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The Monday Book

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I Should Have Stayed Home: The Worst Trips of the Great Writers – Roger Rapoport

I should have.jpg

Jack is doing the Monday book this week (Wendy will do the Wednesday post)

I hardly read novels these days, much preferring history, biography or memoirs. This collection of short stories by fifty well known authors, most of them travel writers, falls into the memoir category I suppose.

I’m sure everyone reading this has experienced a ‘journey from hell’ at some point. Rapoport was able to persuade these well-known authors to contribute their particular ones. Some are funny and others are truly scary!

The idea originated with a student essay competition run in conjunction with a travel writers’ conference and the winning entry is included here.

Among the more famous contributors are Paul Theroux and Barbara Kingsolver and this brings me to the only problem I really have with the collection. Obviously there are great many different writing styles and some appealed to me more than others.

There are stories that focus on the sheer discomfort of certain modes of transport such as a hair-raising ride through the Egyptian desert in an ancient bus with an even more ancient driver. Others are more about culture clash and these tend to be more poignant and reflective.

Perhaps my favorite was about a stay in a supposed hotel that turned out to be a collection of huts that were infested – first of all with cockroaches and then with lizards that ate the cockroaches.

The book held my attention all the way through, though, and I can definitely recommend it as a good bed-time read that can be dipped into a few stories at a time over succeeding nights.

Maybe 4 stars out of 5.

A Chiel’s Amang ye Takin Notes –

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I guess Jack should just make this the Thursday guest post – he’s late again – – –

I make every effort not to comment on whatever stramash is exercising the lave on FaceBook at the minnit – but –

It seems to me there’s no defense for a mature man making eyes at a fourteen year old girl. The argument that some fourteen year olds look ‘older’ takes no account of emotional maturity or experience of life. It’s just plain wrong!

This subject came up recently on a long running BBC political discussion program called ‘Question Time’ and one of the audience asked of the panel – “why do I, a normal young man, not engage in these kind of activities, while celebrities and politicians do?”. One of the panel (a Conservative Party MP) responded rather too quickly and truthfully – “because you don’t yet have power”. He quickly tried to backtrack but that comment has gone viral!

I think this gets right to the heart of matters. This isn’t really about sex or the attractiveness of a young girl. It’s simply about the exercise of power – I do this because I can, and have enough power to get away with it.

Which brings us to another matter. How do they get away with it?

The powerful look after each other and always circle the wagons when any attempt is made to confront them. There’s a long catalogue of these kind of things having gone on for decades in the UK and, almost every time, any investigation is dragged out until the culprit has died and can no longer be cross-examined.

Finally – the way that Mr. Moore’s behavior has been excused by some so-called Christians is chilling in the extreme. It amounts to a recruiting call for lecherous older men to head to their nearest evangelical Church and start eyeing up whatever young lassies are ‘available’!

I recommend watching this – http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-brightbill-roy-moore-evangelical-culture-20171110-story.html