The Good Life – Dorian Amos

On April 28, 2020April 24, 2020 By bookramblings142In ReviewsLeave a comment

20200428 The Good Life

I have written about The Yukon sixteen months ago whilst reviewing some of the poetry of Robert Service and that also included some of my photographs of my time there in June 1995 with a friend paddling along the Yukon river from Whitehorse the same as Dorian and his wife Bridget would do four years later almost to the day. The difference is that Dave and I were doing it for fun and would leave Yukon by the end of the month, Dorian and Bridget were aiming to live there and had no idea how they were actually going to do this. It truly is wilderness, The Yukon Territory is 186,272 miles² (482,443 km²) which makes it big enough to fit in continental European countries Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark together with room to slot in Cyprus. In all that space only 35,874 people live there (2016 census) of which 25,085 live in the capital, Whitehorse. The next biggest place is Dawson (pop. 1.375) and that is where Dave and Bridget were heading.

The book starts in 1998 in Polperro, a pretty coastal town in Cornwall, England, which is heavily dependent on tourism and fishing for its local economy. Dorian had a shop selling his pictures called Amosart and Bridget was a newly qualified psychiatric nurse, life was finally becoming easier after years of study and hard work building up a viable business, but Dorian was becoming bored and longed for some adventure in his life. Then a few months later, over an evening meal of fish and chips.

I heard her sigh “I’m sick of this shit” and I sat up with heart pounding. “Are you?” I said. “We can make a change you know.” Bridge looked at me in away she had only started to do after qualifying as a psychiatric nurse. I took the plunge and told her about my now overwhelming urge for adventure.

When I’d finished and slumped back into my chair, she said “if you think about something too much, you just talk yourself out of it and never do it. We are only here once. Let’s go get some action! Can you pass the salt please?”

Six months later Dorian was on his way to Canada, chosen mainly as they had relatives there so could get help with choosing where they wanted to be. Bridget was to follow four months after when her contract finished. The one practical thing they had done in the meantime was take a week long course on woodlore and bushcraft with survival expert Ray Mears but as he says in his introduction to the book

If I’d known then what Dorian and Bridget had in mind. I would certainly have advised further tuition in bushcraft, pointed them at expert canoe coaches and a host of other instructors.

However ignorance is bliss.

Soon after arrival in Canada Dorian purchased a truck which he nicknamed Pricey, not because it cost a lot of money but the repair bills certainly did, and started to accumulate items needed to exist in the wilderness but on a very tight budget. This meant that as tents were expensive he bought canvas to make his own and soon discovered why tents were so expensive. He also bought a dog called Boris partly as a companion and partly to protect Bridget and himself from wild animals, something that Boris proved many times over the coming months and years that he was incapable of, being more likely to hide behind them if any animals approached, assuming that he woke up anyway. Dorian writes with self deprecating humour regarding their travails in the wild open Canadian countryside and their total lack of preparedness. The trip up the Yukon after Bridget had joined him showed just how wild the country was and how much they had to learn, for example to avoid having to live on soup they were carrying with them they really needed to go fishing but neither of them had ever fished and despite buying the equipment didn’t know how to go about catching anything. The passages describing their fishing attempts are really funny and you feel their elation when weeks later they finally catch something much to their own surprise.

After getting to Dawson they turned back and explored the possibilities of living by one of the thousands of lakes closer to civilisation but found that these were already inhabited or were the play areas of people from the nearby towns so eventually decided that Dawson was the place for them. This time Bridget would go on ahead and get settled and a job whilst Dorian would stay at Bridget’s relatives and get a job there to pay for much needed repairs to Pricey and get some more equipment. Eventually the two are together in Dawson, or at least on either side of the river as they eventually found a plot to build a cabin on opposite the town so whilst Bridget stayed in Dawson working as a waitress then as a support person for pregnant women, Dorian tried to build a cabin.

I won’t say any more about how this goes except that as you can imagine building a home from scratch when you have never attempted anything like this before, in a freezing Yukon winter (minus 20 degrees is a warm day) , on your own, largely in the dark as days are short that time of year was not a simple task. The book is full of details as to how they get along and amazingly they not only survive but thrive and Dorian is good at describing a scene so that it is easy to visualise.

The book was published by Eye Books who seem to specialise in first time authors, especially with stories to tell like this one and whilst looking to see if this book was still available found that Dorian has written a follow up where he gets ‘gold fever’ and I’ve no doubt that it is a funny as his first.

