hand Omlet Egglu, gardener’s time in moving everything from A to B; and back again. The list is extensive and amounts to something in excess of £750 – by which I mean it could be a grand.
The two new chickens have yet to lay. They are young and a bit girly and Madame insists they have come from a broken home, by which perhaps she means that Mum or Dad, or tragically both, were slaughtered by some maniac wearing a hairnet and a jacket with Pat the Poulterer embroidered on his breast pocket. The two prior to that, Heidi and Matilda were good layers and on average produced nine eggs a week. So over a year, each egg cost £1.60, which frankly makes the organic, farm shop delicatessen’s eggs, “……you’re lucky we’re open, there’s a viral inflexion out there….”, look ridiculously cheap.
Tomorrow I shall take my first faltering steps across the threshold of Raceweb Towers driveway for over five weeks. Time flies when you have chickens.