- Messages
- 1,115
- Location
- Broughty Ferry
C. - you might find this of interest - I heard it on the World Service - but you can download via the BBC app - Apollo 13
BBC World Service - 13 Minutes to the Moon, Season 2: The Apollo 13 story
Apollo 13: the extraordinary story, told by the people who flew it and saved itwww.bbc.co.uk
Heavily based on interviews with the people involved - archive of the comms between the doomed lunar lander and mission control as the whole thing unfolds - the event lives on in our everyday speech - 'Houston - we've had a problem.'
This is series two - the first is about Apollo 11.
BBC World Service - 13 Minutes to the Moon, Season 1: The Apollo 11 story
How the first moon landing was saved. The story of the people who made Apollo 11 happenwww.bbc.co.uk
Again - an event written into our common vocabulary - 'Houston - Tranquility base here - the Eagle has landed.' Let's leave aside the whole 'one giant leap' thing - an appalling grammatical error - when 20% of the entire world population were watching - in fairness Armstrong probably had bigger concerns at the time than satisfying pedants.
Give it a listen - see what you think - it is worth noting that the smartphone next to me - or indeed the laptop I am typing on - have more computing power available to them - than any Apollo mission - makes it seem all the more remarkable.
Yours - I.
Classic book! Terry Pratchett is much missed. Always enjoyed reading about the exploits of Sir Samuel Vimes.
'You have been in Afghanistan I perceive?'
If i have achieved anything in the last twelve weeks of lock-down, other than not going totally f***ing mental - I have re-read the entire Holmes canon - interspersed with other things - all four novels and the fifty six short stories. Favourites? Full length - 'A Study in Scarlet' - a close run thing with 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' - short - 'The Adventure of the Empty House.' @Missoni - you might be delighted to know - all read - via my Kindle Voyage - downloaded from Standard Ebooks. I have paper copies - but couldn't be arsed going and finding them in the cavern of books next door. I've written a few homages - I can't remember whether I have posted this before - it is in three parts - 'The Adventure of the Monsignor' - part the first - if anyone is interested - I can post the other two bits. @Scotshave @Satanfriendly
Baker Street - 1891 -
Watson is shaving - a moment of quiet contemplation - any man might reasonably expect - but - even at his ablutions - he cannot ignore - Wagner's 'Gotterdammerung' - being played manically by his companion - from the middle of the night - on an violin - of Cremona origin. He hadn't even reached the end of the first act yet.
‘Dear God - why did I move back into this madhouse?' - he asks of his reflection.
Resuming his lodging with the world's most eminent consulting detective - but six weeks after burying his beloved Mary - not being able to brook - the now empty - silent - domestic spaces they shared during a happy marriage.
Suddenly Holmes stops his demented scraping - blissful silence. The bathroom door crashes open behind the doctor -
‘Watson - Watson - ha ha - we have been summoned! The end of the dry season - I had almost lost faith in the malevolence of our fellow men - ha ha - dress quickly my friend - I shall do likewise - there is a telegram on the table - read it. We shall breakfast later.'
‘Holmes - come soonest - a foul deed on hallowed ground. Help required. Westminster Cathedral. Insp. Athelney Jones.'
No matter how grisly this might be - a welcome relief from Wagner.
A shaft of light illuminates the high altar - two uniformed officers and Jones are looking over a body between them.
‘Inspector - I received your missive - with great delight - what - who - do we have?'
A heavily corpulent man is slumped forward - face down - his richly ornamented clerical robes indicate his calling instantly - the crossed key's of St Peter - detailed in gold brocade - his rank.
‘Until this morning - he was discovered about eight thirty - Holmes - this was the Papal legate - the apostolic nuncio to the Court of St James - otherwise - Monsignor Alejandro Arroyo y Lopez.'
‘Felled my dear Athelney - in the posture of prayer - how fitting a way to meet your maker? Ha ha. May we turn him over - to see what more we can learn? Lend a hand.'
Four of them struggle to manoeuvre the dead weight - when achieved - the priest's face is picked out by the god beam - gasps from the constables. A terrible countenance - caught in a final silent scream. Lips and protruding tongue - stained purple. Almost his last act was to cry - tears of blood - now congealed on the cheeks. A sheet of fine hand-woven paper is pinned to the front of the priest's cassock - G.P.L.E.A.I.S is printed in a delicate cursive script.
‘First impression doctor?' ‘Poisoned - I would say.'
‘I concur - Inspector - I shall report to you in 36 hours - good day gentlemen. Come Watson. We have seen all we can see here.'
A horse drawn cab - returning to Baker Street -
‘Holmes - who is the murderer? You are onto something - what was his motive?'
‘Not him Watson - her.'
To be continued.
View attachment 56025
This is actually an anti-review - I very seldom do not finish books I have started - whether I particularly am enjoying them or not - I get to the end - sometimes only through bloody-mindedness - but to completion - none the less. This I will not - I'm not going to waste any more of my life on it - according to the Kindle - I am 19% of the way through - enough to know it is not going to get any more engaging. It was recommended to me by a friend whose opinions I take seriously concerning books - the strap line on most copies reads 'what we should know about people we don't know,' - fair enough - interesting premise - it is almost entirely derived from the theories of a psychologist called Timothy Levine - who asserts that in our interaction with people we don't know - we 'default to truth' - humans tend to believe the better of our fellow men until we have overwhelming evidence that the contrary is true - fair enough - engaging as an idea - it might be easy to understand that there would be good evolutionay reasons why this might be the case - but thus far not one of the examples provided by the author to support this deals with a stranger - he might get around around to it later in the book - but I'm not going to find out. If I am wrong - and you have read it to the conclusion - I am happy to have this pointed out to me. Given the fact that Gladwell is a staffer at the 'New Yorker' - I was astonished how crap his writing style is - each to their own - you may want to see what you think yourself - the book won awards apparently. Deeply disappointing for me - having heard great things about it. At least on the Kindle I only wasted five quid - compared to the price of a paper copy. Since we are on the subject - books I refused to finish - classics - 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville - one of the greatest opening lines ever - 'Call me Ishmael,' - then it descends into the inky depths it so tediously describes thereafter - if only it happened quicker - if the Pequod had gone down like the Titanic - in chapter two - fair enough - it need not have taken nearly six hundred pages of stupefyingly dull and over written text - I am aware that I am swimming against the tide with this book - generally considered a masterpiece of 19th century American literature - the honour of the very, very worst book I never finished - 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis - if it is a pastiche and satire of the astonishingly vacous times the author describes - he did well. Each to their own - I.
@Missoni @Scotshave
Agreed however I think the film is a very good adaptatioin.I eventually got round to reading my first Frederick Forsyth novel. Will now be reading more but I did find the ending a bit weak compared to the rest of the book.
View attachment 55009
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?