I Must Get Out More

Sometimes I go to Google Maps, zoom in on satellite view to Crowland Bridge on the wide River Welland in the heart of the Lincolnshire fens, switch to street view, then ride with the cameraman along the riverside road. Sometimes I go upstream, along what was once the golden stretch to draw for those elusive bream in the big matches of the 1960s and 70s – we're talking up to 1,500 entrants here – and try to work out where the famous 'Willows' swim was, the landmark far bank tree having long since been cut down. And sometimes I head downstream, towards Spalding, until the road leaves the river around Four Mile Bar. Up or down, the banks are deserted, as they have been for years, the days of big river match fishing, like the willow, being long gone now. But either way, first off I always zoom right in on the stone memorial to match fishing legend Ivan Marks, the undisputed 'King of the Welland,' placed by the bridge following his death in 2004 – as if somehow it might have changed since the last time I viewed it.

The Best by Test

A few years back I went through a phase of collecting first editions of some of my favourite books, but pretty soon I realized this wasn't really for me. For one thing, later editions are often better. Take Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. I am lucky enough to own a reasonable condition UK first edition (Jonathan Cape, 1952), given to me one Christmas, with extraordinary generosity, by a dear old friend after I spotted it lurking on their bookshelves and pointed it out to them with none too subtle admiration:

Now, I'm very happy to own it, and I do like the cover, which is much jazzier than the US first edition (Scribners, 1952), but I was just as thrilled to find a 1953 Reprint Society edition for a few pence at a village fête one summer, even though it had long since lost its dust jacket, because this edition is full of the most wonderful illustrations, some by Raymond Sheppard...

and some by C. F. [Charles Frederick] Tunnicliffe, like this one (a colour-tinted variant of which actually featured on the missing dust jacket)...

When I think about it, though - and this is the other reason collecting first editions isn't really for me - my all-time favourite copy of The Old Man and the Sea, one long since passed on to my son, is the cheap, nondescript, 'worthless' paperback edition I bought many years ago when I first got into Hemingway, the one that gave me the priceless pleasure of reading this marvellous little book for the first ever time.

Who Reads This Rubbish?

An old friend pestered me repeatedly for a free copy of Weretiger until finally I caved in, even though one of his proudest boasts is that he's never read a book in his life. "I promise you, Pat, if it's the only book I read this side of the grave, I will read it," he said in all earnestness. That was before Christmas. He hasn't looked at it yet, and I don't expect he ever will. Meanwhile a very close family member, bless him, proudly bought a copy as soon as it came out, though I had told him I would send him one. Six weeks later I couldn't wait any longer and asked him what he thought. "I've got as far as the acknowledgements," he replied in all seriousness. I haven't bothered asking again, though really, I shouldn't grumble – he did pay for it, after all.

That's Me Put in My Place

In 1960, in New Maps of Hell, Kingsley Amis took a characteristically wry look at the Science Fiction scene. It is a little treasure well worth searching for (if a somewhat hastily researched one), and in a nod to Amis in the early 1970s old friends and collaborators Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison put together Hell's Cartographers (1975), which gives some fascinating insights into the professional lives and working practices of a number of top SF writers of the time:

As always, Harry Harrison, who sadly died last year, is particularly good value, recalling his mother-in-law once putting her head round the door while he was trying to write and saying, "Harry, since you aren't doing anything, would you go to the store for me?" He also writes, "When people ask me 'how is the book coming?' I can respond only by blinking a glassy eye and muttering 'which one?'" I was thinking about this the other day, while helping a friend on a gardening job (writers like me must take whatever work they can get). I've been researching a couple of ideas for another book lately, plus he often asks about Weretiger sales – I think he expects them to hit the million mark any day now – so when he said, "How's the book going?" I felt fully justified in stealing Harrison's line. Back home that evening a family friend rang. "Hi Pat, I was wondering if you could do a few hours weeding for me. Loved your book, by the way..."

Patent Pending

Yesterday afternoon my dearly beloved announced that she was going to make one of her famous carrot cakes. Now I ought to make clear at this juncture that Anna is a bona fide cordon bleu cook, albeit one with her own  take on recipes. Anyway, there was the usual flurry of pots and pans, and pretty soon the cake was in the oven. A while later there was a loud thud as she upended the tin and the very solid contents hit the cooling rack with all the grace of a house brick. This, I thought, does not bode well at all. When the brick had cooled sufficiently, she sawed herself a thin slice and took a tentative bite. "Oh dear," she said, "Something seems to have gone wrong. It doesn't taste right at all. Would you like to try some?" Declining her kind offer, I turned my attentions back to the fire I was trying to get going in the grate, from which only the merest  whisper of smoke was emanating. Moments later came the second loud thud of the day as Anna unceremoniously bunged her cake brick on top of the smouldering wood. I was just about to remonstrate when I saw a slip of flame curl out from underneath the base of her offering. Two hours later it was still burning nicely. I think she may have inadvertently invented a new form of solid fuel.

Says It All, Really

On a day when the selfish and greedy wail and gnash their teeth over the death of a woman with a heart of stone, I'd like to address the more important issue of evocative book titles. Take this one from 1927, by Hubert Banner - Romantic Java. Not bad, is it? You don't even have to open it to know it won't let you down. The 1940s and 50s saw a glut of books about daring wartime escapades with some wonderfully stirring titles: Beyond the Chindwin (1945), The Jungle is Neutral (1949), Boldness Be My Friend (1953), They Fought Alone (1958). Great stuff to have on your shelves when you're a hopeless old nostalgic like me. A shortlist of my all-time favourite book titles would have to include Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1890) – so much yearning expressed in just one word – Hugh Clifford's homage to old Malaya The Further Side of Silence (1916), Philip Woodruff/Mason's novel of colonial India The Wild Sweet Witch (1947), Arthur Mizener's biography of Scott Fitzgerald The Far Side of Paradise (1951), and Howard Fast's zany SF short-story collection The General Zapped an Angel (1969). But top of the list, I think, would be a 1941 title that I'm fairly certain the late leaderene never got around to reading...

Silly Billy

In January 2009, police in Kwara State in Nigeria astounded local journalists by solemnly parading before them, as the chief suspect in the attempted theft of a Mazda car ... a goat - one handed in to them by a gang of vigilantes who claimed it was a actually a man who turned himself into the animal after they caught him trying to steal the vehicle. The police eventually decided not to charge the goat, instead sensibly cashing in on its celebrity status by selling it for 300 Nigerian dollars. And if you don't believe me, see

http://www.nairaland.com/222961/police-parade-goat-robbery-suspect

and

http://www.nairaland.com/228917/mysterious-kwara-goat-sold-300