Books. New Bloggery. Things. Stuff.

I read books!

Namely, "Apache" by Ed Macy, "The Moon's a Balloon" by David Niven and "The Reluctant Jester" by Micheal Bentine.  Well, it was a quiet weekend.

Apache is the real account of an Apache gunship pilot's time in Afghanistan.  As ever with books by Brit veterans, it's written in an unfussy, direct and clear style that either means Mr. Macy had the same ghost writer as Andy McNab or the UK's Armed Forces have a house style.  It is an excellent book, and a challenging read.  If you disagree with the various wars we've been embroiled in, read this book.  If you're a supporter of our Armed Forces, read this book.  Just read the book.  We have a lot to learn from the people who were there.

For me, it reinforced the notion that we're sending some excellent people overseas and we're not getting them all back.

The Moon's a Balloon is the first of David Niven's autobiographical books about his early life and time in Hollywood.  I don't know if David Niven ever played Bertie Wooster, but he should have.  His book, which is as warts and all self critical as Stephen Fry's "Moab is my Washpot", covers his assorted trials and tribulations in and out of Hollywood in the Golden Era.

Why read it?  Quite apart from the nostalgia value, or the historical value, Niven is an excellent raconteur and it's all too easy to spend hours lost in his company marvelling at his good fortune or commiserating with his bad fortune.  

The Reluctant Jester is another autobiography, this time from Michael Bentine who was one of the original Goons but who went on to have fair success in other arenas.  Bentine was a very funny, very original thinker and garnered a reputation for being a fantasist, a teller of tall tales and a bare faced liar.  If this isn't the case he was a contender for Most Fascinating Man on Earth.  If he was a teller of untruths, he did it with considerable panache and style and could have become an unstoppable conman.  I may never find out, but his books are another window onto that period of the mid 20th century that we don't seem to be able to move past.

New Bloggery: I decided to move the writing to WordPress because I can turn that into a storehouse for fiction and go pro with stuff and...err...

So the new URL for fiction is: http://dococcupant.wordpress.com/

Things.  Stuff.  I may have lied about there being things and stuff.