2013 books, #6-10

Mrs Robinson's disgrace: the private diary of a Victorian lady, by Kate Summerscale [audiobook]. Read by Jenny Agutter.  Bath: AudioGO, 2012.

Sometimes the Victorians seem just like us.  This was not one of those times... Isabella Robinson meets Edward Lane at an Edinburgh society party in 1850, and becomes enchanted by his appearance and conversation.  Unfortunately, Isabella is married, and Edward is ten years her junior.  Their relationship develops, and is discovered by means of Mr Robinson finding Isabella's diaries where glowing details are given.  This is a fascinating exploration of Victorian manners, of the power of husbands in the era, and of the divorce courts in 1850s England, well before the Married Women's Property Act, based on the documentary evidence in the case.

Nightwoods, by Charles Frazier. London: Sceptre, 2012.

Luce's new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent.  Luce has been presented with her dead sister's children by social services; they are traumatised and terrified, violent and angry; they communicate by means of destruction and fire.  Luce is no stranger to trauma and violence, and does her best to build a relationship with the children; but two strangers are heading for her isolated farmhouse, one the grandson of the previous owner, the other the murderer of Luce's sister seeking money and the children.  This is a dark, haunting story set in the North Carolina woods; one which will stay in the memory for a long time.

Cold wind, by C J Box. London: Corvus, 2012.

Earl Alden, the Earl of Lexington and Joe Pickett's current father-in-law, is found spinning around at the end of one of his own multi-million dollar wind turbines; Joe's mother-in-law is arrested for the murder by the local police.  Her behaviour gives no indication as to whether she's guilty or not, and while Joe can't stand her, he does love his wife so starts some investigations of his own.  Meanwhile, Nate Romanowski, usually an ally, has troubles and grief of his own.  The plot in this one twists and turns nicely, and Joe's essential likeability always carries these books through.

Death's acre: inside the legendary Body Farm, by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. London: Time Warner, 2003.

Essentially, this is Bill Bass's autobiography; we find out about his life and career, but because so much of his life has been engaged in the study of decomposition and forensic anthropology, there's a lot of that too, and it's also a biography of the site in Tennessee which is home to his research facility.  There's some humour here, quite a lot of well-explained science, and some (not unexpected) very close parallels with Bill Brockton, the lead character in the Jefferson Bass books.  An engaging non-fiction read.

Tripwire, by Lee Child [audiobook]. Read by Garrick Hagon. Whitley Bay: Soundings, 2001.

This was originally written in 1990; had to check this as the dénouement is set on the 89th floor of one of the World Grade Center towers...   The second of the Jack Reacher novels, and another excellent one.  Reacher is tracked down by a private detective who is subsequently found dead; he follows the detective's trail back to his client who turns out to be an old friend.  Carrying on the old friend's enquiries into a soldier listed as MIA in Vietnam leads Reacher into a web of list and confusion, and a rather unexpected conclusion. Child is skilful enough to create a villain who is truly evil, but then gives you a small window into his tortured world; this sort of little twist always lifts his writing above the ordinary.  While I always prefer Jeff Harding reading these books, Garrick Hagon does his usual excellent job.

Methera

I was intending to do one post a week when I started this - thankfully, I never said that, as it turns out this is the 4th post and we're 5 weeks into the year.

Happy Candlemas, everyone.

So - I crocheted (!) and I steeked.  (And did both at knitting group on Saturday.  People were very kind and let me wave the thing in their general direction, rather a lot.)

For those people who know me, the crochet was the scarier bit.  Every time I pick up a hook, it's a foreign object, and I take to it like a duck takes to football.  But I know I can do the double-crochet method Kate Davies favours, because I did it on a sample in a class with Jared Flood in 2010, and it worked this time.  Taking the scissors to the knitting after that was pretty easy.

Here's the front:



And because all the knitters here will want to see it, here's the back:



(I'll run that extra-long float in!)

And here's both, with a bit of the reinforcement thrown in.



I'm quite chuffed.

It's been a lovely week for meeting knitters I haven't seen for ages, too.  On Tuesday, Lixie and I met and went to the Murder in the Library exhibition at the BL, which is an A-Z history of crime fiction.



If you have half an hour to spare and you're in the King's Cross area, this is a wonderful way of spending time.  (We spent longer, but then we hadn't seen each other for 2-3 years and both review this sort of book quite a lot.) We both came out with a short reading list of unknown authors, and shared some we both enjoyed.

