BLOGGING THE SUN and THE RAIN, POLITICS and ARTS

GARDENING LIVES ON

Arrival in bright sunlight

Sitting on my wall in my vegetable garden

BLOGGING
Like many people I first became aware of blogging  when the Bagdad Blogger wrote about life from the perspective of a local during the Iraq war. His diary informed western journalists of life in the city, who were grossly limited by the sheer impossibility of travel in the city. It demonstrated for ever the power of the Internet as a means of communication which was nigh on impossible to suppress. Of course blogging (like anything on the Internet) can disseminate valid information, disinformation, or rubbish. But in this case it was widely accepted as a vitally important, honest, contribution to the record.

For over thirty years Joan and I had kept handwritten diaries of our  more novel travels, the first being a series of holidays spent walking the Long Distance Footpaths (Grande Randonees) in France, which comfortably pre-date the UK's first The Pennine Way. Our young family carried everything needed in rucksacks, lightweight tents/sleeping bags/insulating mats, clothes, food and most precious of all drinking water.


But three years ago for our sixty day journey largely by bus not foot, as befitted our advancing age, following west to east the Southern Silk Road across China, I decided to keep the diary as a blog (giving immediate access to our progress for all those at home), although unsure at the time of the practicality of access to computers by some sort of Internet Cafe. In the event communal computer facilities (without cafe) were very widely available, for in China practically no-one could afford the luxury of their own computer. I blogged and emailed for a pittance whilst fifty or so young Chinese largely played computer games. When anything went wrong I blamed the renowned 'Great Firewall of China', which had put chains on Google, though in retrospect that was never the problem.

When I was elected to the Committee of Swansea U3A Bob Hughes was keen to find roles for the newcomers and so I volunteered for the role of Groups' Coordinator. I liked to think of myself during my career as an engineer as an ideas man, always looking to develop or innovate. At my first annual Convenors Meeting Bob handed me a box full of stick-on name labels and thus forced me to introduce myself to the nearly 40 group leaders present, who are the life blood of this organisation. Almost all were then unknown to me. Until that point I had attended only the Wednesday lectures and a Book Group.



A factor which struck me clearly was the difficulty of communication with a rapidly increasing membership without the use of modern methods and I was amazed to learn from the committee that very few of the convenors used email. A presumption which was in fact found to be false, such was the rate of uptake of Internet connection, now mainly by a fast broadband link.

I started the Brian's Blog just after the first Wednesday lecture of 2008/9 as the best means I could think of to promote group activities. I felt then, as I still do, that to be effective the blog had to be read, and to be read it had to engage its readers. Thus most views of groups are my personal reviews not just statements of fact, which often include thoughts stimulated by the proceedings. Generally items about groups are supported by discussion of topical issues to create a more complete diary, but never I would stress are these chosen to suit vested interests.

For the record I am not a member of any political party, nor any religious faction, but I am an ordinary member of Swansea Jazzland! Politically I am a Socialist (a dying breed). I am also an Atheist and a Pacifist who was brought up in a devoutly Christian home - Christadelphian in fact, which I guess could be described as Pacifist-Baptist (my father was a Conscientious Objector). 

Christadelphians acknowledge the special place of the Jews as God's chosen people and were very active in providing them with asylum in this country just before and during the Second World War. I note that their meeting place, as they call their church, appears on earlier maps of Mumbles as a synagogue, and would be interested if anyone can throw light on this.

EMAIL
Hand in hand with the blog I developed my strategy of collecting email addresses whenever I visited different groups, and I started to promote group activities getting members to sign interest lists at Wednesday lectures and special activity days like New Members Coffee morning. All this was done with the full knowledge and support of your committee.


I have now reached the point where I have 334 verified email addresses in my own address book, the membership coverage is more again for many couples share one email address. I have for some time been anxious for this information to be added to our official membership data base. Incorporation is being done this year by the newly elected Membership Secretary. Incidentally reaching this point has involved me in the equivalent of a few working weeks over the nearly two year period, quite aside of the writing of 54 blog postings. Encouragingly group convenors are beginning to request email address lists of their members.

