metalman

February's round up. Still nothing else to do so I've got through a book every couple of days again, mainly the usual mixture of crime and SF except for the second one. Dell Shannon - Knave of hearts. Lt. Luis Mendoza tracks down a serial killer in this early instalment of the series from 1962. Good. Fred Kitchen - Brother to the ox. The autobiography of a farm worker in the South Yorkshire coalfield in the early part of the last century. Excellent. Robert B. Parker - Rough weather. Spenser comes up against an old enemy when a society heiress is kidnapped from her wedding. The usual fast-moving, streetwise mixture. Sylvain Neuvel - Sleeping giants Sylvain Neuvel - Waking gods Sylvain Neuvel - Only human. In this SF trilogy, parts of a giant alien robot that have been buried for thousands of years are dug up and assembled, but this attracts the attention of the device's originators. Told in the form of interviews, reports, journals etc. which sometimes made it seem too much like a film script, but I found the whole thing reasonably entertaining. Volumes 1 and 2 were better than the last one however. Hillary Waugh - Last seen wearing. Another top class police procedural as police chief Fred Ford hunts the killer of a female college student. Philip Macdonald - The link. Col. Anthony Gethryn investigates the shooting of Sir Charles Grenville, where the main suspects are his wife and the vet who's in love with her. OK. John Rhode - Mystery at Greycombe Farm. When Farmer Jim's cider store is destroyed by fire, a body is found inside. Dr. Priestley investigates who it was and how he got there. Very good, though as usual you wonder if it was worth the murderer's effort to go to all that trouble. A. A. Fair - Bachelors get lonely. Private eyes Donald Lam and Bertha Cool investigate murder at a motel. Fair was a pen-name of Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, and the Lam/Cool books share the same pacy, convoluted plots. Excellent. Georges Simenon - Account unsettled. Penniless Polish student Elie resents the arrival of rich Rumanian Michel, especially after he seduces the landlady's daughter, and decides he must be punished. Not a Maigret book, but a typical Simenon, full of atmosphere and sense of place. Annie Haynes - The crime at Tattenham Corner. Racehorse owner Sir John Burslem is shot after going to see his prize horse the day before it runs in the Derby. Inspector Stoddart is on the case. Good, and reprinted a couple of years ago by Dean Street Press, so not completely impossible to get hold of. Roy Vickers - The whispering death. London is stricken by a series of kidnappings carried out by master criminal The Whisperer. A fast moving thriller from the early 1930s rather than an actual detective story. Now reading: Magnus Mills - All quiet on the Orient Express. A man stays on at a campsite after the end of the tourist season. Mills, like Dan Rhodes, writes about completely unexciting situations and characters in a slightly surreal way, so although nothing really happens, the result is strangely gripping.

Have you ever read Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle?

Yet another lockdown so I seem to have got through quite a few books this month: Terry Pratchett - Snuff. Not a great start, I thought this one was overlong and dragged badly in the middle. Maybe it's just me and I've gone off him. Robert B. Parker - Double deuce. Spenser and his sidekick Hawk sort out some gang trouble in a residential area. As good as always. Hillary Waugh - The missing man. Excellent police procedural by one of the masters of the genre. Loved it. Jack Vance - The languages of Pao. Typical Vance hero Beran, the rightful ruler of the planet Pao, is abducted by evil megalomaniac Palafox from the planet Breakness, and has to overcome him to regain his rightful position. An OK Vance, so pretty good compared to most other things. Jonathan Stagge - Death and the dear girls. Dr. Westlake investigates the murder of an old nanny in a house of repressed Jane Austen-alike females. A good enjoyable mystery; Stagge was one of the pseudonyms used by the writing team of Hugh Wheeler and Richard Webb, with Patrick Quentin being the best known one. Jenny Randles & Peter Warrington - UFOs: a British perspective. Dating from 1979, Randles' first book, since when she's produced about 50 more about all sorts of paranormal phenomena. OK or complete tosh depending on one's inclination. Maurice Procter - Man in ambush. Inspector Martineau investigates the murder of one of one of his colleagues in a large provincial city, confusingly called Granchester. Procter was active in the late 1950s and through the 1960s; if, like me, you enjoy John Wainwright, this will be for you too. Simon Brett - The witness at the wedding. A more satisfying outing for the Fethering sleuths than the one I read in November. Michel Houellebecq - Atomised. The decline of Western civilisation and the next stage of human evolution, as seen through the lives of two brothers: Michel, a scientist, and Bruno, a perverted waster. Excellent and compulsively readable. Lillie Le Pla - The Treasure of Monk's Burn. One of the few books that my mother had when she was a girl and passed on to me was Tangletrees by Lillie Le Pla, so when I saw this one by the same author in a charity shop I had to buy it. From the late 1920s so it's full of the things that children's books used to be full of, like hidden treasure, rather than today's books about teens having angst over their gender and sexuality. And it's all the better for it. Simon Flynn - The science magpie. Snippets about science, along the same sort of lines as R. L. Weber's A Random Walk in Science. OK, but not as interesting as it could have been as I'd seen a fair amount of the content before. Now reading: Dell Shannon - Cold trail. Back to police procedurals, this time with Lt. Luis Mendoza in Los Angeles investigating a corpse found under the porch of a derelict house.