On Thursday, Knitdaisies  came to stay overnight before a conference in Cambridge on the Friday, and we stayed up way too late and ate soufflés and spelt risotto and giggled a lot.

And then on Saturday after knitting I bumped into SusieH and her family in the waiting room at Cambridge station, and had to haul out the new steek to show her...  I haven't forgotten we need to get together soon!

Tethera

Hadn't made a great deal of progress on this by the end of last weekend; and then managed to lose the battery-charger for the camera (which was exactly where I normally put it; I've been off work for 3 days with a stinking cold which left me completely unable to think for the first day and a half!).  So here's a photo of the blanket tonight:



One row of ewes to go before there's steeking...  eek.  Must check I have a 3mm crochet hook.

The first set of the second batch of ewes was... interesting.  Knitted them on Tuesday, with a temperature, and must have tinked as much as I knitted.  If a row of Fair Isle sheep turns out abstract, you know there's something going wrong...  Knitted along to iPlayer versions of Bake-Off for Comic Relief on Wednesday and Thursday and made more mistakes but corrected them.  There is something so compelling about watching people bake things on TV.  I'm really looking forward to Ed Byrne competing in the last one...  Anyway, back to the blanket.

I've been reading up on Ravelry, and a lot of people found the edging was quite wavy and loose before strenuous blocking.  Looking at the instructions, you need to pick up 1 st for every cast-on/cast-off stitch and nearly 1 st for every row, which seems a lot to me for a garter-stitch edging where I'd normally skip one stitch every few depending on the weight of the yarn.  I'm also aware that my tension/gauge was slightly out on casting on, so I'll already have used a little more of the yarn than intended, and the yarn's meant to make both the blanket and a hat.  So I think I'm going to stick to my usual thing with 4-ply yarn, picking up 4 of every 5, and that should save me a small amount of yarn; my garter-stitch tension will already be looser than my Fair Isle tension, so that might make up for it...

2013 books, #1-5

On the map: why the world looks the way it does, by Simon Garfield. London: Profile, 2012.

A history of mapmaking and the makers, but done in characteristically Garfield fashion.  You get the historical information, but also the curiosities around the facts which might make some of that information stick.  We find out about buccaneering contemporary map collectors, historical fakes, insanely brave figures and mapmakers who mostly stayed at home and made it all up.  Where maps enter popular culture, Garfield goes there as well - when talking about the Peters projection, he remembers the somewhat self-righteous attitude of those espousing the map in the 1980s alongside the wonderful Mapmakers for Social Justice segment of an episode of The West Wing.  There's also an interesting discussion at the end of geographical mash-ups and GPS monitoring which suggests that although me-centric mapping is now the global trend, it's not always an unalloyed benefit.

Dodger, by Terry Pratchett [audiobook]. Read by Stephen Briggs.  Oxford: Isis, 2012.

A fun piece of historical fantasy; Dodger is a fine character in the CMOT Dibbler line, and really, while there's some difference between 19th century London and Ankh-Morpork, there's so little that it's scary on occasion.  Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli and Henry Mayhew make appearances; and the powerful sense of justice and social inequity which enrages Pratchett in all circumstances makes this a book which Dickens and Mayhew would recognise in its raging against the characters' situations.

The worst date ever: war crimes, Hollywood heart-throbs and other abominations, by Jane Bussmann.  London: Macmillan, 2009.

I can't remember where I saw the recommendation for this - I suspect it might have been in a Caitlin Moran article - but this was excellent.  I remembered Jane Bussmann from the Bussmann and Quantick comedy show on Radio 4, but hadn't realised she'd then ended up in celebrity journalism in Hollywood, failing to interview Britney Spears (twice) and being threatened with legal action by Ashton Kutcher's lawyer.  A combination of powerful self-loathing and an enormous crush on an international peacemaker lead Jane to Uganda and the war between the government and Joseph Kony, kidnapper of up to 30,000 children.  When she gets there, she realises nothing in the international relations arena is as simple as the press coverage.  By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and totally crass, this is a fantastic read.  Definitely not one for the easily offended though.

The guilty plea, by Robert Rotenberg [audiobook].  Read by Paul Hecht. Rearsby, Leics.: W F Howes, 2011.

