celticman's blog

I only read the beginning of this book. You know the saying, you shouldn’t judge the book by the cover? Aye. Really? Well, it’s got ‘Global bestseller’ on the cover. That means lots of folk have bought it. Being translated from Japanese to English is also a mark of quality. I liked the idea of it. ‘Before your memory fades’. My memory is like a rubber that has already rubbed most of itself out. So there’s congruence there. There’s a relationship...

Cover the Bones was brought out as The Seven in Chris Hammer’s native Australia. The Seven refers to the founding fathers and elite of Yuwonderie. By founding fathers I don’t mean black folk. I mean the elite that committed genocide or paid a pittance for land belonging to the natives. I learned a new word. Squattocracy. When the seven founding fathers had been there long enough, the land they stole was legalised. Much like wealth or water...

Reading is what I do. So what are you looking for in the library sounds like my kind of book. If, like former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, you argue there is no such thing as society then this is not for you. Existential nihilism it is not. In Michiko Aoyam’s novel everything is connected and everyone has a purpose but they might just need that little nudge to find their destiny. The beating heart of the book is Sayuri Komachi. She is...

Kosawa is a mythical village in Africa, a kind of utopia were people lived free and easy before oil was discovered. It brings immense wealth. None of it trickles down to the villagers Instead their rivers are polluted and they can no longer fish. Their land is similarly poisoned. Young children, in particular, die. But the villagers were told by the oil company representatives, Pexton, that everything was being done that could be done. Any...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-empty-man This is David Prior’s film. I was going to write a post about Celtic playing Aberdeen. Couldn’t be arsed. Or A Brief History of Seven Killings , but that would need too much thought. I know, thought isn’t rationed like sweeties, but I’m sure you know what I mean. The Empty Man seemed ideal because I knew it would be shite. And I wasn’t disappointed. I quite like horror which seems an oxymoron. I...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-night-of-the-12th https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_12th Grenoble Police Headquarters, retirement party. Each year the police open over 800 homicide investigations. Nearly 20% remain unsolved. Or as the lead detective suggests, a case that haunts them. This is one such case. Based on a true story. A case that burns. The paradox of men investigating the killing of women (matricide). St Jean de...

Nihal Arthanayake’s premise in Let’s Talk is we increasingly live in a polarised world (guilty as charged, anything and everything about the moron’s moron, Trump infuriates me) but we need to put aside our differences and reconcile ourselves to change. We need to talk. Technology drives change (discuss)? Nihal Arthanayake believes like many others, including Professor SherryTurkle, our smartphones make us dumber and lonelier (for example https...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00248vd/housebound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housebound_(2014_film) My dodgy internet usually gets me the big matches. I wanted to watch Arsenal v PSG. I’ve been much impressed by PSG and they’re my tips to win it, but I don’t really care. I don’t watch as much football as I used to. Pissed off at missing this match, I watched Housebound . I’m not sure why I watched it from beginning to end. The...

Sex sells. It’s older than Adam and Eve. Whisper it, before the internet, people had sex and were even naked together, sometime even at the same time, in the same room, without a phone. Hallie Rubenhold has turned a Ph.D. into an international bestselling book of non-fiction (which we used to call factual) based on a list of prostitutes that sold their bodies around the Covent Garden region of London. Her parameters of study were centred on a...

Most of us will have heard of Jack the Ripper. Perhaps I should modify that statement and say most of us over forty will have heard of Jack the Ripper. In one film, the premise was Jack the Ripper was a crown prince or some kind of royalty. His killings were quickly covered up by members of the establishment. I couldn’t have told you how many women he killed—five—or where—Whitechapel—other than it being generally a smog filled London. No thought...