This month's round-up: Robert B. Parker - High Profile. Cop Jesse Stone investigates the murder of a chat show host and his latest partner. Smart and streetwise as ever. P. G. Wodehouse - The little nugget. OK, I confess. Having said previously that he was incapable of writing a dull word, this very early effort is more like a straight novel than a typical Wodehouse and came dangerously close. Richard Osman - The Thursday Murder Club. Enjoyable because it's just the sort of book you'd expect him to write. Ed Gorman - Cold blue midnight. I'm not usually a devotee of the psycho serial killer genre, but this one was not bad. Belinda Bauer - The facts of life and death. Another entertaining read with all her usual trademarks (child protagonist, lots of domestic detail, country/coastal setting) present and correct: Karl Shaw - Curing hiccups with small fires. A book about British eccentrics and as such books usually are, it was quite amusing and informative. Peter Whalley - Bandits. Private eye Harry Sommers investigates murderous goings-on at a South coast amusement arcade. OK. Philip MacDonald: The choice. Series sleuth Anthony Gethryn investigates the aftermath of a woman's murder, as others present are bumped off one by one. Macdonald's breathless short-sentenced style moves it along at a decent thrillerish pace.

Nantucket Sleighride was one of the most recognisable tracks ever, even if it hadn't been used as the theme tune to Weekend World. And the album of the same name was just great from start to finish. RIP.

I was just puzzled how you could interpret 'avoid travelling to other areas' as 'we're not allowed out of our counties'. That seems to be taking it too far if you ask me.

Surely Derbyshire and South Yorkshire are both in Tier 3 so there's nothing to prevent you travelling between them?

One of the ambient pioneers - I've got loads of his albums, including collaborations with Brian Eno, the Cocteau Twins and Hector Zazou. RIP.

If you ask me its problems started when it stopped being an actual shop and changed to being a collection of franchises.

I'm completely confused now. The BBC says that the three tiers system doesn't start until midnight on Wednesday so I thought that meant that shops wouldn't be open again until Thursday. But there are also articles about shops saying they're going to open tomorrow. Anybody know a definitive answer?

This month's list: Haruki Murakami - The Strange Library. More of an illustrated short story than a novel, but full of the surreal strangeness that is typical Murakami. Terry Pratchett - Making Money. Still catching up on some of his later ones and while they're still a good read, I do feel that they got somewhat more formulaic. Anthony Morton a.k.a. John Creasey - The Baron at large. Art dealer John Mannering is also the Baron, an international jewel thief. In this early entry in the series he's still not quite entirely straight (in the criminal sense). Good old-fashioned thriller. Edgar Wallace - The Clue of the New Pin. Another good old-fashioned thriller. Simon Brett - The Hanging in the Hotel. One of his series of cosy mysteries set in the Sussex town of Fethering with the sleuthing done by two middle-aged women. OK but I felt it ended a bit abruptly. Robert B. Parker - Sea change. After a woman's body is fished out of the harbour of Paradise near Boston, police chief Jesse Stone uncovers nasty goings on. Excellent and fast-paced as usual. Jack Vance - Planet of Adventure. Omnibus edition of the four books in this series: City of the Chasch, Servants of the *****, The Dirdir and The Pnume. Typical Vance hero Adam Reith is stranded on the planet Tschai with a variety of alien and indigenous races and, assisted by a couple of companions he recruits on the way, needs to acquire or build a spaceship to get home. The title of the second book includes a word which the forum won't let me include; apparently Vance was unaware of its British meaning and some later editions changed it to Wannek (there's a clue there). As usual, good escapist SF.

I think they ought to keep Anton when Motsi comes back, it just works better with 4 judges. Though he needs to be a bit more critical and mark a bit lower otherwise he'll leave himself nowhere to go when somebody does something really exceptional.

I'm sure Max sealed his own fate on Saturday night which is why he ended up against somebody much better than him in the dance-off rather than somebody he stood any chance against.

This month's round-up (can't believe nobody else has read anything all the way through October): P. G. Wodehouse - The world of Jeeves. A700+ page doorstop of Jeeves & Wooster stories. They say you can have too much of a good thing but not in this case. Belinda Bauer - Dark Side. I like her stuff, even though it's modern. Sarah Pinborough - Behind her eyes. The most shocking ending you'll read all year, says the front. Well it was certainly the daftest. Agatha Christie - Partners in Crime. Crime-fighting couple Tommy & Tuppence Beresford solve their cases by taking inspiration from other great detectives of the time. Not quite parody, but cleverly done and very good. E. C. R. Lorac - Case in the clinic. Inspector Macdonald investigates pensioners being seemingly bumped off by a homicidal nurse. OK. James Lovegrove - Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities. The second of his Holmes/Lovecraft fusions. Quite enjoyable again. Now it's probably going to incorporate this post into the last one so that no-one will know I've posted it anyway - so annoying... Edit: oh, no it hasn't.