One of the directors of a major greengrocery business is found stabbed in his kitchen the night before his divorce proceedings are due to start; several hours later, his estranged wife delivers the murder weapon to her lawyers, wrapped in a tea-towel from the kitchen.  It seems straightforward, but as Ari Green investigates, there are many puzzling elements.  I really enjoyed the setting for this one - Toronto - and will look out for Rotenberg's other books.  It's also an excellent reading with a Canadian, rather than US, reader.

The bones of Avignon, by Jefferson Bass. London: Quercus, 2012.

I really don't understand the appeal of books on the Turin Shroud/bones of Christ/Ark of the Covenant/Holy Grail etc., but they do seem to sell, so I suppose it's always worth a try for an author.  What I really, really, don't understand is why an established writing team like Jefferson Bass would dip its toe in that particular swamp.  I can only attribute it to the sort of curiosity which fuels so many episodes of Lassie or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo - the old planks haphazardly nailed to the entrance of the mine and the faded KEEP OUT signs are an obvious invitation to explore.

It's Jefferson Bass, so it's not horrible, although the closing scene is hilarious rather than suspense-inducing.  There's a terrible romantic premise at the beginning (hero races across the Atlantic to side of damsel in distress) which was done a lot better in The West Wing, and a lot of very nice Provençal scenery.  The plot is pretty uninteresting until the last 50 pages or so when it suddenly turns into the last few minutes of a Die Hard movie.  There is only one real teeth-gnashing moment in the author's knowledge of France, which isn't bad going - no wonder the only dish left in a Provençal restaurant in August is "reblochon" (actually, as described, tartiflette); it's a winter dish containing unpasteurised cheese from near the Swiss border 300 miles away, and not a local summer speciality...  Oh, and there's a lot of switching between the 14th and the 21st centuries.

As ever with this series, it's redeemed by the main characters and the rather strange relationship between them; if you've read the others in the series, it's worth persevering with this; please don't make this your first book by Jefferson Bass, though - any of the others is a better introduction to their usually sparkling style.

Towers in the snow

I ended up leaving work at 2pm this afternoon - the trains were slowly starting to get a little more dodgy-sounding, the snow had been coming down for 5 hours, and people living near home and halfway up the line were saying they had reasonable quantities of the stuff... and I was completely unable to concentrate on what I was meant to be doing...

It's been so long since I left for the day in the light!  And apart from that, I thought I'd take a couple of pictures of work in the snow... this is the little camera, but probably just as well - it was so slippery underfoot I'd have been worried about getting the big camera out.

First, here's the classic: the Elizabeth Tower, formerly the Clock Tower (as we're instructed to say at every turn, Big Ben is the name of the bell which tolls the hours); the tower was designed by Charles Barry and opened in 1858, and the bell was completed in 1859.

At the other end of the Palace, a marginally younger and somewhat larger structure - the Victoria Tower, also by Barry, opened in 1860 and housing the Parliamentary Archive.

The buildings at the other end of the London part of my journey home are also Victorian with clocks; first of all St Pancras (or, more properly, the Grand Midland Hotel which was added to the engine shed later), opened in 1873 and designed by George Gilbert Scott; more Gothic, this time in brick.  Gorgeous structure, and one narrowly saved by campaigners including Sir John Betjeman;  the station pub is named in his honour.

And one which is about to cast off its horrible 1972 concourse and show itself in its rather stark beauty; King's Cross station.  Surprisingly to me, this is the oldest of the four; designed by Lewis Cubitt and opened in 1852.  Network Rail's grand plans for this one should be complete at the end of this year; I think it's going to look splendid.

Looking at all these structures brings home to me how recent the current London landscape really is in comparison to, say, Cambridge's, and quite how much building work was being done in the 1850s and 1860s...  It's not surprising London is a real and vibrant character in Dickens's novels...

Cold

Went to station this morning, stood there for a very long time waiting for either a train or a replacement bus, until I'd completely missed the time for the presentation I was due to give (I live 2 hours' journey, give or take, from work); came home...

At 2pm the trees outside looked like this: very Japanese print; very very cold still...



I've been working in fingerless gloves all day, with frequent breaks for refuge upstairs, where it's warmer, with the knitting.  I'll be working for another couple of hours...

Winter. Bah.

Tan

More progress on the Rams and Yowes Blanket in this second week - one row of rams from the end of the second section, and well over halfway through the Fair Isle portion of the blanket (the centre is marked by the row of diamonds).  Really enjoying this!  It really is too big to be carrying around now though, so any progress made will be in evenings and weekends when I don't have that much knitting time...

