I enjoy his writing, and think The Silver Castle to be a wonderful novel, far surpassing Brrm! Brrm!, which itself is excellent.

It would seem that James is a polymath, and here he recounts his time as in the Cambridge Footlights, plus his appreciation of French and Italian language, literature, culture, and tourism; films, film-making, and Cambridge cinemas; and beginnings as a writer and poet for Granta. Even with formal study of language and literature under my belt, and a fairly wide-ranging appetite for English writing, I was left fairly pummelled by all the references to other works. I wasn’t expecting May Week to be a round-up of Japanese game shows, or current satire, or travelogues (all of which he has made into programmes for British TV), but something a little more accessible. Perhaps having it as a commuting book didn’t help, reading it in staccato form, but this did allow me some time in between readings to digest some of the content.

Well-written, but terse.

That is one of my goals for this site – to begin the discipline of writing 250 words (on any subject) per day, at least 4 days a week. I have no pretensions that any book I eventually write will have the same content as this blog, but if at least I’m in the habit of writing, then that surely will be one less hurdle on the road to publication. Am rather sobered in reading Gerry McGovern’s statistic that Printed content represents 0.003 percent of all content published annually in the world, but I am striving to equal AA Milne’s word length by the end of the year.

Hawks’s travelogue is largely witty and sometimes poignant (particularly his increasing awareness of the things he had previously taken for granted, such as heating and lighting on demand), but I disagree with The Times that the book is “extremely funny”. I’ve read “extremely funny” books, and would probably number “Round Ireland with a Fridge” amongst them, but not this one. There were some genuinely comedic moments, particularly in the culture-clash with Iulian the translator, but if it hadn’t been for the relationship he strikes up with his host family, the book would have been reduced to mocking Eastern Europe because it’s not London.

His description of checking into an hotel in Moldova, and its state of décor was strangely reminiscent of when Richard, Andrew and I checked into one in neighbouring Romania. They didn’t seem at all troubled by our request for a room with three single beds (which surprisingly they had), but if we’d asked for a bathroom painted a colour other than Tartrazine orange, they would have struggled.

Annoyingly for a book costing £7.99, (or £6.39 on amazon), proof-reading seems to be sorely neglected in the second half of the manuscript. Some of Hawks’s most amusing observations are on his difficulties on communicating with the Moldovans, and the peculiarities of the Romanian language course he purchased (which had space for various circus-related jobs, but not for basic medical ailments). Often he resorts to French in order to communicate at all, so it was annoying to see typographical errors in English, and language errors in French (jeus rather than jeux for football matches).

Still, I was willing to forgive a few problematic pages for a book which has helped me locate Moldova (and Transnistria) on a map, and also bring back memories of a week’s holiday in Romania in 1998.

I grew up on the Good News version, also known as the TEV (Today’s English Version), and then switched to the NIV (New International Version) at around 16. It served me well, especially the Study Bible version, with a monster concordance and good footnotes, but I was increasingly having conversations about some of the mis-renderings. (No longer the “nearly infallible version” I often heard it dubbed as a student).

Alan Jacobs (Professor of English at Wheaton College) has written a very interesting essay on the process of the translation, and some of the pitfalls of previous versions. I enjoyed his comment that the ESV is “the best thing to come out of a committee meeting in quite a while”.

There’s a comprehensive suite of search options available here

Steiner won an Iron Cross saving Colonel Brandt’s life, thereby winning the loyalty of Brandt (James Mason). Still, his distaste both for war and his soldier’s uniform causes difficulty with even the most supportive officer, and especially with Stransky, newly-arrived from a posting in the South of France, and desperately seeking an Iron Cross for himself.

Steiner repeatedly chooses loyalty to his unit, and leads them in the face of great odds, overwhelming bombardment, and openly-hostile superiors.

It’s an amazing, gripping, disturbing film.

Essentially, it’s a swashbuckling epic which harks back to an earlier era of film-making (although one without CGI graphics). The film itself is set in the 18th century (and therefore towards the end of the Pirate era), around Port Royal, and as you would expect, the scenery and backdrops are magnificent.

This is obviously a high-budget film, with big production values (directed by Gore Verbinsky, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer). It doesn’t seem overblown, but that is perhaps because I’m in the target-market of viewers, being reminded of piratical adventures I used to watched aged 7 – 9 (incidentally, too young to view this 12-certificate film).

I believe Johnny Depp was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, the erstwhile Captain of “the Black Pearl”, and I can certainly see why. I’ve admired his versatility as an actor for many years (and am reminded of a review of Benny & Joon which speculated what Chaplin would have been like with Johnny Depp rather than Robert Downey Jr in the lead role).

Geoffrey Rush was well cast as Barbossa, the leader of the cursed pirates, and his make up was so convincing, that it wasn’t until I watched the additional features, that the penny dropped, and I realised that I’d enjoyed his roles as Walsingham in Elizabeth and David Helfgott in Shine

Swordplay was suitably epic; sets were large; explosions were fiery. Overall, a very enjoyable film I shall return to.

The site and the book (“Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure”) describe what a Googlewhack is in quite some detail. Essentially, it’s inputting two search terms (not in quotes) to Google, which yield exactly one result.
Two other points to note:

1. The words must be underlined (which confirms that they are words recognised in dictionary.com).
2. The results page must not be a dictionary or wordlist itself.

Some current whacks featuring on the Whack stack are:
isopropanol warthog; subcutaneously telephonist; bathysphere transmogrification

So, armed with only a degree in linguistics, a passion for language, a quiet night at work, and access to Google, I thought I’d see what I could come up with.

Avuncular cubism – 18
Kleptomaniac hippopotamus – 69
Sesquipedalian daedalus – 5
Hippopotamus pantechnicon – 28
Egregious oligarchy – 1070
Toothsome weathervane – 5
Logarithmic baboon – 264
Overarching pantechnicon – 19
Brusque weathervane – 16
Tickling pantechnicon – 5
Trapezoid nepotism – 17
Toothsome epistemology – 8
Garrulous weathervane – 11
Pendulous sesquipedalia – 2
Toothsome epicentre – 5
Eschatological baboon – 32 !!!
Baboon renewal – 920 ???
Eschatological drainpipe – 3
Eschatological rhythm – 6
Eschatological weathervane- 4
Eschatological haematology – 1. Check Eschatological haematology in Google, or go to the Oxford University Gazette page which contains it.

Buoyed by my success, it was but a hop, skip and a jump to find two more within twenty minutes:

Kleptomaniac triskaidekaphobia Check Kleptomaniac triskaidekaphobia in Google, or go to theSyd the Kyd page which contains it.

Trapezoid lychgate: Check Trapezoid lychgate in Google or go to the Herefordshire.gov page which contains it.

Ah well, it filled a whole hour, and satiated my need to search for any more whacks. However, the book was extremely well-written, and very funny to boot. Highly recommended.