Tag Archives: writing

Inch by Inch – – –

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Jack just makes it in time – –

One of my early memories is of being given a new jotter (exercise book) at the beginning of each school year when I was attending primary (elementary) school. Some pages were plain, some were lined and some were graph paper. The cover was blue but it’s the back I particularly remember!

On the back cover were various lists of measurements – all incomprehensible imperial ones!

Pounds, shillings and pence – 20 shillings in a pound, 12 pennies in a shilling, 4 farthings in a penny – –

Just to confuse further there were guineas! 21 shillings!!

I won’t get into the slang terms – a bob, half a bob, half a crown, a tanner – –

Then there was linear measurement –

Furlongs, chains, miles, yards, feet and inches – –

I was so used to feet and inches that, when I eventually started teaching apprentice painters (who had grown up with decimals) I had real difficulty converting.

Also, there was capacity –

Gallons, quarts, pints, half pints – –

Paint cans went from gallons to 5 litres, but when I moved to the US I found that an American gallon is smaller than an imperial one – –

Finally –

There were weights as well – tons, hundredweights, stones, pounds and ounces.

We were required to recite all this stuff regularly and be tested on our knowledge!

Eventually decimalization and the metric system arrived and everything became much simpler. But for some reason wallpaper continued to be 21 inches wide and 7 yards long – – –

I wondered why ‘jotter’ also crops up when you are ‘given your jotters’ – in other words fired/sacked/laid off. So I asked my friends on Facebook – that will be a different post – – –

The Monday Book – Bob Dylan, Performing Artist, 1960-1973

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Monday Book review by Jack Beck

Bob Dylan, Performing Artist, 1960-1973, The Early Years. Paul Williams (1990 Omnibus Press)

Version 1.0.0

Regular readers of this blog will already know that I’m a big fan of Dylan and his music.

This book is both interesting and frustrating. It’s well written and researched and Williams gives due credit to other writers who have covered the same subject and time period. But the more I read, the more it seemed to be as much about the author as about Bob Dylan.

It wasn’t until I got almost to the end that I discovered that Williams had been a rookie cub reporter on a local newspaper in the early 1970s and was able to interview Dylan. He says that Bob was relaxed and straightforward and not doing his usual enigmatic and obscure stuff. That’s fine, but I’m not sure it necessarily gives you any special insights!

At various points Williams puts Dylan on a level with Shakespeare, James Joyce, Beethoven and Picasso. I think that might just be over-egging things a bit.

The book is written chronologically as the title suggests and Williams has certainly covered the period in depth, including both commercial and bootleg recordings as well as un-recorded live performances. But it’s in between this valuable information that he lets loose with his personal and (I think) overblown analysis.

Despite all the careful research I did discover one surprising omission. Williams spend a fair bit of time on Dylan’s 1966 world tour which ended in the UK. He lists the various concerts around the country but misses Edinburgh. I know it’s missing because I was there and have an excellent recording of that night!

So – a bit of a mixed bag, but for died in the wool fans well worth a read!