Already looking at other Fair Isle projects in my pattern books and Ravelry queue...

A year in plain weave

The first chapter of Jane Patrick's superb Weaver's idea book: creative cloth on a rigid heddle loom is called "There's nothing plain about plain weave".  And this year has proved her right.  At Christmas 2011, I thought I'd do a couple of plain projects, and then start thinking about making something more fancy... Little did I know that I'd be going into 2013 with a number of plain weave projects planned...

The inaugural project was this table runner, made with some sari silk a kind Canadian friend sent me for Christmas, combined with a bamboo warp and some grey Jaeger Matchmaker DK from stash.  

It came out shorter than I was intending, because I didn't realise that a) projects shrink, particularly if the warp is stretchy bamboo and b) there's quite a lot of waste at both ends of the warp; but it's spent a lot of time on the table this year and I love it.

The second project was a birthday scarf for the same Canadian friend.  I used a silk and wool blend with a sheen (green), and an angora blend (blue) in a 2 by 2 houndstooth pattern, and loved the drape of the fabric.

The learning point for this one was that a warp with angora in it is a Bad Idea from the point of view of having to de-pill it while you're working!

On February 11th last year, I spent over an hour standing on a station at -12C waiting to go to Kew Garden to meet knitting friends, before giving up (frozen points at Ely) and warping up the loom for the Not-Kew Scarf.

This was my first 4-ply project and I'd bought a 10-dent heddle for it - lots of leftovers for the warp, and a skein of Wollmeise for the weft; when I eventually got to Kew on April 21 to meet some of the same friends, I wore the scarf.

The next project was for my Dad, and was the first of a sequence for much of the rest of the year.  I used a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Eidos, which I'd been warned wasn't robust enough for socks, as the weft, and a skein of Kaffe Fassett Design Line, along with some other bits and bobs, for the warp.

 Over the winter, I'd started looking at chaps' scarves, in particular those ones with the fine vertical lines on them, and realised that they had sort of twisted fringes which looked more masculine than the loose fringes, and didn't involve trying to work out how to make a hem.  So I tried that with the help of an online tutorial.  Turned out nicely; and the scarf (and Dad) went to operas in Berlin.

This idea of using a yarn with a long variegation for the warp took me through two projects: this one which used a skein of Noro Kureyon sock for the warp with the odd smidge of a Fyberspates yarn with stellina in it, and one of Knitwitches silk and baby camel in purples and black for the weft.

The Kureyon, being a single ply, also had the advantage of doing its own twirling for the fringes...

The logical step then was to wonder what would happen with Kureyon used for warp and weft; this one was for Jackie.  Strangely, this is one I don't have a picture of finished... but you can get the idea.  The long colour changes in the weft and the shorter ones in the warp make an interesting interplay.

A skein of Yarnscape "Dance" combined with some leftover sock yarn and some Jaeger extra fine merino 4 play made a scarf for Rosie's birthday - this was made in August but not handed over until November...

Another project during the Olympics was a laceweight cashmere and wool scarf for my Mam - Knitwitches pure cashmere for the weft, and KnitPicks Shadow laceweight for the warp and some weft stripes.  I bought a 12.5-dent heddle for that one, so am all set for everything but chunky weight!

Back to a colourful weft for a birthday present for Wibbo; this was nice to do during one of my weeks' holiday - I seemed to pick the worst weeks of what was quite a reasonable couple of months otherwise!

The weft on this one was a skein of Malabrigo sock - I love the way the warp just peeks out.

I went for a similar effect for tablemats for my cousins for Christmas - brightly coloured cottons with a pinkish-brown main colour. 

 For these, I did Italian hemstitching, which just about finished off my wrists...

Last project of the year was a slightly insane tartan, using a combination of non-feltable DK weight yarns combined with the odd strand of novelty bouclé; this was great fun to do. 

 I was aiming for something which looked like a plaid made for Helena Bonham Carter by Vivienne Westwood and was pleased with the result.

It went wonderfully with some handles salvaged from an old knitting bag which once belonged to Grandma.

Thanks to Jan Eaton for the last two photos!  Most of the weaving went on the bag, but there's a square left over which is big enough for a small cushion for me; will make that up when I find a cushion pad.

