Rigmarole

I still have not got round to posting the playlist from Wednesday, so i shall do that over the weekend.

I have had a busy day (Thursday) as Paul the plasterer was doing Georgina's ceiling in the dining room that day and i was making cups of coffee for hm,. Then i had an interview with GC's care company which took about an hour, with filling in forms ,doing and English and Maths test and then the interview itself.

The interview was at 2 pm and when i finished i needed a drink at the nearest pub. I did not leave Seaford till after five in the afternoon. I used the Cuckmere Haven Community Bus to do a few stops along the Eastbourne road so i could get the cheapest Explorer ticket, caught the 12 bus (Brighton and Hove bus company) to Eastbourne. Missed a connecting bus to Tunbridge Wells, so i had to ride a Stagecoach 54 bus to Uckfield to connect to another Brighton and Hove bus to Tunbridge Wells. That turned out to be a bit of a wait!

It was then i decided to pop into the Bedford for a pint of beer and filled my loyalty card up so that next time i visit i get a free pint (Yippee!). The time was now after nine, as i was enjoying a live band, well actually duo, doing some folk songs.

I caught a 77 Arriva bus to Kings Hill, but alighted at Tonbridge to get a train from there, via Maidstone, to Strood to catch my final train to Teynham. Also another long wait fueled by a can of beer and puffing on the pipe.

A bit of a rigmarole i know but at least i arrived back in the village half past midnight. It did not cost any extra either!

Next time i will not leave it so late.

Friday .,part of the day spent in the Office, and a visit to Whitstable. Then another late night on Saturday spent doing another exit poll in Hythe.

Post Midnight Mama

So finally at this bewitching hour a track i played at my gig on Wednesday, by Blue Mitchell and Fungi Mama.

Enjoy. Good night.

Book 93 - Donna Tartt "The Goldfinch"

Donna Tartt "The Goldfinch" (Little Brown)






This is most difficult to be concise when a book is almost 800 pages long and to boot is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction but I will do my best to be short and sweet. “The Goldfinch is a sweeping odyssey of loss and obsession where people do strange things in the aftermath of tragedies.

The author’s engineered plot opens with a catastrophe, an explosion at New York’s Metropolitan Museum where 13 year old Theo Decker and his mother where enjoying the exhibition of the Dutch Golden Age, mostly admiring Carel Fabritius exquisite tiny oil painting of a goldfinch. His mother is killed but Theo is spare although disoriented and feeling claustrophobic he manages to comfort an old man who entrusts him with two objects: one is a signet ring and the second is the canvas of Fabritius “The Goldfinch”.

With a sustained and sprawling narrative Ms. Tartt expands her drama with her main character tormented by the memories. Down the years as he grows up Theo clings strangely to the captivating painting and glides in strange places that will make him travel from New York to Las Vegas and Amsterdam and ultimately bring him into the criminal underworld.

It takes a steady patience to read this book, there are so many details to get lost in, it was rather frustrating at times: Ex. long scenes of furniture restoration although what save it for me was the art-heist action with shootout, fancy cars, the Slavic gangsters and all that good stuff a plot driving full of energy brings. The novel connects with the heart as well as the mind and it reads with a mixture of terror, excitement and expectation. It is slow to build but is eloquent and assured. It combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language and breathtaking suspense.

Only a skilled master could compose such an absorbing old fashioned story. It is of no surprise this machination of fate was a winner and to me is a modern Dickensian styled novel.