What a fine city Barcelona is!
A walk along the sea front from Barcelonetta to Plaça de Catalunya shows the city at its best. From the intelligent modern development of the seaside Paseo to the centre of a confident city you can feel a vibrancy and intensity which is city living at its best.
Our lunch in Port Olympico was supposed to be paella but a casual glance at the menu and that was transformed into mixed tapas (mediocre) and a mixed sea food (exceptional) and for less than we could get it here in Castelldefels!
The only thing that kept me going in our extended promenade was the knowledge that, at journey’s end we would be visiting Habitat (old habits die hard!) to purchase sun loungers and a little folding chair which I could use as a small table on the balcony. As Toni’s mother pointed out (we met Toni’s sister and her in fnac) we are truly prepared for the summer.
On our return home I once again returned to my latest book taken from the select library in the staff room of my school. This book is ’42 Scotland Street’ by Alexander McCall Smith,
A walk along the sea front from Barcelonetta to Plaça de Catalunya shows the city at its best. From the intelligent modern development of the seaside Paseo to the centre of a confident city you can feel a vibrancy and intensity which is city living at its best.
Our lunch in Port Olympico was supposed to be paella but a casual glance at the menu and that was transformed into mixed tapas (mediocre) and a mixed sea food (exceptional) and for less than we could get it here in Castelldefels!
The only thing that kept me going in our extended promenade was the knowledge that, at journey’s end we would be visiting Habitat (old habits die hard!) to purchase sun loungers and a little folding chair which I could use as a small table on the balcony. As Toni’s mother pointed out (we met Toni’s sister and her in fnac) we are truly prepared for the summer.
On our return home I once again returned to my latest book taken from the select library in the staff room of my school. This book is ’42 Scotland Street’ by Alexander McCall Smith,
a new novel from the bestselling author of ‘The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’. That’s what it says on the cover.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ and I had great hopes from this novel.
The genesis of this piece of work is outlined in the entertaining Preface to the novel. A chance meeting with Armistead Maupin and a sympathetic editorial staff on The Scotsman and a new serialised novel was born.
The book shows its origins. I found it strangely unsettling until I got used to the episodic conventions that are necessary to sustain this type of writing in a modern newspaper.
When Dickens was writing his episodic novels he was granted much more space than Maupin and Smith can use. This means that the ‘placing’ of information for later development has to be much more obvious and rapid than can be allowed in a full length novel with the usual character development spread over a number of pages.
The situations and characters are much more obvious that one would tolerate in a normal novel and there is the expectation that any scrap of information given to the reader is going to be utilized at a later date.
There was also a sense that the characters had sprung ready formed onto the page and the suggested lacuna was fairly obviously going to be utilized in a later episode.
There were minor infelicities in character description: would the narcissist Bruce, really have referred to his hair as en brose rather than spiky? And all the other characters seem to like the phrase too as it applied to him with monotonous regularity. Pat is a jigsaw of a character with no real sense of an overall conception to unite all the disparate elements in her portrayal.
I suppose that I should remind myself that this is a self proclaimed comic novel and so there must be a certain latitude allowed in the way that characters are introduced and developed, though I still feel that many comic opportunities are lost.
Bruce’s stealing of Todd’s underpants and stuffing them in his sporran is a situation worthy of Tom Sharpe, but the end result is mildly amusing rather than hysterical.
There are loose ends: who is the recluse on the ground floor? Where is the car? What is going to happen to Bertie? Will Pat find true happiness? Is Matthew a real character at all? And so on.
My qualifications, however, should be viewed in the light of my wanting to find the sequel to this volume!
I have been frustrated in my desire for paella for the second day running. ‘We’ eventually decided to have chicken with the sort of trimmings that you can get from our local spit roast chicken place and ate on the balcony.
The sun had not reached us so the meal was eaten by three gently shuddering Catalans and me. I am now sitting (in the new comfortable chair) on the extreme edge of the balcony and having my right arms heated by the strip of sun that is slowly advancing across the surface if the tiles.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ and I had great hopes from this novel.
The genesis of this piece of work is outlined in the entertaining Preface to the novel. A chance meeting with Armistead Maupin and a sympathetic editorial staff on The Scotsman and a new serialised novel was born.
The book shows its origins. I found it strangely unsettling until I got used to the episodic conventions that are necessary to sustain this type of writing in a modern newspaper.
When Dickens was writing his episodic novels he was granted much more space than Maupin and Smith can use. This means that the ‘placing’ of information for later development has to be much more obvious and rapid than can be allowed in a full length novel with the usual character development spread over a number of pages.
The situations and characters are much more obvious that one would tolerate in a normal novel and there is the expectation that any scrap of information given to the reader is going to be utilized at a later date.
There was also a sense that the characters had sprung ready formed onto the page and the suggested lacuna was fairly obviously going to be utilized in a later episode.
There were minor infelicities in character description: would the narcissist Bruce, really have referred to his hair as en brose rather than spiky? And all the other characters seem to like the phrase too as it applied to him with monotonous regularity. Pat is a jigsaw of a character with no real sense of an overall conception to unite all the disparate elements in her portrayal.
I suppose that I should remind myself that this is a self proclaimed comic novel and so there must be a certain latitude allowed in the way that characters are introduced and developed, though I still feel that many comic opportunities are lost.
Bruce’s stealing of Todd’s underpants and stuffing them in his sporran is a situation worthy of Tom Sharpe, but the end result is mildly amusing rather than hysterical.
There are loose ends: who is the recluse on the ground floor? Where is the car? What is going to happen to Bertie? Will Pat find true happiness? Is Matthew a real character at all? And so on.
My qualifications, however, should be viewed in the light of my wanting to find the sequel to this volume!
I have been frustrated in my desire for paella for the second day running. ‘We’ eventually decided to have chicken with the sort of trimmings that you can get from our local spit roast chicken place and ate on the balcony.
The sun had not reached us so the meal was eaten by three gently shuddering Catalans and me. I am now sitting (in the new comfortable chair) on the extreme edge of the balcony and having my right arms heated by the strip of sun that is slowly advancing across the surface if the tiles.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
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