Well researched accoumt of the fate of the Grosvenor castaways (and their mixed treatment by the Pondos) in Eastern South Africa, before the Boers moved east, and the Zulus moved South.
I have to admit, I thought Two Cities was Dickens' only historical novel. Didn't know much about the Gordon Riots either - although I had at least heard of them. Quite good, but not one of Dickens' best - you don't really care about any of the characters. On the other hand, there's not much mawkishness (the women are all minor characters, but better painted than usual), and the writing style is well up to his usual standard.
Lads' week away in Scotland. Quite a bit of cloud, but not too bad - managed to climb Ben Hope. Plenty of cuckoos too for some reason. Have to say they sounded more like "fuckyou"'s. Got to the North coast of Scotland - the furthest morth I've been in the UK. Knees lasted OK but managed to twist my ankle when nearly off Ben Hope.
While at the Ultravox concert we (my wife and I) spotted that Ross Noble would be on two nights later at the same venue (why hadn't Ticketmaster told us about this?), and there were still some tickets left for up in the gods. Some of the family, myself included, had seen him on the telly in Comedy from the Apollo, and thought he was hilarious - going on about pleasuring turtles, and orbiting grannies - so we bought tickets for the whole family.
The first half of the gig - the more prepared half - was brilliant. After the break, when he improvised on stuff thrown onto the stage, or answered questions from the audience, wasn't bad, but could have been a lot better.
Hehad signed DVD's for sale, so obviously middle daughter had to buy one.
Not the sort of stuff I would usually listen to - folk but a bit along the lines of Coldplay or David Gray - and an odd choice as a warm-up for Ultravox. Indeed, most of the punters didn't turn up until the main act was on. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed his act - he's got a very good voice, particularly in the upper register.
See my review (in English) on amazon.de
My wife bought two tickets for this show as a Valentine's prezzy.
I never went to see them live in the 80's - I guess I feared that they would be rather wooden - but I liked their albums. Before they came on, and the stage was set with four workstations, complete with Apple Macs I was wondering if it would all be pretty soulless. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the gig. It was hard and loud - maybe they were hard and loud live in the 80's or maybe they turned it up for modern tastes.
The audience was about two thirds XL middle aged men, and about two thirds of the remainder were wags of the same, dragged along unwillingly (although my wife had actually quite liked Ultravox first time round). Interesting to see a handful of youngsters there though.
Oh yes - and I bought the teeshirt.
The meaning of any piece of literature depends at least as much on the preconceptions of the reader as on the intentions of the author. Therefore I would argue that a work's merit depends on the facility with which it can be "misconstrued". If it can only be construed exactly as the author intended, then it is worthless. It is the literary equivalent of a soccer chant.