The next project is big, and also plain weave.  I've just noticed that I've only kept two of the projects so far, so this is going to be a blanket, in three pieces, for my bed.  I'm going to use the "mad plaid" idea, this time with superwash yarn; not attempt to match up the weave but try and keep the colour balance reasonably consistent.  If I can get some sort of balance it might be a bit like Kaffe Fassett's Crosspatch design... maybe... although I'd never pretend to have his sort of colour sense.

What I've enjoyed about the weaving is that there's some planning involved, but no so much that you get intimidated, and it's all about playing with colours.  Once you actually start weaving the weft, there are a limited number of choices to be made and it has a nice mechanical action like plain stocking stitch.  Immensely satisfying.

(And you use up a lot of stash doing it - never a bad thing!)

There are another four chapters of more complicated ideas in the book - I think it'll last me some time.  The absolutely wonderful Rigid Heddle group on Ravelry has been excellent for support, help and answers to questions I wouldn't even have thought to ask, too...

Yan

Nearly a week's worth of the New Year gone, and the Christmas decorations have come down, with regret as ever.  Tiny Clanger has gone back to the small felted coracle on top of the bookcase she usually shares with her male Clanger companion, and I'm clearing the top of the dining table in preparation for warping up the loom again.

But I have a New Year's Project, the Rams and Yowes Blanket by Kate Davies; the kit was a Christmas present from my parents.  It's knitting up surprisingly quickly so far! There are some long floats (12 st) there, but I think I've kept the tension pretty straight up to now, and the central section has less solid patterning...

I'm counting the posts for this project in (one of the many versions of) traditional shepherd's count style....

Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Mumph, Hither, Lither, Auver, Dauver, Dic, Yahndic, Tayndic, Tetherdic, Metherdic, Mumphit, Yahn a mumphit, Tayn a mumphit, Tethera mumphit, Methera mumphit, Jiggit.

2013...

Belated Happy Christmas!  This is a little LED colour-changing Christmas tree from a Secret Santa swap which made me inordinately pleased this Christmas, attached to the top of my monitor at work - its plugging into the USB port was particularly fine.

Not sure if I'm staying up until midnight or not tonight as I've had a stomach bug the last couple of days which has wiped me out somewhat.  I was going to round up the knitting projects for 2012 this evening, but a couple haven't yet been handed over, so they'll get done before Twelfth Night...

I make the same perpetual resolutions re: procrastination, stash reduction, weight loss, physical activity and productivity all the time - it doesn't need a new year for that.  And it still feels a little too much like the old year until around Candlemas when the light begins to return in earnest - a new diary doesn't really make a New Year round here; BST is more likely to help with that.

But I have decided to Have more fun in 2013.  And have formulated a couple of modest and, I hope, entirely do-able proposals to try and achieve that.

• Watch more films.  I have seen a pathetically small number of feature films or series over the last couple of years - my LoveFilm subscription is ridiculously under-used, and I have loads of DVDs I've bought or been given which haven't been watched yet.  I do enjoy watching films, too.  So I'm aiming for one full-length feature or the equivalent number of series episodes a week.  This will involve being more organised about food, too, on my "cinema evening", which is always good.
• Go to more stuff.  I've been to a couple of plays and a few exhibitions this year, but not as many as I would have with some sort of museum/theatre buddy - anyone based in London who might be up for a late evening at the National Gallery/NPG, a trip to the South Bank or similar?  Let me know (liz at lizmarley dot co dot uk).  Likewise anyone in Cambridge who'd like to go to more at the ADC or the Corpus Playroom, both of which have some great stuff going on.
• Knit with more people.  Particularly in the winter, but for the whole of this year which has been more stressful than usual at work, I've a tendency to become somewhat hermit-like, and that's also meant I've missed important things happening in friends' lives.  I've been along to all the Cambridge meetings I can get to (there's one fewer of those a month), but I've chickened out at the last minute from too many London-based meetings I know I'd enjoy once I got there.  To assist with this, I've also signed up for SkipNorth (yay!!) for the first time in 5 years.

And slightly more difficult, but I need to do it:

•   Reclaim the garden (again). This may not seem like "have more fun", but I know that the garden oppresses me when it's horrible and gives me joy when it's lovely or even just going in the right direction, so I just need to buckle down to it and spend some time in there every weekend, even if it's only a few minutes.

So - what would you like to do more of in 2013?  Let me know....

2012 books, #106-109

The neon rain, by James Lee Burke. London: Phoenix, 2005.  Originally published 1989.

