Just weeding in the rain.

One of the jobs I least look forward to is weeding the drive; pulling out recalcitrant dandelions and other long-legged weeds is extremely irritating. You pull and pull but the roots stick in the ground and you are left with a handful of leaves for your effort. Usually I tried to make this less unpleasant by choosing a pleasant day and working while listening to the radio. However, the best day to tackle this is actually when it is raining or it has just rained. The weeds have less of a grip in the damp ground and give up the fight much more easily. Pulling is less effort and is rewarded by long trails of satisfying root after the tug. So waterproof headphones are the next investment.


Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I re-read this book on a whim and I am immensely glad that I did. I recall enjoying the book as a 15 year old boy but it is clear that most of it went over my head. I suppose expecting an adolescent male to see the horror in ready sex with pneumatic women was unlikely, and he was further not likely to recoil at the idea of easy access to mind altering drugs which gave free access to happiness. The true warnings, which have proven uncannily accurate, needed some tears and maturity to understand.


Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down by Nicey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very enjoyable and surprisingly informative. However, it fails to answer the question as to whether the biscuit is simply NICE or whether it hails from the South of France.




The Waste Makers by Vance Packard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is surprising how little that this book has dated in the two generations since it was released. The dangers of planned obsolescence remain as important as when he coined the term. We are now all too painfully aware of the risks of our excessive consumption on the finite resources of our planet and the consequences of the increased waste.

Many of the trends he predicted have proven to be correct and unfortunately the depressing effects on personality and culture seem to be taking place.


Maigret and the Idle Burglar by Georges Simenon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Maigret at his best. Humane and gentle and clearly on the side of the poor and suspicious of the intents of the rich. This is almost Maigret by Chandler, but still firmly set in a clearly recognizable Paris.





50 Big Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupre
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An ideal bathroom book. Short chapters just long enough for an average visit to the toilet. Basically superficial treatments of the major philosophical ideas but basically sound descriptions.

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I do not understand the extremely high ratings for this book. It was not that I found it a bad book but rather a rather mediocre book, neither one thing nor another - not really crime, not really supernatural thriller.


The plot seemed very predictable and I found some of the literary devices annoying, the bracketed characteristics of flowers added very little to the story and became rather annoying after a while.


There were passages which showed that the author can really write very well, but these were rather few and I was glad when the whole thing was tied up at the end, though this wasn't soon enough.


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