A Review By Keith Smith

From a motorway service area to her ambivalent relationship with religion, Wendy Cope covers a wide range of experience in her new collection. Her mordant humour and formal ingenuity are in evidence, even as she remembers the wounds of a damaging childhood; and in poems about love and the inevitable problems of aging she achieves an intriguing blend of sadness and joy. Two very different sets of commissioned poems round off a remarkable volume, whose opening poem sounds clearly the profound note of compassion which underlies the whole.

Personally I’m not a great reader of poetry, a lot of which I think is poor or pretentious. I make exceptions for brilliant poetry like ‘The Rhyme Of  The Ancient Mariner’ or Dylan Thomas.  But Faber gave me this book to look at and I was taken. Unassuming, clever, deep and funny by turns, this is poetry that everyman can read and enjoy. What more can I say? I do recommend it.

A Review By Keith Smith

Englishness is an ancient and powerful concept, but no one seems sure exactly what it means in the twenty-first century. In exploring our national identity, Tony Thorne has compiled a fascinating compendium of the hundred words and phrases that have become the cornerstones of modern English, and have been used – sometimes deliberately, but often inadvertently – to stake out our common ground, to define what makes us essentially English….

For some while I was reluctant to pick up this book. After all there are lots of great books around on the English language and its quirks and meanings ( a lot of them on our shelves). However, I’m very glad I did as Tony Thorne, as director of  the Slang and New Language Archive, is an expert on how language betrays a lot more about us and our perceptions than we might believe, or like! This is quite definitely the sort of book you can’t put down. It is endlessly fascinating. Here’s an example. At the back of our minds we know that personal  names are suffused with meaning. Tony Thorne in the section headed ‘Kevin’ lays it all out for us.The eponymous Kevin or Kev is now one of the synonyms for the new feckless underclass, the tracksuit-, gold chain- and trainer- wearing ‘chav’ or ’scally’.  A Kev is according to one contemporary Thorne quotes ‘a twat in a Burberry cap from a housing estate’, and his female counterpart is a ‘Shaz’ (from ‘Sharon’). As he says this is the English love of minute differentiations of status and class in a new incarnation, and he then goes on to ask what the difference is between a Kevin, a Darren and a Trevor, as well as looking at the history of such ‘representative’ names..Billies and Betties and Doris’s and son on. But what really took the biscuit as far as I was concerned was his unravelling of the Churchill Insurance Group’s survey of car owners which demonstrated that the truth does back up fiction and Darrens drive downmarket Escorts (as do Waynes and Traceys). And the typical Mondeo Man is ( somewhat unbelievably ) Rodney, Laurence or Julian. Not content with that Thorne leads us on to another piece of research (this time by Barclays) which shows that Susans and Davids are more likely to earn over £100k each year, and another piece of evidence that reveals the names which strike terror into teachers… Paige being the main culprit in females and Ashley in males. All brilliant stuff and calculated to make us think even more about the words we use. Don’t miss this book…it’s a gem.

A Review By Keith Smith

The story of Britain’s colourful maritime past seen through the changing fortunes of the Cornish port of Falmouth. Within the space of few years, during the 1560s and 1570s, a maritime revolution took place in England that would contribute more than anything to the transformation of the country from a small rebel state on the fringes of Europe into a world power. Until then, it was said, there was only one Englishman capable of sailing across the Atlantic.

‘The Levelling Sea’ uses the story of Falmouth’s spectacular rise and fall to explore wider questions about the sea and its place in history and imagination. Drawing on his own deep connection with Cornwall, award-winning author Philip Marsden writes unforgettably about the power of the sea and its ability to produce greed on a piratical scale, dizzying corruption, and grand and tragic aspirations.

I loved this little book from the moment I delighted in the cover. What a joy to own and handle. And if you like Cornwall as much as I do ( and who could not?) then this book will remind you why. Since you are never more than ten minutes from the sea, the sea plays a dominant role in Cornwall’s history, and that history we learn about through Marsden’s careful researches, travels and a telling which never fails to intrigue, amaze and uplift. His depiction of Falmouth’s rise and fall and rise is tied in to his deep connection with the town and its estuary and his own hankering for the sea. If you don’t know your halyards from your foremasts, you soon will. Highly recommended….

A Review By Keith Smith

The twentieth century has been called ‘the American Century’. Not since the days of the Roman emperors has there been such a succession of rulers holding the fate of the world in their hands. Now, award-winning biographer Nigel Hamilton gives us the lives of the twelve men, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, who presided over America’s imperial fortunes – the good, the bad and the truly awful. How did these American Caesars reach the White House? What were the challenges they faced when they got there and how did they meet them? And who were these men in their private lives? Compulsively readable, packed with unforgettable characters as well as stories, lessons and revelations, “American Caears” is essential reading.

I really enjoyed reading this update as it were of  ‘The Twelve Caesars’ by Suetonius. Each essay on one of the Presidents is divided into The Road To The White House, The White House, and Private Life and very well this works too. The essays themselves are rich with detail and with background and observations that continually intrigue and bring to light things which I certainly did not know. Your views change, and one of the more startling conclusions you might draw is how little in control of things most of the Presidents actually were. Frightening stuff.

Veronica Cecil was twenty-five years old when her husband was offered a job at a large multi-national company in the Congo. Filled with enthusiasm for their new life, the couple and their eleven-month-old son set off for an African adventure. Very soon, however, Veronica began to realise that life in the Congo was not what she had imagined.

Food shortages were an everyday occurrence; she felt like an outsider at the club in Leopoldville, which only the Belgians and other expats frequented; and flickers of violence were starting to erupt everywhere. Six months later Veronica and her family were sent to Elizabetha, a remote palm oil plantation on the banks of the Congo River. But even here paradise didn’t last.

Civil war broke out, and the rebels captured the neighbouring town of Stanleyville and took all the whites hostage. Despite the fact that Veronica was on the verge of giving birth, the situation was so dangerous that she and her toddler had to be evacuated. Leaving her husband and all their possessions behind, she and her son began on a two-day journey through the jungle.

But on the plane back to Leopoldville, the first labour pains began…Praise for “Letters From Abroad”, written and read by Veronica Cecil, BBC Radio 4: “. ..absolutely enthralling.” (”Daily Telegraph”). “Blending her personal memories with the wider picture, Miss Cecil effortlessly packs more into her quarter hour than many an hour long documentary…” (”Daily Mail”).