It’s a dismal day here yet again, with grey skies and intermittent rain.
The water gathers in big puddles at the side of the road. If you’re walking along the pavements, you have to be aware of the traffic, otherwise you’ll end up soaked.
There is a particular spot where the road narrows at a pinch point, which is intended to slow down the traffic. If you don’t walk past it pretty sharpish, you can be guaranteed a car will come zooming by and splash you to smithereens.
In the mornings and evenings, many of the motorists on their way to and from work – and also, surprisingly, school – tend to ignore the 20mph speed limit and belt by at 30 and 4omph.
It’s a terrible advert for some of the builders, plumbers and electricians who shoot by in their liveried vans. Still, they obviously have plenty of work on and don’t need business from village folk.
Anyway, enough complaining. It’s World Book Day on Thursday, 7 March and I’m looking forward to my morning walk coinciding with the children all dressed up as book characters and making their way to school.
A few years ago I encountered Roald Dahl’s Mr Twit followed closely down the road by Dr Seuss’s Cat in the Hat.
I wonder what lies in store for us this coming Thursday?
And what’s it like out there, on that day that comes round only once every four years?
It’s a day full of rain, that’s what.
Yet still teenage boys run to the school bus without coats, getting soaked before they even reach their classes. What is it with kids and coats? At what age do they decide that wearing a coat to keep them warm and dry is for idiots? And why?
I’ve never understood it.
Turning up waistbands to make your school skirt appear shorter or smuggling platforms to change into on the bus, to replace the trusty Clarks specials your mum insisted you have when you were thirteen, well, I totally get that.
But coats? What ever did a coat do to upset a teenager?
I’ve always loved outerwear – hats, jackets, coats and shoes – far more than any other type of clothing.
My current favourite is a hot pink, fake fur coat that I madly bought after seeing it in a shop window in the rather swanky Dorset town of Sherborne. I justified the price tag after receiving an unexpected pay bonus for a job well done.
There’s something about bright colours that warm the soul, especially on dark winter days. Although the hot pink coat has to stay in the wardrobe in this weather, which sounds like a cue for my bright blue raincoat to emerge or the spotty one I got from Vinted for a fiver.
So happy 29th of February to you all. And, to paraphrase the poet Brian Bilston, here’s to making the most of this and each and every day.
With all the rain we’ve had, the door on the village telephone box library is jammed shut.
Luckily, I have a number of great books on my Kindle still to read, thanks to NetGalley, which provides advance reader copies of digital books in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve just finished reading The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. It’s not out yet – I had a review copy – but it’s such a compelling novel.
I’m generally a low scorer (something has to be pretty amazing for me to award it five out of five) but I gave the book four stars on Goodreads.
Here’s my review :
This is an astonishing debut. Time travel, romance, comedy and thriller, all beautifully constructed and written with literary flair. In the near future, the unnamed protagonist works as a civil servant for The Ministry of Time in London as a ‘bridge’ between her world and her charge, a naval officer from the 19th century who history says disappeared in the frozen north, with the rest of the ill-fated crew. The plot follows the twists and turns of their relationship with each other, with authority, their pasts, presents and future and the wider world. This was a compelling, easy read with much humour and pathos. Can see it making a great film or television series. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an advance review copy of this novel.
Imagine what it must feel like to have your work adapted for the small and big screens. It’s happening to someone I know who worked at the Dorset Echo the same time as I did, albeit in different offices. It must be incredible, if a little scary, to see someone else nurturing your ‘baby’ for a different medium and audience.
I’m about to start reading Andrew McMillan’s Pity and The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Television
We’re still plodding through Blue Bloods (CBS), the multi-season police drama with Tom Selleck heading a family of New York cops embroiled in crime and political intrigue. It’s an easy series to watch, with self-contained episodes and likeable, hardworking characters, and nothing too taxing for an addled brain to take in late in the evening.
We’ve just started True Detective (Amazon Prime), a crime and mystery drama which is providing to be uncomfortable and brutal viewing. The jury is still out on this one. Maybe I need to get past season one. I’m done with stories that feature hideous crimes with women as victims.
There are times when our preferred viewing is just not compatible. Mr Grigg is currently watching Masters of the Air (Apple TV), an American war drama mini-series, and I’m watching Daisy Jones and the Six (Amazon Prime), which charts the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s rock band not dissimilar to Fleetwood Mac.
I wasn’t keen on the book but I’m enjoying the show, particularly the gorgeous Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. She’s mesmerising.
Films lined up to watch include Saltburn (Amazon Prime), which I’m plucking up the courage to see after hearing someone talk about it in the pub, and One Love, the biopic of Bob Marley, in cinemas now, which looks amazing.
We’re into the second series of Trigger Point (ITV) and absolutely hooked.
Vicky McClure is mesmerising in this drama about a police bomb disposal team in London. As Lana Washington, she’s cool, complicated, flawed, tormented by the past and bloody brilliant at her job.
The first series just flew by and now we’re settling down for a bumpy ride.
