55
   

THE BRITISH THREAD II

Forums: Europe, British, Britain, Brits, able2know
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Ionus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jul, 2011 04:06 am
@Ticomaya,
You lot are spoilt . I saw a USA doco where they had subtitles for an Australian scientist !
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jul, 2011 07:15 am
@Ticomaya,

Quote:
Don't you folks have "New-Skin Liquid Bandage" over there?


Sounds expensive.
Where I was drug up, if the wound didn't need stitching, a dock leaf and a length of twine would suffice.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jul, 2011 07:44 am
@McTag,
Couple a pints a heavy is all ya need.
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 02:54 am
@izzythepush,

Has anyone read any book by Ian McEwan? Enjoyed it? What do you think?

I got one from the library, just started it.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 03:13 am
@McTag,
I picked up a child in time for 20p from Oxfam. It's been on the shelf for over a year now, I can't get enthusiastic about reading it.
contrex
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 03:21 am
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:

I picked up a child in time for 20p from Oxfam. It's been on the shelf for over a year now, I can't get enthusiastic about reading it.


I read some of his stuff in the 1970s & 80s when he was a bit of an enfant terrible... "First Love, Last Rites", a collection of creepy short stories, the novels "The Cement Garden" and "The Comfort of Strangers", also quite creepy, and I am afraid that "creepy" is my abiding impression of him.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 03:21 am
@izzythepush,
He's an atheist polemicist. They can't write their way out of a paper bag.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 03:31 am
@spendius,
What I find interesting is the books we enjoy reading, and those we feel we should read. What is viewed as literary genius can be turgid and plodding, but a page turner is often dismissed as pulp.
0 Replies
 
contrex
 
  2  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 03:49 am
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

He's an atheist polemicist. They can't write their way out of a paper bag.


Neither can the deist polemicists, or in general, polemicists of most persuasions. So what is your point?

0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 05:56 am

Okay I'll just throw the book in the bin and slit my wrists then.

Actually I'm quite enjoying it, but skimming over some heavy bits. It's "Solar", by the way.

I looked McEwan up in Wiki and he provides an nice quote about his attitude to islamism, with which one can naught but agree.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 06:10 am
@McTag,
If you like it mate fair enough. If it's not Tristram Shandy or Tom Jones Spendi will have problems with it anyway.

I still don't know whether I like the book I'm reading at the moment. It's a read in bed book, as opposed to a carry around with you book, but it's still early days.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 06:31 am
@izzythepush,
You're a difficult man to have a conversation with izzy.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 07:11 am
@spendius,
I am, but don't you think I've got a point? You venerate Sterne and Fielding, but tend to be dismissive of other writers, mostly because they're not enough like Sterne or Fielding. Philosophers excepted, you wouldn't quite so many if you didn't like them.

Are there any novels published in the last 100 years or so that you quite admire or even like?
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 08:18 am
@izzythepush,
Ulysses is brilliant and Finnegans Wake is very interesting. Tropic of Cancer.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Aug, 2011 09:43 am
@spendius,
OK, I was joshing you a bit. Ulysses is something I have meant to read for a long time. At uni I had the option of specialising in Joyce, Conrad or Lawrence. I chose Conrad. I do like the Tropics, don't know which of the two I prefer. Do you like anything written by anyone who's not dead?
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Aug, 2011 05:19 am
@izzythepush,
Yes- Dylan's stuff.

Quote:
She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello" she said
"You look like the silent type"
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Aug, 2011 05:28 am
@izzythepush,
You should have picked Joyce izzy.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Aug, 2011 06:06 am
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

You should have picked Joyce izzy.


I really like Conrad. I also got on very well, and still do, with the lecturer who was doing Conrad. The lecturer doing Joyce was a bit of a dickhead.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Aug, 2011 06:07 am
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Yes- Dylan's stuff.



Bob, not Mr. Thomas?
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Aug, 2011 06:16 am
@izzythepush,
You said not dead.

What does the lecturer being a dickhead, your assertion, have to do with Joyce. Dickheads are generally more useful in the longer term I find.
 

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