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kittiwakeFrom "Finisterre":
It keeps curious, almost liturgical, company, not chanted but almost intoned in an ageless rhythm: Viking, North Utsire, South Utsiire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne. Dogger, Fisher, German Bite . . . Humber, Thames, Dover; Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Trafalgar, Sole; Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea. Shannon, Rockall; Malin; Bailey, Fair Isle, Faroes, South-east Iceland.
A litany of imaginary places drawn by the spirit of meteorology moving upon the face of the waters; an occulted prayer for they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters: These see the works of the LORD and his wonders in the deep. For while it may be Radio Four - zippy, businesslike, numerate, MODERN - the rest of the time, on the Shipping Forecast, it is still the BBC Home Service, and Britain still a great maritime nation.
I had thought that this book would be along the lines of "Schott's Miscellany", but it is more personal than that, full of nostalgia for the small pleasures of yesteryear. I enjoyed it a lot, which was quite unexpected, since I'd been putting off reading it after seeing the negative reviews it received when I sent it on a book ring. I liked how opinionated (and at times downright stroppy, see below) Michael Bywater is about everything! And he seems to be a local too; there are mentions of riding the tram out to Ripley, and going out to Eastwood in search of the real D.H. Lawrence accent after wondering at the strangeness of the dialect in one of his plays that was put on at Nottingham Playhouse.
From "Moleskine":
An Italian company brought back the Moleskine in the 1990s and now not an over-sensitive backpacker leaves the shores of America but has its Moleskine in its rucksack; hence a whole generation of travellers who will leave no trace. You see them, wailing on the Internet: people who, by the cleverest and most specious bit of marketing around, now feel themselves intimidated by their Moleskine notebooks. What can they write (and what can they write it with, unless it's a Mont Blanc Meisterstück pen, just like Bruce used?) that will deserve the Moleskine and its heritage of, not just Chatwin, but (so the manufacturers say) Matisse, van Gogh, Hemingway . . .
Let us get this straight.
1. The Moleskine of Chatwin is lost.
2. The new Moleskin is a different thing, its authenticity fatally compromised by its insistence on its authenticity.
3. The original Moleskine was not a carefully marketed designer brand. 'Moleskine' was just a generic waterproof cover.
4. And anyway, it was just a fucking notebook. Ca va?
It keeps curious, almost liturgical, company, not chanted but almost intoned in an ageless rhythm: Viking, North Utsire, South Utsiire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne. Dogger, Fisher, German Bite . . . Humber, Thames, Dover; Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Trafalgar, Sole; Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea. Shannon, Rockall; Malin; Bailey, Fair Isle, Faroes, South-east Iceland.
A litany of imaginary places drawn by the spirit of meteorology moving upon the face of the waters; an occulted prayer for they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters: These see the works of the LORD and his wonders in the deep. For while it may be Radio Four - zippy, businesslike, numerate, MODERN - the rest of the time, on the Shipping Forecast, it is still the BBC Home Service, and Britain still a great maritime nation.
I had thought that this book would be along the lines of "Schott's Miscellany", but it is more personal than that, full of nostalgia for the small pleasures of yesteryear. I enjoyed it a lot, which was quite unexpected, since I'd been putting off reading it after seeing the negative reviews it received when I sent it on a book ring. I liked how opinionated (and at times downright stroppy, see below) Michael Bywater is about everything! And he seems to be a local too; there are mentions of riding the tram out to Ripley, and going out to Eastwood in search of the real D.H. Lawrence accent after wondering at the strangeness of the dialect in one of his plays that was put on at Nottingham Playhouse.
From "Moleskine":
An Italian company brought back the Moleskine in the 1990s and now not an over-sensitive backpacker leaves the shores of America but has its Moleskine in its rucksack; hence a whole generation of travellers who will leave no trace. You see them, wailing on the Internet: people who, by the cleverest and most specious bit of marketing around, now feel themselves intimidated by their Moleskine notebooks. What can they write (and what can they write it with, unless it's a Mont Blanc Meisterstück pen, just like Bruce used?) that will deserve the Moleskine and its heritage of, not just Chatwin, but (so the manufacturers say) Matisse, van Gogh, Hemingway . . .
Let us get this straight.
1. The Moleskine of Chatwin is lost.
2. The new Moleskin is a different thing, its authenticity fatally compromised by its insistence on its authenticity.
3. The original Moleskine was not a carefully marketed designer brand. 'Moleskine' was just a generic waterproof cover.
4. And anyway, it was just a fucking notebook. Ca va?