Don't know where it is, but what puzzled me was - if they had £120K to spare, why didn't they just buy a bigger house in the first place?

Here's my latest round-up of the things I've recently read: John Meaney - To hold infinity. Well it was OK, a competent enough hard SF novel but I never felt I really cared much about any of the characters. Robert B. Parker - Death in Paradise. This is one of his series involving police chief Jesse Stone as opposed to most of his output about private eye Spenser, but it's still set near Boston and written in much the same way. Good as usual. James Lovegrove - Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows. A Holmes/Lovecraft mash-up that was good fun. Agatha Christie - The mysterious affair at Styles. A classic, the first Poirot novel. Charles Powell - The poets in the nursery. A little book of parodies: nursery rhymes cleverly rewritten in the style of poets of the day (which was 1920). My copy belonged then to noted Bristol lawyer R. N. Green-Armytage and according to the inscription in the front was lent to his close friend Walter de la Mare in 1933. John Rhode - Blackthorn House. Stolen cars and a body turning up in a trunk. Another enjoyable Dr. Priestley mystery, though he doesn't feature all that much in this one. P. G. Wodehouse - Uncle dynamite. One of the best Wodehouses I've read for a while.

Looks completely ridiculous for that location.

The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder on Talking Pictures TV at 9pm on Wednesdays. Originally broadcast in 1969-1971. Hugh Burden plays the mild-mannered detective from the Public Prosecutor's Office with a criminal mind created by Edgar Wallace. Great stuff.

Very sad. She was a class act in everything she was in.

Recently read: Miles Burton - Death in the tunnel. Retired industrialist is shot in a locked compartment of a train going through the tunnel. An ingenious working out but as with so many detective stories of the time, you do wonder whether it would actually have worked in practice. Miles Burton - Death in shallow water. Several deaths by drowning in a few inches of water in one village attract the interest of Scotland Yard. Unusually for Burton/Rhode, this one doesn't involve an ingenious murder method or an elaborate attempt to frame someone else for the crime. P. G. Wodehouse - The small bachelor. A relatively early effort (1927) and you might say it's basically the same as all the others, but it never seems to matter because, well, it's Wodehouse, and he was incapable of writing anything dull. Jack Vance - Night lamp. Another SF novel set in the Gaean Reach, Vance's version of far-future colonised space. Typical independent social-convention-defying Vance hero Jaro Fath tries to find out the truth about his early childhood after his memory was wiped. Pretty good, especially when you consider that Vance was about 80 when he wrote it. Seishi Yokomizo - The Honjin murders. Japanese locked room mystery. Ingeniously worked out, though again you wonder if it would be worth all that effort. Ron Goulart - Cowboy heaven. Despite its title, this is a humorous SF novel. Goulart's usual themes are robots and other technology going wrong, and so it is here. Probably this is as out of fashion as possible at present, but I quite enjoyed it. Now reading: John Rhode - The two graphs. 50 pages in and one of two brothers (who happen to look remarkably similar) has been "accidentally" drowned in a Norfolk Broad. I'm guessing that the identity of the victim will play a part, but the relevance of the two graphs has not appeared yet...

If you've watched that Manctopia programme you'll know that property prices have gone through the roof there. Maybe consider living in Stockport instead?

I took some to Shirecliff tip the other week and was told to just put it in general waste, which surprised me a bit.

I used to enjoy going for a stroll round the charity shops, but it's just not worth the effort now. A lot of them still haven't reopened, and those that have are sometimes only open for reduced hours or on certain days only. Then there's the queuing outside, mask wearing, hand sanitising, only allowing a certain number of people in (sometimes a ridiculously low number for the size of the shop - and often means that if you go as a couple, one of you ends up stranded outside), one way systems, and then you're told not to browse for too long - I mean, what do you go into a charity shop for except to browse, it's not like going into Sainsbury's for a pint of milk. Surely now, when it's estimated that about one in 2000 people might have the virus, the chances of getting close enough to one in a charity shop is pretty small, yet in March when the infection rate was at its peak, they were happy enough to open when we didn't have any of these things. People used to go shopping because it was a pleasurable experience, but it simply isn't any longer, it's just a struggle and a pain. The country will never get back to anything like normal while the current level of fear and paranoia continues. It's Sense, not Mind, and to their credit they at least did reopen pretty much as soon as ordinary shops were able to.

Actually at the moment I believe that Huddersfield has had free parking for a while: from 15 June until the end of August to encourage people to come back. But I just know that you're going to say it's only a third the size of Sheffield and isn't a city. https://www.kirklees.gov.uk/beta/transport-roads-and-parking/parkingspaces/

So what you're really saying is, that for people who don't live there, there's not much point going there anyway. Especially at the moment.