Splish Splash: An Entertaining Diversion

In a bizarre twist of fate, we suddenly have a (gasp!) outdoor activity aside from Kidwelly Castle in the Llanelli-Carmarthen area. How is it possible? No-one knows. However, if you wish, you can now go paddleboarding, kayaking or rowboating on the Swiss Valley lower reservoir, and it's very pleasant indeed.

There's nothing quite like paddling away on the water and pretending you're in 'The Wind In The Willows' or 'Three Men In A Boat', or even 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog'. Oh, to be drifting along, thinking of luncheons or making it to the next inn... Except, that's not really going to be the case on a reservoir in the twenty-first century! It's still a very pleasant experience, and one which needs to be advertised better as it was very quiet for a day during the school holidays. Surely there must be more paddlers out there? Come on, be brave, people!

It's strange to think how few things there are in this immediate area. There is the aforementioned castle, which is always nice, and then... Well, it's strange. It might be partly due to the local apathy, where no-one ever seems to turn out for anything. We need more things which should appeal to locals and tourists alike. We could convert the old railway into a mine train experience... And it's not too late to make up the legend of the Swiss Valley monster, last seen menacing seagulls with a tickling stick and using popup speed cameras to make up its income in the quiet weeks.

Anyone for a paddle? Off to the reservoir with you! It's a pretty place, with those trees and the tranquil waters, and the oddly absent comedic pirates and sharks. It's nice to remember how to row, get caught up in trees, and be held hostage by fishermen intent on ransoming you for as many free maths lessons as can be unreasonably extorted.

Go ahead, have some watery fun, and maybe a coffee and a piece of cake. Go and mess about on the water.

O.

Ten Inarguably Good Novels?

'A Tale Of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens (1859)

'The Sign Of The Four' by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)

'Leave It To Psmith' by PG Wodehouse (1923)

'Gaudy Night' by Dorothy L Sayers (1935)

'We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea' by Arthur Ransome (1937)

'Three Hearts And Three Lions' by Poul Anderson (1961)

'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution' by Nicholas Meyer (1974)

'Gateway' by Frederik Pohl (1977)

'Bridge Of Birds' by Barry Hughart (1984)

'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' by Connie Willis (1997)

This feels much more arguable list that the corresponding one for movies. There really isn't a weak book in there, except possibly 'A Tale Of Two Cities' for it being set in such a different time for prose. However, it's still brilliant.

O.

PS Anyone have any additional ideas? 

Ten Unimpeachably Good Movies?

I was trying to think of ten inarguably good movies that you could show any friend without worrying overly about whether they will like them. What do you think?

'The 39 Steps' (1935)

'The Philadelphia Story' (1940)

'The African Queen' (1951)

'Rear Window' (1954)

'Cat Ballou' (1965)

'The Taking Of Pelham 123' (1974)

'Jaws' (1975)

'Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan' (1982)

'Stranger Than Fiction' (2006)

'Fish Story' (2009)

O.

 

No, They Cried, Not AGAIN!

Shamefully, it has been a few years now since the last active phase of the Quirky Muffin, but it's pretty clear to everyone just what those three years were all about and so let's push on. But push on to what?

Now, the Quirky Muffin has been gone a while,

As if burbling and meandering was out of style,

But now, if rumours are true, it might be back,

And once again the 'blog's author will lack,

All sense of restraint as the words tumble out,

Leaving all sensible people to run away in rout.

`Where have you been? Why have you returned?

Have you forgotten all the things you've learned?

Do you really intend to compose silly reviews,

Extemporise wildly about what is barely the news,

And then ponder wild thoughts about this and that?'

And the answer? 'Yes, 'tis their natural habitat!'

What should we push onto? It's a good question. For now, let's see what happens, and not be too pushy. Talking endlessly about oneself is a long out-of-date and self-indulgent exercise, but there might be some things to cover from time to time.

We shall see.

O.

Film: 'Porco Rosso' (1992, dubbed version)

Now that was kind of interesting. Could this be the point of closest approach for myself and the legendary Hayao Miyazaki? A story about an ex-First World War pilot, who was somehow cursed into becoming a pig person, and is living his life as a bounty hunter in the Adriatic. Why is he a pig person? It's hard to know, but it must  be a reflection of his own self-image or a consequence of acts we'll never know. Or is it all part of his strange experience seeing those spirit pilots flying up to the heavenly squadron? Yes, you have been spoiled!

This movie epitomizes everything that people like about Miyazaki, and everything they don't like. As with a lot of Japanese animation, a many of the characters look almost identical, especially the ladies, and the comedy villains have less characterization than some inanimate objects. The plot is also a bit too sparse and decompressed. However, and it's always the same 'however', it is very very beautiful and there are moments which elevate it beyond its average.