The first of the Dave Robicheaux novels; going back to start the series from the beginning as there are a lot of these.  After two years sober, Dave has a serious falling off the wagon, including assaulting a fellow officer (who quite frankly deserved it), and is suspended from the police.  He's still fascinated with the murder of a young black girl found in the Louisiana swamps though, and is determined to carry on the investigation despite death threats.  This is immensely readable and quite moving at times.

Not dead yet, by Peter James. London: Macmillan, 2012.

Roy Grace is anticipating the birth of his child when a body is found, badly decomposed, at a local chicken farm.  Meanwhile a global superstar is coming to Brighton to play the part of Maria Fitzherbert in a new biopic of George III.  As the seemingly disparate cases seem determined to come together, Grace and temporarily-promoted Glenn Branson investigate.  Meanwhile, someone is threatening Grace's partner Cleo. This rattles along, but I always have difficulty with books containing celebrities because building up the back-story is always a bit clumsy; and I don't like the way James is taking the long-running personal side-plot in this one.

Claws, by Stephen Booth. Kindle edition.

This is a short story featuring Dale Cooper and a tale of egg-stealing and the illegal poaching of birds of prey.  A lovely crunchy little snippet of a story I really enjoyed on the train up to the North East for Christmas and well worth the 99p.

Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix, by J K Rowling [audiobook]. Read by Stephen Fry. Bristol: Cover to Cover, 2003.

Somehow, even though it's not exactly a happy book, this was the right thing to be listening to at Christmas, maybe because Stephen Fry's reading is so very warm.  The length of time it takes to get to Hogwarts in the first place is still irritating, as are Harry's tantrums at the beginning, but as ever I spot different things each time I listen to one of these readings...

That's the end of this year's book round-up - except to say that the Evening Standard totally agreed with me on the unsuitability of Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher, for exactly the same reasons...  I shall now, finally, shut up on the subject.

Happy reading in 2013, all.

2012 books, #101-105

Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, by J K Rowling [audiobook]. Read by Stephen Fry.  Bath: Cover to Cover, 2001.

Another very enjoyable listen, although for the first time the ending slightly irked me.  I hadn't really clocked before that the real drama finishes about two hours before the end of this audiobook, and after that it's politics and a lot of scene-setting for book 5.  This makes it a bit flat just at the end...  But as ever there are some wonderful ideas in this book, and it was well worth listening to again, particularly as Stephen Fry is the perfect voice both for the book and for a chilly autumn weekend.

Kisscut, by Karin Slaughter [audiobook]. Read by Kelly Culpin. [S.l.] : Chivers, 2003.

Disturbing from start to finish.  A teenage girl is shot dead in the parking lot of a local skating rink, and is carrying a rucksack which turns out to contain parts of a dismembered baby.  What might have been a single personal tragedy turns into a much wider horror in a small town.  Sara Linton, the local paediatrician, and her ex-husband Geoff Tolliver, the chief of police, investigate.  This really does cover some quite horrible issues, and it's done very well.

The secret scripture, by Sebastian Barry. London: Faber, 2009.

Roseanne McNulty may be a hundred years old; nobody knows.  She lives in the Roscommon mental hospital to which she was committed as a young woman; but "care in the community" is taking over, the building is becoming increasingly decrepit, and psychiatrist Dr Grene must decide where his patients must go, and discover why they were committed.  Both are, unknown to the other, writing their own narratives of their lives, and gradually the picture of Roseanne's life, and Dr Grene's place in it, is revealed.  I found this book difficult to get into for the first few dozen pages (got sidetracked by the Dante reference on the first page); but it's a quick and moving read after that.

Black dog, by Stephen Booth [audiobook]. Read by Christopher Kay.  Rearsby, Leics.: WF Howes, 2005.

The first of the Ben Cooper/Diane Fry books; I've read a few of these, but this one was particularly interesting because now I know why there was so much animosity between them in the following ones.  I wasn't massively impressed by the plot of this one, to be honest - there just wasn't enough thrown to the reader for a decent guess at the killer - but the character development was enough to keep me listening.  Christopher Kay is a decent reader, if a little over-precise at times...

Whispers under ground, by Ben Aaronovitch. London: Gollancz, 2012.

