Sunday, 24 May 2009

Jackie and took my sister out for lunch. We attempted the much lauded Fox at Willian but they were not particularly friendly to wheelchairs – or to people wanting to eat outside. Instead we went to the Millstream in Hitchin where we found friendly staff and good food reasonably priced.

You won’t be interested but ...

Awakening a dormant interest in Anglo-Saxon history and I read the Hertfordshire volume of the Phillimore translation of the Domesday book, complete with the original Latin text facing. What a treasure this is: I must learn Latin! Next, I read the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. I am pretty sure I once heard Terry Jones refer to him as "the Tedious Bede"; if so, I know how he felt. My translation was awful and Bede's bottomless credulity is explained by the simple assertion that in those days there surely were more miracles performed. Utter tosh. But then I did learn more about Hertfordshire's connection to the early English Church - and a deeper possible explanation for the dedication of St Ethelreda's church in Hatfield. Lastly, I read Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf and compared to the other two books I found it utterly brilliant. Possibly this is down to the translators or the subject matter, or maybe this helps explain why English triumphed over Latin as the world's Lingua Franca. Perhaps I wont bother with Latin after all.

Between these rather earnest readings, I thoroughly enjoyed Catherine Fox’s Fight the Good Fight – the true story of her struggle to win a black belt in karate. I also enjoyed Stephen Winsten’s Days with Bernard Shaw about GBS’s life at Ayot St Lawrence - a first (only?) edition with excellent photographs. I struggled with Clark Blaise's Time Lord - Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time. It is a fascinating subject that deserves a definitive study, but Clark Blaise likes the sound of his own quill and goes off at a tangent too readily. And for sheer unadulterated pleasure I read Adventure Stories for Boys published around 1975 by Octopus books and including contributions from Mohammad Ali, Winston Churchill, Lt Col Fawcett, John Buchan, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, Frank Richards, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Stirling Moss and Gerald Durrell. What joy!