Oh, Miyazaki! If only the writing were as good as the visuals! Oh, the visuals! The titular character is a bit too muted, and doesn't always look exactly porcine, but it's okay. The high flying airstream of spirit planes is fantastic, as are most of the beautiful shorts of Porco's original red plane. The world of the Adriatic stuns, and the sojourn of Porco in Milan, hiding out from the police while his plane is redesigned and rebuilt is appropriate grimy. It's almost certainly a net positive so far. And, it's excellent that the girl plane designer is built into the plot, but a shame they didn't do something a bit less cliched. At least she didn't really fall for Porco.

Is it possible to get to a final conclusion on 'Porco Rosso'? Once everything is considered, it's somewhere on the clearly good end of the spectrum. The ending is sweet and implicitly resolves the storylines of Porco and the two ladies in his life. If only, if only, the supporting pirates weren't so entirely, stupidly, pathetically stupid and comedic. And if only the dialogue was just a bit better. In the dubbed version, Michael Keaton is spectacular as Porco, with some good and solid backup from the rest of the cast.

Yes, definitely good, but a bit panto-like with the villains. Is there another Miyazaki which will approach even closer? Is there?

To the Quirky Muffin!

Books: The Literary Reflection, XXIV

Here we go again! Welcome back to Book-ville!



'Thank You, Jeeves' (Jeeves And Wooster) (1934) by PG Wodehouse

This is excellent stuff, and with more built into it than was in the coresponding 'Jeeves And Wooster' television episode. There is, in particular a string of three chapter endings that stun you with the comedic turns and backlashes. Could anything more have gone wrong for Bertie Wooster? Could it? He spends half of the book blacked up with shoe polish, being assaulted by his new valet, harrassed by the well-meaning constabulary, and paying for his new love of the banjolele by the absence of Jeeves. It's a wonderul sequence of events, and it's hard to imagine any actual person being able to string it all together. It's not quite up there with the masterpiece that is 'The Code Of The Woosters', but very few novels are. Wodehouse even manages to redeem the pompous Roderick Glossop, egad! I can't write any more without providing coherent spoilers (incoherent spoilers are admissable, after all), and so will stop at this point. Time to go back and start from the beginning with Mr Wooster, it seems.


'Death Of A Doxy' (Nero Wolfe) (1966) by Rex Stout

Much as with 'Some Buried Caesar', I'm still very confused on the Nero Wolfe series. 'Death Of A Doxy' is a straightforwardly (but very well) written crime story, with some unique touches, and is comparatively short. Archie Goodwin continues to narrate and drive the plot while Nero Wolfe himself potters around and thinks in between sessions at the dining table and with his orchids. I suspect this is an excellent novel, and yet... I wish there were a rough edge or two somewhere to make it less perfect. One of my longest-standing biases is that of being a little put off by things which are so glossy and flawless that they becomes inhuman, and this may well have fallen into that hole. The interludes with singer Julia Jaquette and Nero are fascinating, however, as is her ultimate path. She may be as close as we get to an Irene Adler for Mr Wolfe? I can't imagine anyone else calling him 'Big Man' in serious, or song, or jest and getting away with it. Apparently Rez Stout became an octogenarian just during the writing or just after the publication of this one, and you really wouldn't have known. The cold opening, 'en media res' in other words, in particularly solid. Very good. Maybe excellent. Probably excellent.


'Star Trek: Logs Nine And Ten' (Star Trek) (1977-1978) by Alan Dean Foster

Never during reading all these adaptations of 'Star Trek: The Animated Series', have they felt exactly like 'Star Trek', which is perhaps a sign of their accuracy as the animated series never felt that way either. In these last two instalments, Foster massively expands the two episodes 'Bem' and 'The Slaver Weapon'. In moving to this kind of expansion, we get even more crazy stuff. There are agglomerated monsters, symbiotic crowns, mass body swaps, enough Klingons to have a small party, and another prank by Scotty. As with the animated series, the characterisation is very different to the original series, which makes it problematic. Very problematic. Kirk in particular does some very un-Kirk-like things in resolving the major problem in 'Bem' and setting up a devious ploy in 'The Slaver Weapon'. as adaptation of the animated series, this concludes the series and is probably very good. As 'Star Trek' in general, I don't know. Is that wishy-washy enough?

In a big minus, there was a major problem with my copy of 'Logs Nine And Ten', where thirty-something pages were printed twice, the second instances overwriting a part of the story. That is a hideous oversight in the reprint and should be scorned. Scorned! I'm looking at you, Insert Publisher Here! Grrr.


