Flights, and flights of fancy

Flying's expensive - in the foreground, an Aston Martin

 

Helicopters as well as fixed-wing planes and gliders at Shobdon

 

Drove Professional Bleeder and VR to Shobdon Airfield yesterday. Watched light planes take off and land, watched gliders towed up towards the clouds, there to be released to find their thermals. All three of us had the Full English Breakfast (barring baked beans) the unhealthiest meal known to mankind.

At Brampton Bryan the hedge goes on and on

At Aardvark the shelves go on and on

Then on to Aardvark Books "an enormous bookbarn with 50,000 titles " in Brampton Bryan, a village with the most spectacular churchyard hedge in the world, previously described here. At Aardvark there's a café where customers may sit among the books, eat cake and natter. PB ordered a cafetière of Ethiopian coffee; in an afternoon of superlatives this turned out to be the best coffee in the world.

I bought Richard Dawkins' essays and Mrs Thrale's letters to Dr Johnson.

And a score. Ten Brahms songs published in the days when London postal districts were identified by a single letter. Original cost: four shillings.

A sneaky indulgence buying scores, obviously an elitist practice. Showing off, I made sure others at the table saw what I'd been up to. With V I've already learned one of the songs (Wiegenlied - Cradle Song) but I don't suppose I'll learn any more. Nevertheless it's fun to trace the notes and murmur approximations of their sounds. One way of proving I'm not a soccer fan and haven't seen even ten seconds of A Game of Thrones.

I should be ashamed of such self-aggrandisement but the Hell with that. Music means more to me than it did three years ago and I'm in profit. If I won the lottery I'd move into a bigger house (with indoor swiming pool) and sponsor recitals with free wine. Those with tin ears could swim.

Invisible milestones

ONE OF LIFE'S OBLIGATIONS It's 06.20, nearly time to get up. My Longines sitting on my bedside chest-of-drawers says so and my Longines is never wrong. My Longines cost a fortune, a gift from VR thirty or forty years ago; its clear face and needle-sharp hands tell Swiss truth.

I reach over to put it on and I know - sinkingly - something's wrong. A familiar wrongness which has happened perhaps a dozen times. Sweat from my wrist has rotted the stitching of the strap and the buckle is now detached. The penalty of wearing a leather strap. But, alas, there is no alternative.

Once I substituted a plastic strap which lasted longer. But brother Nick, now in a rest home, his mind adrift with Alzheimer's, told me the watch was too good for plastic and I immediately agreed.

A metal strap? Sixty years ago a sub-editor on the newspaper that employed me as a tea-boy said metal straps were "a mark of the beast". I immediately agreed with him, too.

Leather straps cost £20 a pop. I can afford that and must. VR and Nick deserve it; I'm reminded of them both when I tell the time. Which is now 07.06.

FRENCH BIGGIE Another short extract from Proust's A la Recherche. The key is to read it slowly because it, like the Longines, is concerned with time. Time cannot be hurried.

I would ask myself what o'clock it could be, I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station, the path that he followed being fixed for ever...

Towards a front cover

Graphic design isn't my forte but I enjoy fiddling, hoping things will come out right. Or preparing the ground for a real designer. When Out Of Arizona was still Risen On Wings (changed because it sounded churchy) the cover was based on a Cessna 172, in flight, shot from below. But I could never find the copyright owner. Here's the latest iteration.

ZAP! The trouser culling season has started. Not as gruesome as the season for baby seals ("the furry animal looked up with limpid trusting eyes") but equally terminal. Why now? Because 44R has become 42R.

Male readers will recognise those as waist measurements. After several months (slowness is the nature of my diet) I have shed about 1 stone - 14 lb - and it's noticeable. VR cannot bear all that visible bagginess to the rear.

So all my 44R trousers are becoming landfill. Including an experimental pair in bright red which I rather liked, pleased by my own audacity. The aim is to hinder regression.

SNAP! Nine-ish, both of us clicking our Kindles. "What are you reading?" I asked. "Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch," said VR. So was I. Me: "Where are you up to?" She: "43%." I'd reached 66% but I knew I'd be rapidly overtaken. VR gobbles up fiction.

The Goldfinch was on special offer download just before Christmas; neither of us could resist the deal. It's a good read, packed full of info as is often the case with US novels. Strong on antique furniture.

WIP Second Hand (55,734 words)
Technical note: Francine has floppy light blonde hair and a pale complexion. Beyond that I don’t plaster in excessive appearance detail. Which is fortuitous because – quite unexpectedly - she’s having her portrait painted. Now such detail works.

Down there in black and white

READING'S REALITIES. Part two: Delusions

Are book readers entirely aware of their pastime?

I stayed one night at the country cottage of a BBC bigwig. His wife was said to be a great reader and acres of bookshelves reinforced this. Then I noticed something slightly unusual: all the Iris Murdochs clearly bought as new hardbacks, one after the other. Similarly with Drabble, Byatt and others.

I reflected. Realised how rarely I bought fiction in new hardback form. Don't get me wrong. If you've got money and space this is the way to go. No hanging about at the library, no waiting for the paperback. A standing order at the bookshop and bingo, you're up with the critics.

I reflected again. Many readers are prepared to admit loving certain authors. The bond is strong and unashamed. Yet how many are prepared to show their love in practical terns - by buying their favourite's books as hardbacks. As a tribute if you like. How many, like me, practice delay and eventually click on ABE for second-hand versions?

