Tag Archives: Ian Rankin

Still got it

Just back from the Rhythm Festival.

But how to describe it?

  • It’s where I go to feel young and clean shaven (compared to the rest of the crowd).
  • It’s where you look at the stage and say: “I thought he was dead ages ago.”
  • It’s where a blues band announces that the bass player has had a stroke, lost the power of speech except for swearing, but will sing the next number anyway. (Not good.)
  • It’s a lot better than I’m making it sound so far.
  • And it’s where you find out if past greats still have it… Or not. (And you meet the next wave too.)

S0 – Who has still got it? Continue reading

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Exit Music

Rebus. (As played by Ken Stott.) Looks pissed off. Perhaps he's contemplating his imminent departure from the job?

Synchronicity? Serendipity? Or an unfortunate coincidence?

I’ve been working for a large organisation for many years, doing all sorts of stuff in different areas. But now, I’m a few weeks away from finally leaving. It feels like a big deal. A big change for me.

It so happens I’m reading Exit Music by Ian Rankin at the moment. The main character is an Edinburgh-based Detective Inspector called Rebus. (Sure, many/most of you will already know that, but there might be someone who doesn’t.) It’s one of a series of novels with Rebus as the central character. They’re very good.

But the point is this: In Exit Music, the story takes place over Rebus ‘s final week in the police force. His impending retirement hangs over everything like a dirty cloud threatening to burst – over his attitude to colleagues and his job, his thoughts of legacy and other players’ attitudes to him.

So I’m worried that it’s exactly the wrong thing for me to be reading right now. It has passages like this:

That was that, then. End of the line, end of the job. These past weeks, he’d been trying so hard not to think about it – throwing himself into other work, any other work… For three decades now this job of his had sustained him, and all it had cost him was his marriage and a slew of friendships and shattered relationships.

Bit depressing. And then there’s this:

‘Just one last thing.’ His next three words were spaced evenly. ‘You … are … history.’

‘What I want you to do, Rebus, is crawl away from here and tick off the days on the calendar.’

Obviously none of those invitations to be maudlin have the slightest effect on me at all. I’m marginally less crumpled than the picture above. And the outlook here is resolutely sunny. Oh yes.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of rebuses. Here’s one that was prepared earlier.

Not only does it predate Ken Stott, but also that unfortunate interlude involving the otherwise fine John Hannah.  Scroll down below it for a surprising (if true) fact about Ken Stott.

This hieroglyphic puzzle, or rebus, is dated 1811. Go to the Puzzle Museum website to solve it. Click on the picture.

Apparently Ken Stott used to be in a band called Keyhole, members of which later went on to form the Bay City Rollers. Narrow escape there, Ken. On the one hand massive stardom and record sales. On the other, they were awful and legal dodginess followed. They were awful, weren’t they?

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Favourite books (as of today)

If I thought too much about this my head would explode, so, as if leaping over the alley between two rooftops five floors up, I don’t pause and…

1. A Ride on the Whirlwind (African Writers Series)Sipho Sepamla (Fiction – tales of a revolutionary cell in apartheid South Africa.)

2. A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople – From the Hook of Holland to the Middle DanubePatrick Leigh Fermor (A memoir of his eighteen-year-old self walking from the Hook of Holland to a bridge over the Danube between Slovakia and Hungary in 1933. The next part of his journey to Constantinople is described in the sequel, Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland – The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates.)

3. Lucky Jim (Penguin Modern Classics)Kingsley Amis (Fiction – the funniest book ever)

4. E: A NovelMatt Beaumont (Fiction – a clever concept, written entirely in emails, very funny with it. Sequels include The e Before Christmas and E Squared – though the idea is getting less and less fresh.)

5. You are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the ImaginationKatharine Harmon (A wonderful collection of maps of the mind, imagination, the world, heaven, hell and other points west. Just a gorgeous book to hold.)

6. The Forging of a Rebel – Arturo Barea (Autobiography – this is a trilogy, so is it cheating to include it? The three volumes are The Forge [ The Forging of a Rebel Book 1 ] (Flamingo), The Track (Flamingo) and The Forging of a Rebel – The Clash – childhood in Madrid and Castile, action with the Spanish army in the Rif War in Morocco, marriage and children, and finally his part in the Spanish Civil War.)

7. Ulster (A Penguin special) – The Sunday Times Insight Team (Reportage/History – an account of the outbreak in the late 1960s of the most recent “Troubles” in Ireland. As a “child of the Troubles”, this book made a big impression on me when I read it as a young ‘un. And while we’re on the subject, isn’t the “Troubles” an odd term to use to describe periods of general mayhem, localised civil war, military curfew, murder gangs roaming the streets, and widespread fear and loathing. It’s on a par with that other useful phrase – “a wee bit of bother” – as in: “Oh, I’d suggest you take the other road this evening, there’s been a wee bit of bother over beyond.” The WBB a euphemism for, say, the blowing into a ditch of a passing armoured personnel carrier and the killing of those inside. But moving right along…)

8. The Blue TangoEoin McNamee (His imagined version of the real life murder of Patricia Curran in 1952. It was the main pre-Troubles crime celebre in Northern Ireland, never satisfactorily solved. He’s done another interesting version of the death/killing of Princess Diana, called 12:23: Paris. 31st August 1997, but I prefer The Blue Tango.)

9. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945Tony Judt (History – Post World War Two history of Europe.)

9 1/2. For Whom the Bell TollsErnest Hemingway (Fiction – you may have heard of this Spanish Civil War tale.)

10. Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for AfricaDambisa Moyo (Well argued polemic – She lays out the reasons the West should suspend development aid to Africa, for the good of Africa. She’s Zambian. I bought the book in Durban, South Africa.)

Phew! I was worried for a moment that I wouldn’t fit it all into a top ten. And appallingly I have failed to include anything by Andrea Camillieri, Henning Mankell, Roddy Doyle, Maurice Leitch, Brian Moore, Chuck Palahniuk, MJ Hyland, Philip Kerr, Iain Banks, Michael Dibdin, Martin Cruz Smith, Andrew Marr or Ian Rankin. Or any poetry at all. Disgusting.

And that previous paragraph means I’ve cheated three times. Rubbish.

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