SWANSEA U3A WEB-SITE
For years we had an embarrassingly out of date web site. Creating the attractive, usable, new version was largely the work of our new Vice-Chairman. This is the third arm in the modernisation of communication for Swansea U3A, and I encourage group convenors (I prefer the term group leaders) to make full use of it to publicise their own group. Just google Swansea U3A to find the link.


QUESTIONNAIRE

140 completed forms have been returned from the 332 sent out, I had hoped for more and will try again after the holiday period - towards the end of September. In the meantime any that are returned will be added to the easy to read Excel data base in which the first 140 are already held. Especially encouraging was the late replier who added unprompted, ' - sorry I have been dilatory in replying. Thanks for your Blog, I really enjoy it'.


Many thanks to all those who have responded. They indicate an encouragingly frequent use of computers, and amongst other things has enabled me to identify those who need and deserve basic Internet tuition. The vast proportion access their email within 1-3 days, sufficient for U3A purposes.

SAILING
When I wrote the piece on Llangorse I was completely unaware that there had also been a capsize of one of the larger training boats, a Comet Trio. I therefore offer a big apology to three others for not mentioning that they too were baptised into the sport, though the two I have seen since were completely un-phased by the experience. Tess Atherton, David Jones and Brian Derrick at the helm were screaming along on a plane, crew hiking out, when hit by a strong gust and the boat presumably broached, came rapidly up to wind, and capsized. My advice is to try a Laser dinghy if they want practice in handling that situation!


Last Wednesday back to teaching jive, Pam Williams was still raving about the sailing day. It was her very first time and I'm sure she would have felt the same if she had ended up being rescued.


GARDENING IN THE RAIN

They are not phased by the water either!

Just a gentle drizzle, note the sun glasses

Oophs Action Stations

The brave five (me as well) stick it out



ITALIAN GROUP
Have decided to break off until 10 am Monday morning 23 August. Check with Patricia Morgan on 207305 nearer the date.


POLITICS and CITIZENSHIP
Gabrielle Suff, 208979, is obviously getting to grips with organising her new group to judge from her queries. It seems there will be no formal meeting in August but she will arrange an informal get together if members want. Might be an ideal time to make YOUR first contact


Don Mason talking last meeting about The Big Society did not let on that it was due to be re-launched the very next day by non less than David Cameron. One thing he requested was that the group turn on a program about a Route from Poverty to Work the very next night on Channel 4. We did so and I must say it was revealing of the effect of concerted one-on-two guidance. 


There is little doubt that the young father was a difficult case, in totally the wrong frame of mind to secure employment, and without a vestige of self-confidence left. Yet after sustained, intelligent, guidance he was turned round to an unbelievable extent. The only other explanation is that he is a very talented actor (joke - honest). The mother of the young child appeared to present no great problem, except lack of money and thus hope.


It left me with a few thoughts, yes, transition is undoubtedly possible, I know that from personal experience, but in this case it took an enormous amount of concentrated skilled guidance, which being one-on-two was also very expensive in effort, so I find it impossible to see this enacted on a large scale in the forthcoming period of massive expenditure cuts.

It was the work seeker's mentor's skill to realise his love of training at the local amateur club plus work skills obtained whilst in the army were the ingredients needed to restore self esteem. Though how many such men can afford to buy a new suit (or even whether that is appropriate) to attend an interview for low skilled manual employment. Prolonged interview training was the last step in the chain and it helped him through.

The other observation is that to begin with the man was scared of taking employment in case things went wrong, because if they did he would have to exist without any income for weeks before his benefits were restored. That is a long standing problem which I have heard many times over the past 20 years, including from someone who now works as a part-time college lecturer.

BP and the YANKS
Just as it is beginning to be realised that the subcontractors will have to share the blame for the Mexican Gulf disaster, my erst-while friend Obama strikes on Lockerbie. Might it be that were it not for the high politics involved that al-Megrahi would have been released for unsafe verdict rather than what is beginning to look like a trumped up case of terminal ill health. 

