Saturday, 9 August 2008

Chickens are not naturally bright creatures and when it rains they do not think to take cover indoors. Nor are they waterproof. Our two chickens look very unhappy and bedraggled when it rains. Lately of course it has done little else but rain, so today Jackie and I bought a rain cover for our chicken run. I don’t think the chickens even noticed but we are happier.

While we were out, we dropped in at a boot sale. These sales have largely supplanted the old-fashioned jumble sales but they retain many of the same features: practical, communal, recycling, egalitarian. Long may they last. Especially when I can buy bright orange Pelican books for 10p each.

Recent reading

Exmoor Wanderings (by Eric Delderfield) captures the magic of Exmoor in the 1950s and '60s just before it was overrun by tourists.

Holding Their Own by Capt FAM Webster is a boy’s adventure story about Britain’s imperial rivalry with Germany in Africa at the start of the 20th Century. It was written to bolster patriotism with a strong sense of racial superiority and destiny: Britain’s white master race discovering its very own Lebensraum in Africa. I have read very widely but rarely encountered anything quite so nasty and offensive: this was truly appalling with no redeeming features.

It is the great misfortune of Margery Allingham to be always in the shade of Agatha Christie. But she was a great author and as a detective I prefer Albert Campion to Poirot or Miss Marple. Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse fairly rattles along for a great story.