Arthur Ransome travel article

Here’s a link to a travel article I (and the Puffin, who provided stellar guide to Ransome’s characters) wrote about Arthur Ransome and the locations in his novels. (Swallows and Amazons etc). Avast!

Two right feet, odd sizes

The Puffin, it has been declared by a shoe sales male, has worn his shoes too much! How one wears shoes too much is a bit beyond me, but there you go.  The controversial pair were acquired at Xmas and officially o’tattered beyond belief when I eyed them the other day.

The Puffin informs me that when the disintegrating footwear were returned the shoe sales male announced in his opinion Puffin wore them too much, but will return to shoe intelligence central for the official verdict. If Puffin were true to his namesake he would take flight and go easier on his soles.

In meantime, rain concerned madre decides we better seek another pair. Puffin intensely displeased at trying on shoes, puts one of a pair on, declares them fine, refuses to stand up and prance about. Rain concerned mama takes dictator stance and insists Puffin put feet in both shoes whereupon we discover that the box has two right shoes. Inquire of arm waving sales male, why would this box be on a shelf with two right shoes? Sales male replies it’s mix and match. Rain concerned moi says, but seriously are there people in the world with two right feet? (Not the smartest at medical science I thought perhaps he knew something I do not). I don’t know, he says, maybe. So I look inside shoes and say I am fairly certain there is no small person in the world with two right feet, one sized 2 and one sized 3, as have now noted they are indeed different sizes. Increasingly angry sales male says I don’t know, it’s mix and match, there probably are people and has wavy arms that look like they’d like to bat me out of the shop like a cricket ball. Wavy sales male is v determined there is no problem with trying to sell this pair of shoes and appears to find my expectations too high.

 Puffin and I agree that he and shoes are having some kind of compatibility crisis and we’ll divert to eating bean burritos instead.

No preview

An anthology I had two pieces published in years ago, but could never afford to actually purchase because it cost 40 dollars has arrived on google books. Finally thinks I … can get a gander at it because it’s so long since I wrote it, can imagine how dreadful piece will seem now. Takes a while to locate in the table of contents due to usual unpredicatable, streaky, mouse action … I’m clicking page 6 but it’s showing 192 .. on hunting the 6 pages me bit is supposed to correlate to, I discover they’ve been omitted those precise 6 pages from this online version of the book.

What’s the saying …if you go fishing you catch a boot.

o’nibbles

Here’s a link to Philip Roth interviewing Milan Kundera, plus here’s a Kundera essay from 1985 in which amongst other things he takes issue with Dostoyevsky.

Kundera’s seven part essay The Curtain is like taking your brain on holiday. Plus in part seven he offers a certain balm to the old brain when he highlights the dubious ability of our memories to track details, as we plough through a novel.  You could imagine millions of brain cells burping in relief.

He has anecdotes about trying to comprehend the invasion of his country in 1968 by the Russians. Since I am bereft of such images, not arriving on the earth until 1971, I had to do with the difficulty of trying to order a hot chocolate or some kind of beverage in a bakery in Prague in the 1980’s and ending up with three of a completely different variety.