Possibly the most enjoyable book I've read this year - this is just a beauty of a book, but you need to read the first two (Rivers of London  and Moon over Soho) first to understand what's going on.  I suppose it qualifies as SF; it has humour, some genuinely scary bits, but mostly it's brilliant because it's talking about London right now, Crossrail works, Oyster cards, etc., all mixed with some serious magic.  And then some lovely digressions which aren't really digressions:

The media response to unusual weather is as ritualised and predictable as the stages of grief.  First comes denial: "I can't believe there's so much snow." Then anger: "Why can't I drive my car, why are the trains not running?"  Then blame: "Why haven't the local authorities gritted the roads, where are the snow ploughs and how come the Canadians can deal with this and we can't?"  This last stage goes on the longest and tends to trail off into a mumbled grumbling background moan, enlivened by occasional "Asylum Seekers Ate My Snowplough" headlines from the Daily Mail, that continues until the weather clears up.

I like the way the severe facial disfigurement of one character is handled; the way none of the "normal" authorities want to deal with magical occurrences and just write them out of their reports; and the small asides about policing:

I'd given her a Moleskine reporter-style notebook that looks almost exactly the kind of black notebook that everyone thinks the police use, only we don't. And even if we did, we'd be much too cheap to buy Moleskines - we'd get them from Niceday instead."

Working in London is probably an advantage for this book.  Reading about a body being discovered on Platform 3 at Baker Street a few days before Christmas is considerably spookier if you're actually sitting on Platform 3 at Baker Street a few days before Christmas reading the book.... 

I probably need to shut up about how excellent this book is and just tell you to get hold of a copy of it, or the first one if you haven't read it, and get stuck in.  One more quote though, from the end - British DC talking to FBI agent:

"I won't use the word closure if you don't", I said.

Companion piece

Franklin has blogged his Cambridge Find.  I knew he'd do it in inimitable style, and I'm so glad Cambridge hoarded that book and revealed it at just the right time...

This is (yes, librarian digression here) a private sector version of Ranganathan*'s five library laws in action

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader [thank you, Ms Haunted Bookshop]
5. The library is a growing organism [I'm sure F would agree]

Here is Man with Book.

We used the time to have a look at the Corpus Clock and the Mill Pond and call in on the knitters who were still around at the Cambridge KTog before heading back to the station.

* Yes, I'm linking to Wikipedia; where is ranganathan.org ?

Three!

Well, a bit later than a Monday post, but the score stands as it did on Monday... and I'm still not feeling very Christmassy; mainly because I still really don't know what I'm getting for immediate family and this is becoming a bit oppressive...!

On the list to be knitted for Christmas: 14 +1 (end-of-November birthday)

Cast on: 12 (-1 and +1 as I started again with one thing)
Cast off: 11 (+2)
Finished (blocked, labelled): 11 (+4)

One of the Things Finished was the most complicated thing I've knitted this Christmas; a pic (it's for my Mam; Dad, I'm trusting she'll be as uninterested as usual in this blog stuff... and apologies for the quality of the photo; can't remember the last time I saw adequate natural light!)



My ex-colleague Gill, who retired last year, came in for lunch and carols with the International Staff Band of the Salvation Army today (I'd love to link to them directly but I'm blocked at every turn!)...  and it was lovely to see her.

The village has dressed itself for Christmas; and as ever, I love the beauty and simplicity of that one strand of bulbs.  It's just bunged a really nice necklace on and gone to greet the season.

Knitting in Knorwich

The picture from yesterday was taken standing outside The Forum in Norwich.  The Forum was built as a result of the horrible, catastrophic 1994 fire at Norwich Central Library (read this article if you love books; it's glorious) after which the old building had to be demolished.  The new one is, to my mind, somewhat nicer.

They were putting in the Christmas trees yesterday, complete with fake snow.

There was a craft show going on in the ground floor (which also houses the tourist information office and the entrance to the local BBC radio and TV stations); and couldn't help noticing that this year's Christmas decorations had a somewhat knitty flavour.

All was revealed with an information board (slightly heavy on the commas, but actually informative!)

All power to your elbows/wrists/fingers, Norfolk Knitters!

Another new development the Knitters of Norfolk will doubtless be happy about is a new yarn shop in the city centre, to join the very good stall on the market but catering for a different customer.  Popped in for a look after a tip-off from Sadie (who has just finished a gorgeous Kindle cover)...

It's on St Giles Street, which is just behind the Civic Centre.  I didn't want to stand opposite and fire a camera through the windows so here's an oblique shot...