How many say I adore reading, love the feel and smell of books, slaver at the prospect of somehing new by X. And then take the cheapo route?

How well-read are well-read readers? I decided to read all Trollope but stopped halfway - about twenty titles. Trollope isn't difficult, I was wearied. If I were claiming to be well-read (which I'm not) had I met the necessary quota for loquacious Anthony? Only half of Dickens, Meredith, Balzac, Anne Tyler and William Faulkner to go. Do I have time? Did I ever have time? I rode motorbikes, climbed rock faces, drank many pints of ale and fantasised about the unapproachability of women.

Amazingly some people have accused me of being bookish.

Books - just how valuable?

READING'S REALITIES Part one: Cost.
Reading's cheap, isn't it? Let's say cheapish Take a new novel, undiscounted, 250-pages, non-"experimental" (ie, easier to read) at £15. An average reading speed of 30 pp/hr (Yes, I know you can read far far quicker but your next-door neighbour hasn't had your educational benefits; hence "average") gives a rate of £1.80/hr, ignoring the second-hand value of the book afterwards.

But other delights should be compared.

Watching telly. Basic spend whooshes up (New flat-screen Panasonic £500, TV licence £145.50, electricity costs per year £25, adding up to an eye-watering £670.50). Yet for that you could be entertained for 8760 hr/yr, assuming you didn't sleep. Let's say a more modest 5 hr/day, amounting to 1825 hr/yr at a rate of 37 p/hr for the first year.

Assuming the Panasonic lasted 10 years the average spend, over the decade, would drop to 12 p/hr.

Going for walks. Say £200 for two pairs of boots. Why? Because you could, theoretically, walk for 6 hr/day every day of the year - 2190 hr. And that works out at 9 p/hr.

Watching opera. Ticket at ROH, Covent Garden £88, getting there if you're a Londoner, say, £15. Opera lasts 3 hr. Rate for snobby intellectual: £34/hr.

Driving car. Say 10,000 miles/year. Depreciation on car £1500, licence (varies) - say £150, insurance £300, fuel costs at 40 mpg £1475: total £3425. Cost per mile 34 p.  Cost per hour at average 40 mph: £14. How many miles could be described as pleasurable? In London - none, in Hereford - lots.

To come: Reading's Realities - Part two: Delusions. - Part three: Rewards  

Silly season in the Marches

HURRAY FOR HFD Professional Bleeder and partner, Peter, are staying. They live in Luton and cannot agree with a local judgment that nearby Harpenden is "the most beautiful village in England". For one thing it's more of a townlet, for another a main road runs through it. I suggest that Eardisland, 20 miles outside Hereford, might be a stronger contender. We drive there, PB takes pix with her camera and we all come away smugly satisfied that Harpenden hasn't a hope.
Sir Hugh's advice is worth the effort.

BELATED DISCOVERY Peter is a great Kindle user. Can walk to work reading, without tripping over kerbstones or being squashed flat by a white van. I say I wished older Kindles offered page numbers rather than percentages especially with long books. He says there is a way - hold down Menu and the page number plus the total number of pages appears. But no doubt you all knew this.

BROTHERHOOD? I leave the cathedral close and enter Church Street, a narrow atmospheric ginnel left over from Old Hereford. A lad sits with a begging tray, reading a thick old hardback, his finger moving painfully along the line. He's still there when I return and I drop a pound coin in his tray. I hate doing this because I always need change but occasionally there are larger obligations.

WIP Second Hand (30,134 words)
(Lorne said) "Perhaps you’d be better off working in customer services... More interesting than till-work... How do you feel?”

(Francine said) "Sounds like an intellectual step up...  What’s this about training?”

“Knowing where we keep gherkins. Explaining why and what World Foods are. Working the Lottery machine. Arguing the toss about out-of-date vouchers. Handling returns. Knowing kids’ ages when they order cigarettes. Fun stuff.”

This time I'm not joking

Took a call yesterday from Nick, my younger, non-blogging brother. Nick isn’t in good health and such calls are rare - as I might add, to my shame, are calls in the other direction.

He apologises for wasting my time as if my time were more valuable than his. I reassure him but it’s no use; that’s his way. He’s phoning to chat (albeit briefly) and I take the portable upstairs and lie on the bed. Soon I’ll get to talk about sailing, something he introduced me to late in life and which affected me enormously. There we are, above, in happier times. He’s in blue.

But it’s not sailing. Conrad (Sir Hugh), our middle brother has been telling him about a book I’ve written: about flying, in France. It sounds interesting, Nick says. His kind of subject. He’d like to read it but admits his eyes are going and this would be difficult. I am, as our mother would say, heart-slufted.

I should add: I never ask my nearest and dearest to read my stuff. But if they ask they can. Conrad asked.

I say I’ll investigate getting someone to read it, create a recording. Nick says that would be nice and rings off. I reflect. I need an acting voice (I’m anti-amateur), it’ll take hours and will cost a bomb. I don’t care. It’s the least I can do. The ideal reader would be an American woman, like the central character. An American voice would catch the resonances. But one which can handle the French words and the poetry.

Mrs RR tells me not to be finicky. But this is the Internet and I’ve access to worldwide resources.

Can you hear me out there? Please respond.