There is a play at the Tobacco Factory theatre 0117-902-0344 in Bristol on 8 pm Friday 30 July tickets £10, Lockerbie - Unfinished Business, which will presumably claim that a bomb fragment was planted and that $2million was paid to Maltese key identification witness Gauci for his evidence for the prosecution. Sounds like a riveting play of high political skulduggery. Google Jim Swire if interested (his daughter, 24 year old Flora Swire, was one of the victims).

GWILYM SIMCOCK at the TALIESIN
What a jazz concert last Friday. But why only a 70% audience for such a world figure, young, universally recognised for his talent in classical and jazz circles, and, Welsh too? Recognised as an important new voice on the world stage by no less than Chick Corea, possibly the best known jazz pianist of the present era. Undoubtedly the best Welsh jazz pianist since Bill Evans who can be heard on 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis, the top selling jazz LP of all time.


He was brilliant both times I have heard him at Jazzlands, but was rather subdued a couple of years ago with Acoustic Triangle in Llanrhidian church during the Gower Festival. Last night was by far the best concert of them all.


He was matched by, and blended excellently with, the Salford born guitarist Mike Walker who is revered across Europe. He has played with most of the world's greatest jazz guitarists as well as Kenny Wheeler's band. Displayed fine humour as announcer.


Old timer Steve Swallow from New York on bass guitar of an age to  join the U3A, he would fit in anywhere. I thought his composition with a Latin rhythm the best of a wonderful selection of originals, a perfect means of highlighting his ability with melody, helped by the extra range of his five string base. He has played with many of the great American bands.

Even the drummer composed, though Gwilym thought he could improve on one of them. Adam Nussbaum (arguably the stand-out performer of the night - and that from someone who rarely rates jazz drummers) is another American with a unique style which ranges from ultra sensitive to full-on driving and sudden transitions. His best composition was for his wife - something about beauty. His list of credits includes working with all time American greats like Gil Evans and Sonny Rollins.  That night he was a sensation. As Margaret, on the door in the good old days when Swansea jazz club was united in St James Crescent, remarked, 'what superb jazz drumming - I doubt Derrick Morgan (the house drummer of the day) could have played like that'

In the interval I turned to find son Geoffrey in earnest conversation with the younger brother of Tudor Harris, one of Geoff's best friends in the darkest days of the 80's. Jason explained that he had been called in urgently to tune the grand piano which explained the delay at the start. He, I remembered was the person who supplied Geoff's heavyweight cast iron piano whilst working for Duck, Son and Pinker in Bath, where the name outlived their shop in the old High Street Arcade - in whose closing down sale I bought a large proportion of my LP collection plus a fine Chuck Berry  along with my original Sargeant Pepper's - those last two disappeared, I wonder where? 

Tudor incidentally is now married and living in the USA, still french polishing the interior of millionaires boats and middle eastern princes' palaces. I remember he french polished the sill in Geoff's bedroom, long since replaced by boring PVC, part of a decoration plan which left the room with a black ceiling and a giant size dart board on one end of the room

A night entirely playing around eight originals, none of which I had heard before, but all of which I enjoyed, not always the case when jazz musicians turn to composition. But remember these days most of them have excelled, like Gwilym, in classical training and performance. I loved the way some of his own compositions started with a simple motif then quietly ran through classical variations of the theme before slowly transmuting into jazz tonality and rhythms. 

At the end of the performance Gwilym thanked piano tuner Jason Harris 'without whom the concert would not have been possible', and Adam Nussbaum thanked Derrick Morgan for supplying the drum kit. 


The audience was thrilled, but why the empty seats, it should have been sold out in such a small venue. One day Swansea will come of age! At the National Theatre's Swansea Assembly event in The Monkey Cafe I remember complaining to Dave Philips and then Sibyl Crouch that most of the jazz concerts at the Taliesin are now female vocalists. Now I know, it's a question of bums on seats.  We get what we deserve.

