Reading in the rain!

Sorry folks! As I pointed out yesterday, my late night watering of the plants ensured the lousy weather today.

It is just a British aberration to look at weather in a particularly anthropomorphic way? We always see personal spite in the way that the allocation of fine weather is allocated to the population of the world. And when it comes to the correlation of wet weather and Bank Holidays, I’m sure that there is a doctoral thesis somewhere that points out just how unjust the quantity of sunshine has been over the years.

I have now completed my reading of Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The God Delusion.’ It is a beguilingly chatty description of an approach towards atheism. Leaving aside his shameless self publicity it is a stimulating rallying cry to those ‘closet’ atheists who either hide their atheism or flirt with a romantic yearning to believe in belief to come clean and profess their stance without ambiguity or mendacity.

It is a well argued book which, as Peter Thomson said of one of the few of my second year essays that he got to read, “I am persuaded by agreement to consider perceptive and intelligent.” ‘The God Delusion’ is a book which demands a response and not one which uses the facile escapism of ‘belief’ to justify a point of view. ‘Belief’ is a term which he clearly sees as a term for intellectual laziness and he takes the deadly aspects of the consequences of belief and entertainingly (if chillingly) illustrates them with memorably grotesque examples.

A worthwhile read.

Penguin has found a new way to garner new money from old goods by repackaging travel snippets in a new series of shortish paperbacks called ‘Great Journeys’ – around the world in twenty books. These books are priced at £4.99 and for that price you would expect rather more exhaustive proof reading than is apparent in the first of the books I’ve read, ‘Fighting in Spain’ by George Orwell. This volume comprises an extract from ‘Homage to Catalonia’ with a few pages of ‘Looking back on the Spanish War.’ Orwell is always worth reading, especially in his non fiction work and these extracts are compelling. Orwell takes a non sensational approach to the horrors of that disgraceful conflict and in his conversational style invites the reader to share his seemingly reasonable perceptions.

The series ranges from Herodotus, through Mark Twain to Ryszard Kapuściński. They are a series of books which I look forward to reading, especially as I bought the lot for £15 from my book club! This is a site worth looking at for those books which you suddenly realise you cannot do without. The address is: http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/catalog_10001_10051_100 I only hope that you are hooked and spend as much as I have over the past few years!

We had Fideuá for lunch hampered, as usual, by the lack of decent fresh fish at Tesco – though whether one would want to buy fish after the devastating documentary on the way that supermarkets treat their food (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,,2085224,00.html) is open to debate! I eventually ended up buying frozen sea food and fresh chicken – it’s always a compromise! The end result, however, was one of the better Fideuá that I’ve made. Toni says that I will get even better when I am established in Catalonia and have all the requisite fresh food to hand. I noted that he did not suggest that he would be learning how to make the damn thing! I think that he expects me to sit, metaphorically, at his mother’s feet; write down her recipes like a faithful disciple; practise making them and churn them out for the rest of my life!

I have to admit it is tempting as his mum is an exception cook and her dishes are always appetising!

Today and tomorrow are the calm before the storm. I expect real information about the house on Tuesday which should take the form of a realistic date for the completion for the house sale. Then the real fun will start!

Although, to drag professor Joad once again into the conversation, it all depends on what you mean by fun.