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Continue reading →: Verdigris by Michele Maritranslated from the Italian by Brian Robert Moore In 1969 in the rural north of Italy, Michelino is 13 and a half years old, spending his summer at his grandfather’s manor house in the country. His grandfather is a retired doctor, and too involved in tv soap operas to be…
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Continue reading →: A brief catch-up from ShapBack in Shap the winter is a windy one. I can hardly complain as I’ve missed 11 named storms. Fortunately I’ve got an electric hook-up from the friends that I’m parked up at, as there isn’t much sun around for the panels. Roja’s cousin, Mac, is very pleased I’m back…
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Continue reading →: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríqueztranslated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Megan McDowell Told from four different perspectives, this sprawling novel charts the destabilisation of a nation haunted by the spectre of violence. 1976 saw the the coup by armed forces to depose the then Argentinian President, Isabel Perón. The following decade saw a period…
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Continue reading →: The way is long but the end is near..A Dylan quote from Romance In Durango, the 1973 live version of which is amongst my all time favourites. The area I have been for the last couple of days, just ten kilometres or so to the west of Ypres, and north of Poperinge, is a good visit at this…
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Continue reading →: The Watchmaker of Everton by Georges Simenonor L’horloger d’Everton – published 1954 translated from the French by Norman Denny (1957) More than a dozen of Simenon’s novels are set in the US, written during the ten years he spent there when he was in his 40s. Since a youngster, he had always wanted to visit and…
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Continue reading →: Westvleteren Abbey and Saint Sixtus BreweryWestvleteren Abbey, within which Saint Sixtus beer is brewed, is an authentic Trappist brewery. Their motto, or mission statement on their website states ‘We brew to live. We do not live to brew.’ They brew three beers, a Blond at 5%, and a brown and an amber ale, called 8…
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Continue reading →: The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob KerrPublished 2022 This is a curious mix of light and dark, the cosy and the sinister, in a folkloric, occasionally with a gothic lean, tale of a decrepit country house in the 1960s to which a family arrives to work. The protagonist Izzy, 13 years old, has been taken out…
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Continue reading →: BurningSouth Korea – 2018 – Boening This was the 2018 FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Award winner and is from South Korea. It’s a cross of genres, romance / drama / thriller, but most of all a mystery that skilfully develops tension in unlikely moments. It’s slow-paced in its first half…
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Continue reading →: The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenontranslated from the French by Shaun Whiteside I consider it essential when in Belgium to read Simenon. I thought I’d give a Maigret a try, usually favouring his stand-alone romans durs, and was rewarded greatly. Maigret is roused from his slumbers at 5:30 am, and for a moment, can’t recall…
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Continue reading →: Return to InvictusI returned to Invictus Brewery in the forest this morning with cash, from the atm in Gedinne, just a couple of kilometres away. We walked the long way round, through the forest on a wonderful winter morning. It had been 7 degrees below zero overnight, and Stephanie at the Brewery…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 