FICK FUFA and its WORLD CUP + GROUPS for 2010/11

Fick Fufa was apparently the popular wording on T-shirts worn by South Africans at the time of the World Cup. Had the Guardian been a thinking man's tabloid, Marina Hyde would have used it as a headline rather than buried it in pertinent political comment (on the back of the Sports Section!). It was related to Fifa's role (Blatter's Patter) in the World Cup Circus.

Aficionados, like me, of Match of the Day or the ITV equivalent, might have thought it was another comment on the introduction of 'goal-line technology', so that Frank Lampard's goal would have levelled the score, rather than face the fact that for 85 of the 90 minutes England's overpaid Premier League footballing celebrities were played off the park by a younger, fitter, more skilful, German side. Read on, the article was on a quite different wavelength.

Her point was that the prime motivation was to make money (£2.5billion) for Fifa and that this was highlighted when the host nation was by contrast under-developed. Talk has already switched to the next venue, Brazil, in four years time, at least it is one of the new BRIC 'tiger' economies, like Russia, India or China, but one in which the majority of the population will still be poor.

The essential points

The locals could not afford tickets (the vast majority of the population of that country could no more find the money for a ticket than they could fly).

That Nelson Mandela, against his wishes according to his teenage grandson, was cajoled into attendance at the final ceremony.  (Contrast that with the occasion, just after his election, when he proudly wore the South African jersey at the Rugby World Cup so long ago, a powerful symbol that the day of the black population had at last arrived, peacefully and triumphantly.

That even South African law was changed temporarily to suit Fifa, so that unauthorised marketing became a criminal rather than a civil offence so as to protect the World Cup's commercial sponsors. Say for the sake of emphasis that Coca Cola had been a sponsor, then Pepsi Cola would have had to watch their step very carefully. In this case the sponsor was Zurich and she states, ' Fifa World Cup Courts, established to appease Zurich were costing £160,000 per largely petty conviction, in a country whose justice system cannot cope with the serious crimes that swamp it'.

She describes Fifa as 'a travelling oligarchy, enjoying all the benefits of power with none of the disadvantages, like having to provide healthcare or to be remotely accountable. Just imagine the strain put on the already inadequate health care systems by a huge influx of wealthy visitors. No wonder the T-shirts were popular, but then the media did not tell us that at the time.

Such a pity the quality of football didn't match up either, a World Cup Final of artistry (don't forget Arjen Robben and the Dutch goalkeeper as well as the whole Spanish team), and thuggery (no match here, talk of the Dutch getting their retaliation in first). A few delightful games such as that for third place between Germany and Uruquay and a lot of sheer dross. Much more like that and my viewing will revert to my first love Rugby, which was the centre of my young life for twenty years until my playing days finished suddenly under the same Cardiff Neurosurgeon as Merve the Swerve. I should have died at 31 or 33, but thanks to Mr Robert Weeks in the Cardiff Royal Infirmary there's life in the old dog yet.


U3A GROUPS
At the first meeting of the new U3A Committee it was decided to form a Groups sub-committee several of the of the committee expressed interest. We are planning the first exploratory meeting (think-tank) this month. Aspects would include

Venues: availability, facilities (eg Internet, projectors), access and costs
Increased range of Group Activities
Increased U3A Group membership/participation
Assistance with launching new and re-launching failing groups. 

Communication with Group Convenors and members with Internet
Communication with Convenors without Internet net by post 
Communication via Wednesday Lectures (eg Slide show)
Clarification of roles of web-site, blog, displays at lectures
Verifying and adding email addresses to U3A Membership Directory
Providing services to Convenors, eg given names to return in Excel data-base format, phone numbers, membership numbers and email addresses

Any ordinary members (particularly newer members) interested in such exploratory discussions please contact me ASAP. 

QUESTIONNAIRE
You will have received one of the 332 questionnaire emails about Internet use etc I sent out at the end of June. I have received 106 replies which I am told is a way better than average response. Thanks very much to those who responded, the replies were very instructive and illustrate we can communicate reliably with that section of the membership by email.
But being greedy I would like to know about the other 226 members with email. I am tempted to assume that email is not a reliable means of communication with them and their computer skills are lower than the first hundred.
The information gathered is used only to inform members of the committee and convenors, so that we may better structure our communication and may well influence design of new computer Groups.