Things I noticed, other than that it's a nice, modern, Ravelry-savvy sort of place:

• Jo Sharp yarns, three or four of them
• Schoeller & Stahl Limbo (not the long-colour-change version but the solid colours).  They also had some of the lovely small balls of S&S baby yarn Sarah has at the Sheep Shop in Cambridge.
• John Arbon yarns - the Knit by Numbers DK and the alpaca sock yarn.  They have a fair selection of the colours but not all.
• Manos lace and the aran-weight one, in a small selection of colours.
• Pony accessories.
• Another make of baby wool I hadn't seen before, with patterns etc. - nice colours

They had other stock too, but I was just about shopped out by then; just picked up a skein of the Knit by Numbers I think will make a nice Christmas gift, had a brief chat with the very nice person behind the counter and wandered off for the bus.

Oh, and another shop I'm always happy to see is still alive and well, and celebrating 41 years in Norwich:

They advertise themselves as "the oldest headshop in Norwich" - and they're still doing Spiritual Sky Patchouli incense in the maximum-strength version...  

Rounding off

Hi!  I have many people wandering over here from Franklin's blog; the post you're probably looking for is this one or maybe even this one!  But do stay and say hi!

Freezing cold day today, definitely the chilliest one of the winter.  Happily, wasn't slipsliding to the station in the pitch dark as usual on a Friday because it was the last pay day before Christmas and therefore the day to ramp up the Christmas preparations.

Pretty successful day, actually.  You know the sort of day where when you need a loo you can never find one, and you're always at the wrong end of an escalator?  Well, this wasn't one of those.  I'm still waiting for something mail-ordered to arrive but otherwise overseas parcels are just about dealt with, and managed to find some other stuff too...

The only glitch was the usually really excellent 25/25A buses to and from the station which generally run every 7 minutes; waited half an hour, missed a train, did a bit more shopping and walked down instead. Thanks, First Group.  A week of small delays and cancellations on the trains, and now buses, too...

Here's a picture.  I have others and will post them because it was a beautiful day, if cold.  This is St Peter Mancroft (R), the new BBC building in the Forum (L), and an urban tree.  I'm continually amazed that trees like this beautiful silver birch can grow like this, but also profoundly grateful they can.

There's a new yarn shop in central Norwich - more on that this weekend.

Last hurdle...

Ah well - nearly made it!  Realised this morning that I hadn't blogged last night...

Thankfully, Franklin did blog about our visit to Cambridge, so just linking shamelessly to his post before hopping off to Norwich.  I'll take the camera - it's really frosty and clear out there...

Bits and bobs...

It's been an extraordinarily long day, and for the first time I'm sort of regretting this NaBloPoMo thing, although so near the end of the month I'll definitely carry on with it. Doing this in November is both the best and worst month of the year for it... but I'm neglecting other things, and being reminded of this.

Friday should be a holiday though; I'm off to Norwich to do some Christmas shopping and check out a new yarn shop.

Very little to say due to complete tiredness, except to remind anyone who watched the first series of Warhorses of letters that it's back on Radio 4 at 11pm tonight and available on the iPlayer for a week after that.  (I think I'll probably be asleep by then but will look forward to catching up!)

This evening, cast off the Big Project for this Christmas (Mam's alpaca shawl); blocking should ensue at the weekend.  I appear to have mislaid my blocking wires somewhere - quite an achievement given that they're in a 30" long tube with bright blue plastic ends!  I'm going to have to have a huge look round; I blocked without them for years, but wires make it so much easier...

Four!

I'm not sure the Christmas list needs revising here: the Mad Plaid might turn into a Christmas present, or it might not.  I am so nearly in a position to cast off this Christmas's major project... just not quite yet...

It's too early - but it's there.  St Pancras has done its Christmas tree for the year, and the theme is Olympic Gold, which is not surprising given the Eurostar and the Javelin trains to the Olympic Park.  It's rather a nice tree, too...

The lettering around the base remembers the summer of sport, the Olympics, the Jubilee, the welcome given by London to people visiting.

It's not as shiny as some of the trees they've had in the past; but I think this is my favourite so far; it's thoughtful, and the spiralling ribbon is a nice design idea.

Cricket, lovely cricket...

Monty, lovely Monty.

Kevin Pietersen may have won Man of the Match, technically, but 11 wickets is just stunning.

And here he is again, fielding at Hove in August 2011...

This post has no fibre-related content whatsoever.  But a 10-wicket victory over India, in India, should tell its own story...