Sweet Sorrow

David Roberts' Sweet Sorrow is the latest in his Verity Browne and Edward Corinth mysteries. I think it is probably one of the best as well. I wasn't impressed with Something Wicked; No More Dying - the last one - was good, but this is even better. Set in 1939 just before the outbreak of war, it includes cameo appearances by Leonard and Virginia Woolf and Dylan Thomas. Verity is waiting to be sent abroad as foreign correspondent for her paper and Edward is waiting to be told what the Foreign Office and MI5 want him to do - which may or may not include escorting the Duke of Windsor to a place of safety.

In the midst of all this Verity and Edward have just got married and bought a house in a small village in Sussex only to find that violent death has followed them. Byron Gates a philandering poet is murdered with a sword. Edward spends half the book saying he's not going to investigate the murder while actually following various leads. The dialogue is excellent and it seems as though the author has really got to know his main characters over the course of the series. The early niggles of married life where each person misunderstands the other and over reacts to them is brilliantly done. The background is really good as well - politics, the BBC and the 1930s literary scene. Good reading

Opinions

If you look for them there are a lot of strange discussions happening on Amazon in the form of comments on reviews. A 'guy' calling himself James Uscroft 'The Voice in the Wilderness', posted an extremely long review of the boxed set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on which various people had posted comments mainly disagreeing with what was said. Fair enough you would have thought - after all reviews are simply people's opinions of that book, film or whatever. I have not seen any of Buffy so I'm not really in a position to comment on the review but I was intrigued by the comments which degenerated basically into a slanging match.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RRTOAEWPGVDW9/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RRTOAEWPGVDW9

Out of curiosity I skimmed through this individual's other reviews which included one of the boxed set of Keeping up Appearances - the BBC comedy series. I think this series is very true to life and I have met people like all the characters in it. I agree that the whole thing would collapse if anyone told Hyacinth what they thought of her. But this chap James seems to have missed the point of the whole thing. We're all hamstrung by people like Hyacinth because we're too polite to tell her what we're really thinking. To me that's one of the things that makes a society civilised; it's not what is wrong with English society as this guy seems to think. He is a fan of the unemployed Onslow who to him is a true working class philosopher. This comment alone probably says more about the reviewer than the programme.

I posted what I felt to be a fairly mild comment that I liked being English and that not telling people what you think of them makes a civilised society. To which he replied that my argument was so flawed it was hardly worth responding to, but then he went on to respond at length.

This started me thinking about facts and opinions. I wouldn't ever say my opinion is the only correct one to hold. Everyone's opinion is just that - their opinion. There's nothing right or wrong about it. 'I disagree with everything you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it.' Is the world getting less tolerant of the opinions of others? It seems so to me.

It's Sunday and monsoon weather

It's dry at the moment but about 7.00am this morning it was just like a monsoon, though I suppose it wasn't quite as hot!

I haven't yet read the Sunday papers online, but I heard on the BBC News Channel that Fern Britton is in trouble with the Mail On Sunday for not saying that she had weight loss surgery. Why are we so focused on women's weight? You don't ever hear similar comments made about men - with the exception perhaps of that annual rush to try and get pictures of the leaders of the main political parties in their swimming shorts. Again you rarely hear comments about the way men in the limelight dress - David Beckham's famous sarong being the exception. It's very much double standards in my opinion.

Currently reading Sue Gee's 'Reading in Bed' - old age and the educated middle classes and Sharon Owens' 'Revenge of the Wedding Planner' - which is starting to annoy me and I may not finish it. I have 'The Morville Hours' by Katherine Swift and Veronica Heley's 'False Picture' to read next amongst others.

Off to trawl the papers and then chicken for tea - not sure about dessert yet