Hats off to creator and writer Daniel Brierley, who was mentored by Line of Duty‘s Jed Mercurio. Brierley was new to television and developed the series during a television bursary scheme.
It’s real edge of your seat stuff. Awards await.
We’ve just seen the film Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character. It’s long and patchy and, a bit like the curate’s egg, good in parts.
The battle scenes, particularly the deadly icy ballet at Austerlitz and the finale at Waterloo, are choreographed to a nanosecond. They are incredible to watch (albeit, in my case, through closed fingers).
Phoenix is a compelling Napoleon, a relentless genius obsessed by power, his love for his country and the resourceful Josephine (Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in The Crown). He’s steely, creepy and a little unhinged, like The Joker, Commodus and the Emperor of France all rolled into one.
What I’m reading
I’ve got my hands on a review copy of The Ministry of Time and I can’t put it down. I also can’t believe it’s a debut novel.
Kaliane Bradley has written a piece of fiction which cuts across genres – time travel, romance, comedy and spy thriller – and it’s a cracker. It’s out later this year.
Set in the near future, at the centre of the story is a nameless protagonist, a civil servant who has to act as a ‘bridge’ between her charge, naval officer Graham Gore, who was First Lieutenant on the Erebus during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended in 1850 with the loss of all 129 officers and crewmen.
The book twists and turns with a style so easy to read I’ll probably finish it by the end of the week. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance review copy of the book.
I was shocked on Tuesday when I heard that Steve Wright had died.
I’d just pulled up in the car outside a shop when it was announced on the radio news. I uttered an audible ‘no, no’ before getting out and then walking around the Co-op like a tit in a trance.
Sudden death hits you like that, even when it’s someone you’ve never met. To many of us, Steve was like a member of the family. He was always there. We grew up with him. A broadcaster with great skill and flair, he was hardworking, funny and, well, nice.
He seemed a kind person – and those who knew him say he really was – and his broadcasting style appeared fun and effortless. And when things appear effortless you can guarantee they’re completely the opposite. Steve Wright was a true professional, a perfectionist in his craft.
He always had that knack of saying exactly what we were thinking, such as referring to the ‘winking’ line after this song was played (a record that makes most sane people cringe every time they hear it).
Stomach churning stuff
Or pointing out that, contrary to what Carl Douglas sang, surely not everybody was kung fu fighting.
Hong Kong Phooey
I stopped listening to Radio 2 in the afternoons after Steve Wright was dropped. Always the professional, he never complained about the BBC’s decision, but it must have affected him deeply. I was furious. For so long, weekday afternoons were Steve Wright. And we loved it.
These days, I’m a BBC Radio 6 Music listener anyway, so it didn’t take much for me to tune into Craig Charles in the afternoons instead.
It’s my station of choice, bringing me new music and genres during the week and old favourites at the weekends with the schoolboy fun of Radcliffe and Maconie, the wonderful jazz, blues and world music of Cerys Matthews while I’m doing the ironing and peeling the spuds for the roast and then Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour, which is sublime for a cosy Sunday afternoon.
There are times, though, when Lauren Laverne’s got some rapping track going full blast and Mr Grigg walks into the kitchen that I have to switch over to Greatest Hits Radio.
I’m not averse to a bit of rap – my nephew will kill me but he was a great rapper in his day (he’s the first one on this video) – but it’s a boundary Mr Grigg refuses to cross.
Lowercase from Bristol
He has his phone on today for Greatest Hits’ Radio’s ‘Make Me A Winner‘ – thousands of pounds of tax-free cash to be won every weekday!
All you have to do is enter online and if you get a call from the station after 3pm, answer within five rings but don’t say hello and say ‘Make Me A Winner’ you win the daily prize.
I have asked him if anyone has ever just said ‘hello’ and lost the lot but he says he doesn’t think so. But I know what will happen if Mr Grigg gets that call.
It’ll be like the local legend of the silver table my yarn spinner of a grandfather used to tell. The table was at the bottom of a well and all you had to do was pull it up in silence and the treasure was yours.
Gramp did it once, apparently, with a group of friends. They managed to secure ropes around the glittering prize and had almost hauled it to the surface when one of them uttered the immortal words ‘there the bugger be’ and the table clattered down to the bottom of the well, never to be seen again.
What will happen when Mr Grigg gets the call from Greatest Hits Radio is that he’ll dismiss the unknown number showing up on his phone as from a scammer or will pick it up and yell ‘*!*! off you, bastard’ and blow Ruby’s dog whistle down the line.
And there we’d be, having coming face to face with a hundred thousand pounds only for it to scatter in the gale of his expletives.
Radio has been a part of my life and, I suspect, yours for what seems like forever. What ever station you choose -and, for me, it’s nearly always a music station apart from the Today programme in the morning on Radio 4 – it’s the intimacy of the broadcaster speaking to you that makes the difference. Steve Wright was a master at that. We will miss him. Greatly.
Maddie Grigg 