I have added two additional questions, one to assess the importance of access to venues by bus, the other to assess the need for very basic instruction in use of the Internet for email and websites, search for appropriate web sites and saving links to Favorites and how to use Help facilities and how to recognise and categorise simple computer faults. Answer those questions you understand.

For this month only I have added a further copy of the Questionnaire to the Blog Alert email.






SPANISH CONVERSATION
A brand new member Alison Burns (Tel 290260, or alisoneburns@yahoo.co.uk ) suggested we should have such a group, either with a tutor or just as an informal self help group who meet to talk in Spanish. She offered to chair a first meeting of members interested in forming such a group to discuss its formation.

Would all with some interest in joining please contact her so we can assess demand.

Independently Alison Burns or I would be delighted to hear from one time Spanish teachers, or fluent speakers, within our membership who would be prepared to help such a group. Help of that kind, sharing abilities, is the ethos of the U3A - too often missing.


YOGA
I have just returned from the first meeting of the newest group of all which will replace the third (11.45 am Friday) slot of Tai Chi at Hazel Court for the rest of the summer. 
Phone Chris Bryan (301938) if you want to come. The sessions will be taken by Chris who needs such experience to complete her qualification to teach Yoga.
Edna Jones (already a qualified instructor) has a room booked on Wednesday mornings at Hazel Court from October for the expected continuation of Joga classes. Hopefully the two will work together.


SAILING at Llangorse
Sixteen members braved a discouraging weather forecast (to say the least) on Wednesday 14 July to sail in dinghies. It was a huge success and the clamour is on for a repeat next year. Eddie Ramsden and I, who together organised the event, are now considering a few group meetings to outline sailing principles next year in the weeks immediately before venturing on the water at Llangorse.

For the vast majority of the group this was their first experience of the sport, but everyone sailed in the morning and so enjoyed it they returned enthusiastically for a second session, after a packed lunch.

 The Jones, Rita and Judy

 Ian Howie, Pat Herbert, David Jones, Judy Jones and Angela Blewett

Four 'spectators', Jean Ramsden, Joan, Cecily and Pat Herbert completed the party and they were rewarded with the opportunity to go for a trip round the lake with Ian in the club motor boat.

 Pam Williams (Jive Tutor), Cecily Hughes, Enid Owen

We were made extremely welcome at the club by Club Commodore David Hemingway, Chief Instructor Brian Cook, Chris Holt, and Ian Howie who gave us a potted history of this self help club from its origins just after the Second World War, and amazingly still continues. Eddie, a member of both Swansea U3A and Llangorse Sailing Club, where he races a Flying Fifteen keel dinghy, liaised with the club and has already emailed a note of thanks. In response Eddie was told we were welcome to come again.


Thanks also to Jean Ramsden who ran the galley and plied us with very acceptable cups of hot coffee and tea, and my wife Joan who helped her.

 Cheers for Llangorse Sailing Club and Jean Ramsden


I had two of our hardier souls on the telephone the night before warning me of the poor weather forecast and wondering if we were cancelling. Eddie and I left Llangorse knowing we had been lucky, not only avoiding the worst of the rain but above all the worst of the wind. Rain showers we all endured, but no-one minded that for sailing is a water sport, but luckiest of all the wind speed was at its height during our lunch break so we thought of cancelling the afternoon session, but luckily the wind abated.

