Tag Archives: USA

Enough About Me

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Tufted Duck in the sun

Another day and another sliver of progress. Unlike the first few says of the week progress is slow but moving forwards. The early days of the problem were marked by a tendency to move forward then to slip back during the day. This is not happening now. It’s slow but the slipping back seems to have gone. Unless a miracle happens I think that’s enough about me and my ailments for now.

I’m also going to try to extend the range of my blogging. Most posts seem to be about me these days, and there are plenty of other subjects.

Mandarin Duck – Arnot Hill Park

Like Joe Biden. Remember when he won the election and immediately told the UK he was brought up on his grandmother’s stories of our tyranny in Ireland and we were going to suffer for it? Well, I assumed that his grandmother had suffered at some point in the 20s. Doesn’t look like it. When he won the election the main Irish parts of his family had been in the USA for 170 years. His grandmother was born to parents who had themselves been born in the USA.

He could, I suppose, take comfort from the fact that his Irish family had, since 1921 lived in a free Irish state. Imagine if he had come from a group that still lived under occupation, and still hadn’t had their land back. He’d feel really bad then, I expect. You can see where this is going can’t you? It would be embarrassing to have President lecturing on the evils of repressive government whilst it had unsettled claims from people it had stolen land off, wouldn’t it?

Mallard – Arnot Hill Park

And what if land was still being stolen in 1954? Or 1973?

Actually, he’s a politician, so he probably wouldn’t feel bad.

We were actually taking about this in the shop a few weeks ago. At what point do you stop hating people for the past and try to work with them for a better future?

Gadwall drake

It’s ducks today. I had trouble finding them, then realised they are mainly listed under species rather than just “duck”. They are in descending order of colour. gadwall are actually identified by their lack of obvious identifying features. Poor things.

Book Review – Deep South

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Deep South

Paul Theroux

Paperback: 441 pages

Publisher: Penguin (3 Mar. 2016)

ISBN-10: 0241969352

ISBN-13: 978-0241969359

I saw this in the shop and thought this would be a good chance to learn something about the southern states of the USA. After reading quite a few crime novels based in the South I thought I ought to learn something about it.

I was expecting poverty, religion and racism and that’s what I got.

The religion, and its role in society was quite exotic for someone in the UK. For most of us, it doesn’t play a big part in our lives, and I’ve certainly never had my hair cut by a man who has his own church. I was hoping that he would visit a church that used snakes, but he didn’t. He didn’t eat much barbecue either, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

The poverty, on the other hand, is discussed in terms that seem fairly universal. Loss of traditional industry, lack of education, poor housing, production moved overseas – all of it could be true of many places.

It’s more interesting when he discusses the growing trend for African-American families to move into farming, and the various routes they have taken. Apart from that you can’t really tell you are in the South. Conversations in development agencies, for instance, seem to run along the same lines whether you are in the UK or the USA.

There was plenty on racism, including discussion of the Civil Rights movement and the current situation, which doesn’t seem to have moved on as much as you would have thought. I’m not going to develop this discussion because there is too much scope for putting my foot in it.  Just let’s say that it gave me food for thought.

To sum up, there’s a lot to this book, but while it gave me much to think about, it also seemed to leave a lot undone. It seems too long, partly due to digressions about previous travels and Southern literature, and partly due to repetition of things like Gun Shows, but in some areas it just didn’t go deep enough.

Not a bad book, but an unsatisfactory one. Would I recommend it? Probably not.

Sorry to be so negative for two reviews in a row, that’s just how it is.