Teaser Tuesday - 27 July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Now we heard the glass of windows break somewhere, and suddenly a long thin arm of bright yellow flame came streaking out, seemed to hang solidly in the night air, showing up my father's upturned face, and no doubt mine, and then just as strangely retrieved itself, with a horrible roaring moan, worse than any wind. It seemed to me in my enormous fright that the fire had spoken a word: 'Death, death', said the fire I thought.
'Jesus, Mary and Joseph' said my father...

That's a dramatic random quote!! Couldn't resist going slightly over 2 sentences for that final exclamation. From Sebastian Barry's 'The Secret Scripture' our book group book of the month.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson

The tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson died this week (in the youtube clip above he's singing with Simon Keenlyside), he always seemed so youthful - starting singing professionally at 30. Here's the Guardian obituary - the one in the Telegraph is also interesting but has him as been married one less time! They (the obituaries) both share the same wonderful photograph of him.

Born in Tackley, Oxfordshire, he was encouraged by his parents, but with no thought of taking up singing as a career. Instead he took an agricultural degree and became a farm manager, singing hymns he had learned in church to his herd of cows.

Another member of the choral society in Crawley, West Sussex, a singing teacher, told him he was in the wrong job. He eventually decided to go to the Guildhall School of Music, London, for a four-year course, which included performances of two Britten operas. When he sang Acis in Handel's Acis and Galatea in Cambridge, he was on his way. He felt as if he had been asleep for 10 years, and had suddenly awakened.

And he woke us to some wonderful performances - I'll be taking his cd of Nocturnes in the Hyperion Series of Schubert songs to listen to this week..

Mutterings - 25 July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Inception :: Birth/Start
2. Anticipation :: thrill
3. Space :: Frontier
4. Earn :: Money
5. .com :: US-centric (boom!)
6. Hello! :: Magazine (sorry! - or is that another?)
7. Equivalent :: Mathematics
8. Swore :: Blind
9. Actions :: speak louder than words
10. Expletive! :: Deleted! (showing my age here)

Biter bit!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I must see how our resident mouse and (near resident) squirrel are doing in my absence.

The farewell! (and presentation)

The farewell! (and presentation)
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Andy Ruth Bull and children at the garden party for their leaving Macclesfield. There's a few more pictures here on flickr. Andy will be inducted at St Marks Bredbury in September (and we will miss them!).
Many, many years ago, I spent two terms at Sandy Lane Primary School in Romiley....

Teaser Tuesday - 20 July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Jack looked at him. He drew a long breath, then another. He asked softly, "Have you heard of Emmett Till?"

Thought it not fair to miss out the third sentence! I'm back reading (I teased it a fortnight ago) Marilynne Robinson's 'Home' enjoying it but I think I preferred the Gilead point of view on the events (far slower breathed!)

Mutterings - 18 July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Deals :: Cards (shady)
2. Alive :: Breathing
3. Smooth :: Man (but my brother Esau...)
4. Materials :: Science
5. Arrest :: Under
6. Locker :: School
7. Evidence :: Lack of
8. Operation :: Pain
9. Opal :: Jewel (...car)
10. Investigation :: Criminal (or Under again!)

Teaser Tuesday - 13 July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

But Oost, on whom Grote's rum is having a benign effect. `Aye it did'. "Oost" is from "oost-Indische Compagnie" who funded the orphanage, and who'd deny there's "East" in my blood?

(Another extract, see yesterday for a slightly different feel) From David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - was nearly put off this by an uncomplimentary Guardian review but having heard a Radio 3 review of it I decided to give it a go. The interaction of East and West, Holland and Japan at the end of the 18th century. Here's Geoff Coupe's thoughts on the book.
(apologies for folk who comment here from teaser tuesday - I'm in a hotel on a slow connection but will eventually get around to looking at your links, for which I am grateful!)

Stillness

DSCF8175
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Another week of working away - two books to read (or at least start) and I enjoyed the conjunction of these two passages:

I can remember, as quite a small boy, lying beneath a huge chestnut tree and staring up into its branches, wondering at its nascent fruitfulness, and resting not just under its presence but somehow within it. All this is part of the person I am, but, for the present, it is chiefly lost to me. I am much too busy....

from Stephen Cottrell's DO nothing to change your life.

Gardening is harder labour than Jacob is used to, and yet, he admits to himself, I enjoy it. His tired eyes are rested by the living green; rosefinches pluck worms from the ramped-up earth; and a black-masked bunting, whose song sounds like clinking cutlery, watches from the empty cistern

from David Michell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

The picture is another from Buxton's Pavilion Gardens - anyone want to name the plant?

Mutterings - 11 July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Dickens :: Expectations (Great)
2. Collection :: Stamp
3. Weekends :: Lazy
4. Travel :: Education
5. District :: Lake (NW England)
6. Vampires :: Fangs
7. Peep show :: Sleaze
8. Crochet :: Music (with Evelyn and knitting not far behind)
9. Lion :: Witch (and wardrobe)
10. Fetch :: Stick! (woof!)

In the Pavilion Gardens conservatory

In the Pavilion Gardens conservatory
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

We had a trip to Buxton today and I spotted this hothouse flower in the conservatory of the Pavilion Gardens.

Teaser Tuesday - 6 July

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Yes. Pious girls have tender hearts. They believe sad stories. So I have heard. All to their credit of course. And they usually lead sheltered lives.

far(!) more than 2 sentences from Marilynne Robinson's 'Home' - following on from a recent read of her Gilead, I've moved onto her next book.

Mutterings - 4 July

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Authorized :: Version
2. Flirting :: Eyes
3. Bad :: timing
4. Digit :: Check
5. Sexy :: Underwear
6. Combinations :: Underwear
7. Guard :: Buckingham Palace
8. Retina :: Eye
9. Motion :: Sickness
10. Concert :: Orchestral