John Headley and Rita

The Brians, Corbett and Derrick

Ian Howie, Bob, Joan and Rita Read-Jones


Nobody capsized except the same two hardier males who courageously tried to teach themselves in the Topper, a child's single hander! One of them was equipped with a wet suit and some knowledge of windsurfing, the other with extensive experience of crewing on a racing cruiser from Mumbles Yacht Club. Both had continual problems getting stuck 'in irons' (heading into the no-go area, directly into the wind, from where you are blown backwards). I watched King Eric for a while from the jetty and shouted instructions to pick up boat speed before trying to tack, which he refused on the basis that to do so would take him back out when he wanted to come in, two tacks or a jibe would have been the answer. I haven't quite forgotten all I learned in twenty years racing dinghies several days a week at Mumbles, first in a home-built Mirror with my eldest son Jim and then in a Laser.

A Dory, Swans and a peaceful Topper dinghy

GARDENING
The Old Guard and the New
Margaret Massey and Margaret Llewellyn, Margaret Cross and Vicky Wood

Yesterday the group visited Margaret Massey's garden where on retiring after 17 years as leader she was presented with a Hibiscus plant and a garden centre Token by long standing member Margaret Llewellyn. Luckily the rain held off long enough for a trip around the garden on arrival and Joan was gratified to see there was no sign of a Hibiscus. These flower gardeners are all the same, they want one of everything.

 The presentation by Margaret Llewellyn


Afterwards we went inside for tea/coffee and cakes and half a dozen agreed to hold a meeting to agree a program for next year, lead jointly by Margaret Cross and Vicky Wood. Margaret, who is already active with the Dunvant Club, agreed to be the telephone contact. Margaret Massey will ensure we have access to the wonderfully appropriate venue in Singleton Park. So faced with closure the group goes on led again by enthusiasts.


WINE GROUP


Mary Roberts sent me this photo of Cecily and Bob handing over the running of this group to Val Lawton (361741). Another group, at one time threatened with closure, being rescued by someone who will continue its success. When the chips are down volunteers are coming forward, though personally I never feared that such strongly supported groups as Gardening and Wine would actually finish.


PRE-CONCERT TALKS
Cecily Hughes (363875) is going to proceed with this, perhaps the most difficult of the groups she founded, for a further year. They meet for lectures in the Civic Centre Boardroom before selected events at the Brangwyn Hall.


POLITICS and CITIZENSHIP
Another good story. In discussion following the main session Gabrielle Suff (208979) volunteered to lead the group next year, which offer was accepted unanimously by the group. Thus ensuring the final group at risk will be in good hands. 


The election occurred at the end of the best, most animated discussion I have heard. Don Mason, in a minority I suspect - being a Conservative in the group, used a flip chart presentation to get over the theme of the Big Society. His first chart gave all the usual reasons for thinking we lived in a Broken Society which needed mending, and asked, tongue I suspect in cheek, if everyone agreed with the points made, whereupon good humoured opposition started whilst I wondered if there were some points I agreed with. I was prepared to go with a 'loss of trust', though I wondered if 'addiction' didn't go way back in time with the legal drug, alcohol and opium, and if 'gang culture' was that new.

Don't ask me why I was walking as a student along an empty High Street in London suburbs in the early hours of Sunday, for I have no idea. But I do remember being terrified on spotting four youths, with a remarkable likeness to thugs, walking step for step along the opposite side of the deserted street swinging bicycle chains, the preferred weapon of the time - before chain saws! When they came to a small store and went inside and I scarpered as fast as a young, mobile, tight head prop could, and then some.


Our middle son who lives in Mount Pleasant told us in the bad old years of Thatcher that people like Joan and I living in prosperous West Swansea had no idea what the real world was like. It is better now - he and neighbours like him have dignity again, we hope for his sake it lasts.


Another Tory thesis was that people had to be got out of a trap, their reliance on benefits, for their own self respect. In the last posting I told how my Geoff found employment, after a decade in the wilderness, by virtue of Labour's New Deal. A scheme to give a short training to fit people like him for work followed by guarantee of a few months work for a very low pay of, I think, £10/week, on top of existing benefits. Given the opportunity some of the unskilled will return to the work ethic, but schemes like that cost money which seems unlikely to be available in the biggest spending squeeze in my lifetime. Indeed the coalition have apparently scrapped a remarkably similar scheme Labour had planned to head of a repeat in this recession.

