List-o-mania
“The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists.”
H. Allen Smith
Oh, how I love a list.But not just any list.
A Top Ten of X (or even a Top 100) is never going to offer much more than a cursory glance at any subject, let alone a deep, deep, deep dive into a given topic. But 1000….. then you start to get to the good stuff, the interesting stuff, the deep cuts.
Fifteen years or so ago, a friend gave me a copy of 1001 Books To Read Before You Die. I thought I was a well-read individual so was fairly chagrined to realise that I’d read only about one-hundred and fifty of them.
I am currently twenty years thorough a forty year project to read all of the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die. In fact, a few weeks ago I marked the halfway point as I finished James Stephen’s wonderful “The Charwoman’s Daughter” a novel I doubt I would have ever encountered were it not for that list, and am currently listening to Cervantes “Don Quixote” a novel I doubt I would have ever attempted were it not for this list.
I find that it gives a structure to my reading habits it might not otherwise have, and encourages me to read novels that I might never have heard of (Thusbitch, Vathek, The Life & Death of Harriet Frean) or those I had heard of but steered clear of due to length or reputation (or both) - War & Peace, A Suitable Boy & William Faulkner.
In addition to books, I also have the 1001 Guides to Albums, Songs, Natural Wonders, Gardens, Paintings, Historical Sites, Buildings, Beers, Comics, Video Games and Movies.
The physical copies are cheaply available from Amazon (virtually free + nominal postage & package) as are the Kindle versions. Also, you actually don’t need the latest copy as 95% of the content is the same year on year. In fact the most recent years are the entries most likely to be replaced in subsequent years.
Telling Tales
After realising that the preceding generations of my family were not always going to be around, I wanted to attempt to record some oral histories.
After experimenting with Anchor (which was subsequently purchased by Spotify and rebranded as Spotify Podcasters) as well as this useful book, I never actually got round to doing anything about it,
So instead, while tempus was relentlessly fugiting I used the service of Tales, to record the naval adventures of my father-in-law.
While not cheap, it really couldn’t be any easier. Book a time-slot, give them a few details, and topics you’d like to focus on, and they pretty much do the rest. The audio quality is professional level, and the interviewer we used did a marvellous job, of letting the interviewee talk without rambling (no easy task).
I am already glad that I have captured a small snippet of our family history one behalf of the rest of the family.
Oil heater
For a good deal, zig when others zag.
With summer in sight, this is not the time to get good deals on patio furniture or gas-powered BBQs, however it might be worth thinking about winter.
I mostly work in a garden office separate from the main house. In the winter it can can get very (for England) cold, and for the last few years, as energy costs have risen and environmental concerns have intensified, I have resisted using the electric heater that was installed when it was built.
However this winter my wife bought me this smart oil heater, which does a much better job of heating the office at, I would estimate, about 20% of the cost.
It has a remote control, remote control via an app, and timer functions built-in, and available in 7-fin or 9-fin versions.
(It’s also currently 30% cheaper than I paid for it).