'Sackett's Land' (Sacketts) (1974) by Louis L'Amour

Chronologically first, but published twelfth, 'Sackett's Land' is the prequel to and beginning of L'Amour's planned history of the pioneering American frontier, and is a fairly short and straightforward story of adventuring across the ocean while facing intrigue on the land. In fact, it's a story about many things. There are valuable antique coins, ship battles, Indians (the American kind), alligators, true love, sword fights, elements of intrigue, rough times living wild and more in 'Sackett's Land', and it skims over all those things in a flash. In fact, it feels as if it pays far too little attention to many of its plot elements, as we hop back and forth. One moment our protagonmist Barnabas is marooned amidst enemies, and the next he's saved, only to be threatened again, survive, and so on and so on. It's good, though, and is in fact one of the very first non kiddie books I ever read, although I remembered only the beginning parts, set in the Fens of the United Kingdom.

Let's belabour the point here: It's strange to think that in only one hundred and eighty pages we start with a Fensman discovering some coins, transition through five or six other subplots, voyage to America and back, and establish both a romance and the foundations of the chronologically following books in the series. However, it could have been so much more! The sequel to this novel, which will be read soon, is a much longer and thicker novel so L'Amour could be more elaborate when he wanted. In summary, good but very fast and packed. In many ways, it is difficult to fully evaluate this novel without having read the others in series. Time will tell.


'The Starship Trap' (Star Trek) (1993) by Mel Gilden

Oooh... a 'Star Trek' novel! You can't see it from wherever you may be, but there are a lot of 'Star Trek' novels here, most of which haven't been read for a long long time. 'Trek' was a staple of my reading while growing up, before even seeing much of the original series, but the simplistic and basic writing of quite a few of them can be offputting decades later. As a case in point, 'The Starship Trap' has a plot worthy of being an episode of the show, with a cool science fiction concept at its heart as well as a nicely defined antagonist, but the prose is very plain indeed. Fortunately the concept transcends the style, which itself improves a little as we proceed, and we ultimately get a decent to solid entry into the series. But my, what an episode it would have made! You see, there is this weaponry designer who goes rogue, and he invents a twist in the space-time continuum and starts to...


'Death Of A Ghost' (Campion) (1934) by Margery Allingham

Another excellent Campion story, and another one so similar to the television episodes that it is very difficult to disentangle. In fact, the only real differences are the elimination of a minor character or two and a small tag on the end. It's a very well written book, and highly recommended if you like this series of classical adventures or Golden Age stories in general. Oh, one major change is that there's no Lugg in this original prose version of the story. That's right, NO LUGG! To be fair, he's nowhere near as important in the books as he was in the television series, where Brian Glover made him a kind of treasure. What's it about? Oh, details! Campion becomes embroiled in a murder connected to the unveiling of a long dead artist's latest time released painting. There's a rather vivid sequence where Campion is... Oh, that would be too much. Warning, there are a lot of eccentric artistic types in this story.


O.

Book: 'Volcano Adventure' (Adventure) (1956) by Willard Price

'Volcano Adventure' continues on directly from 'Underwater Adventure', with the 'Lively Lady' being taken over by noted volcanologist Dr Dan Adams, who is intent on doing a survey of the volcanoes of the western Pacific. What impact does this change of director have on the story? Well, it gets very hot very frequently.

One of the major distinguishing features of 'Volcano Adventure', the fourth episode in the 'Adventure' series, is that the mentor figure this time is not exactly reliable. He is in fact prone to mental episodes, and begins to distrust the two Hunts over the course of the novel. He's never an outright antagonist, but for a while he's not a friend either. That is unusual for the series to date, and interesting. Why does he freeze up for minutes on end, wake up screaming on one occasion, and go a bit loco while scuba diving on another? The lack of an overt villain in 'Volcano Adventure' is refreshing, probably because of all the volcano related peril already present. Yes, gentle readers, volcanoes are dangerous. It's also dangerous to punch a tiger shark in the belly, but I think we already knew that. Also, any story with a diving bell trip into the crater of an active volcano is definitely sporting some major adventure credentials.

The mini-tour around the South Seas, and the visit to Japan, is all nicely different too, and there are very few negatives to point out. Hal definitely gets the majority of the page time on this occasion, with younger Roger taking the back seat, but that could turn around in future instalments.

How could Price squeeze any more peril into the following books? How? Having asked that, the next book is 'Whale Adventure', which is definitely set to be the most problematic of the whole series as whaling is not even remotely acceptable any more. I've never read it, have no idea what's in it, and can only prepare for a rough ride.

O.