'There is no such thing as Society', Thatcher told us, Don told us the current message was, 'There is Society - but it's not the State'.

However when he turned to the remedy and his vision of the part to be played by promoting employment via self help schemes within the local deprived communities, there was approval across the political spectrum in the group, not so surprising as this is the U3A ethos. But there was very considerable doubt whether such a happy outcome could be wrought in a Britain of 30% cuts in the State expenditure and the resulting squeeze on Local Authorities in an environment where there is already a dearth in employment for unskilled males. 

Employer's policies of no hard redundancies are going to mean once again it's the young unskilled, poorly educated males who are hardest hit. Manufacturing industry is never going to return from China and India at anything like its earlier scale - and we have to look forward to the time not too far ahead when those emerging countries will also be as good or better than us in design and development. When I was young my parents told me the Japanese made cheap copies, forty years on they were the world leading automobile designers and the God to whom the whole world steel industry bowed for advanced process methodology. It's a frightening outlook. 


Don Recommended several books, two of which he returned to, they were
'Peoples' Power', a paperback written by Tony Gibson in the 70's
'Red Tory', written by Philip Blond, recording the work of a Tory think tank. 

Don especially recommended the web site of 'The Centre for Social Justice' which records the work of Ian Duncan Smith, who has won respect across the political spectrum for his approach. I would note that many others think that benefit dependency is the problem not the solution, they include for instance the founder of The Big Issue.
In my brief notes I have
Empower communities
Educate citizens
Train Local Activists
Facilitate local projects to meet local needs
Social enterprises eg child care

I wouldn't argue dogmatically against these, but how likely are they to prosper in an age of cuts, and in any case will they come anywhere near the scale which is going to be needed if things are made really tough.



BOOK READING 1
Mo Ellard who runs the group opened with a reminder that there is to be a memorial service for Marie (Jackie) Davies who died recently. She belonged to other groups including, to my knowledge, French. The service will take place on Friday 10 September at St. Peter's Church, Newton.


This month it was my turn to present the book I had chosen which was 'Home' by the American  writer Marilynne Robinson. This time the group was split between the many who disliked it and the few including writers Jill Govier, Norma Kent and yours truly who thought it was beautiful, though very sad. I could say more about it but I haven't the energy at this moment but by strange coincidence I picked up Thursdays G2 before the arrival of today's paper and was directed by Joan to an article on 'The Slow Reading Movement'.

This movement is decrying the advent of browsing to the extent that a vast proportion have lost the ability concentrate on reading and understanding even a single sentence, but scan print rapidly to pick out pertinent items - a technique I perfected at work long before the arrival of the Internet, though that is clearly accelerating the problem. It is recommending deliberate slow reading to extract more meaning, to facilitate relevant connections.

Slow Cooking which I enjoy, so long as someone else does it, but then I never had an eating problem
Slow Travel which I advocate 100%, but then I also recall JB Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes critique of 1950's USA admitting impressions of a new place were valid within 24 hours of arrival or after living there for several years.
Slow Reading, which in me is a sign of failure, so there has to be Good and Bad Slow reading.





I think I qualify for the title of the world's slowest bad reader but in my case that is perjorative, not for praise. I guess my problem is that I simply don't like the process of reading, find it soporific, lose concentration as random thoughts fly free half way through every sentence. A further problem is that I never retain plots in my memory whether from book, TV, or quality theatre (which I love). In primary school and beyond I read avidly - what went wrong? I used to blame my dad for requiring me to read classics during holidays in grammar school years - whilst he devoured my Biggles.

To come back to the point that article in G2 recommended the following five books all of which need good slow reading.



'Home' by Marilynne Robinson
'The Origin of Species', by Charles Darwin
'Remembrance of Things Past' by Marcel Proust 
'The Golden Bowl' by Henry James
'Ridley Walker', by Russell Hoban


So that's why Mo didn't enjoy Home - she reads too fast like my wife!

How about a book group for slow readers, 100 pages is about my limit so we'll start with Sam Selvon's 'Moses Ascending', then progress to Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'