Mathematics in the Time of the Pharaohs – Richard J Gillings

On April 21, 2020April 20, 2020 By bookramblings142In ReviewsLeave a comment

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There are four extant sources for this book, the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll (EMLR), the Reisner Papyri (RP), the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (MMP) and the most important The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP) which was actually a training manual for scribes. Because it is there to teach this final papyrus document is crucial to our understanding of how the ancient Egyptians performed their calculations. This document along with the EMLR are in the British Museum in London, the RP is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts whilst the MMP is in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, as you would expect from its name. Gillings wrote his book in 1971 and one or two errors have since been noted in the mathematical press as further studies have been made of the four sources and almost fifty years have passed since he wrote it, but these are largely technical and the book is mainly correct especially in its overview as to how ancient Egyptians calculated and is pretty comprehensive. Having said that it is definitely not a book for the layman, it is pretty solid mathematics and I would suggest that there is still a gap in the market for a simpler presentation which would introduce those with a curiosity in the subject to more easily come to some understanding as to how this worked.

Ancient Egyptian mathematics was largely overlooked and dismissed by scholars as simplistic especially when compared to that of ancient Greece but that overlooked the fact that it was more than capable of calculating the dimensions of the pyramids. For instance if you want a pyramid 139m high (the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza) just how big a base do you need to start with? It has also ensured that they still haven’t fallen down thousands of years after construction. Also the Egyptians had a large empire, so built irrigation canals, large granaries and temples, and of course had a comprehensive tax system to pay for all this so they must have been highly capable at least in the field of applied mathematics and engineering.

But let’s start at the beginning with the hieroglyphic representation of numbers, one is simply a vertical line, two is two of these and so on until you have nine lines drawn together to represent nine. Now this is easy and like all tally marks rapidly becomes unwieldy so you need symbols to indicate larger numbers and the earlier forms of these are shown below. I love the symbol for a million which appears to be the scribe throwing his hands in the air as if to say wow what a big number, what do I do with this?

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In fact the papyrus scrolls were written in hieratic script which is sort of cursive hieroglyphic and is much more difficult to read and it is also important to note that they wrote right to left just as in modern Arabic so to our way of looking at it you would see the units first, then the tens, hundreds etc. There is a quick way of remembering this as animals or birds used in hieroglyphic writing always look towards the direction the writer. In the scrolls we have available to modern study addition and subtraction are regarded as so simple as to not need to show any working out which is unfortunate as this means we don’t actually know how they did it, you just get the required sum and then the answer. However everything beyond that is included and it should be understood that the ancient Egyptians managed their entire means of calculation by merely being able to multiply and divide by two and for reasons that are too complex to go into in this blog they also had the 2/3 times table (usually written down rather than memorised) and used this so extensively that when they needed to find a third of a number they would first get two thirds of it and then halve the answer.

So how did they multiply? Well the example given in the book is for multiplying 7 by 13 and this was done as follows. Start by writing two columns, the first of which has a 1 in it and the second has one of the numbers to be multiplied (this is the second example in the book as I think it is better to understand than the first). Under each number double the figure above until doing so in the column starting with one you would have a number larger than the number you are trying to multiply.

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Simply adding up the values opposite the checked values in the first column gives the answer to 7 x 13 which is 91. If the number in the first column isn’t needed to sum to 13 in this case then you simply ignore the corresponding number in the second column. It’s simple really. Division is done the same way but a scribe asked to divide 184 by 8 would instead ask himself how many times do I need to multiply 8 to get to 184 so would create a similar chart to the one above.

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Now at this point you hit the issue of fractions which we know that they understood as they had the 2/3 table but the way the ancient Egyptians handled them is definitely beyond me being able to explain here, I will simply say that with the sole exception of 2/3 they did not have any fractions with numerator other than 1, so to express ¾ for example they would write the equivalent of ½ + ¼. As you can imagine this becomes extremely messy very quickly. But the way they expressed a fraction, especially in hieratic is interesting as they drew a line over the number to indicate that it was a fraction and as the numerator was always 1 they didn’t need to show this, two thirds had it’s own specific character so that didn’t cause confusion. Later mathematical systems simply added a numerator above the line to indicate multiples of the denominator so this is where our way of writing fractions almost certainly originates from.

I only want to include one further example from the book and this one I chose as I particularly liked the calculation. I do recommend seeking out this book or the various online papers now available on the subject if you want to take this interesting branch of mathematics further. The calculation is how did they work out the area of a circle? Now courtesy of the ancient Greeks and their discovery of geometry (Euclid in particular) we know that the area of a circle is the square of the radius multiplied by the irrational number π which is 3.14 to two decimal places and that will do for most calculations. Archimedes worked it out to about that in 250BC but that is over 1300 years later than our poor scribe in ancient Egypt so how did he do it?

Well their calculation as given in problem 50 of the RMP is to take the diameter, work out a ninth of that figure, subtract that from the original number and then square the result. The sample problem takes a circle with a diameter of 9 khet (which makes the maths a lot easier), so if the diameter is 9 then a ninth of that is 1, subtracting that from the diameter gives 8. Multiply 8 by 8 as we know how to do above and that gives 64 setat as the area of the circle. It’s a hell of a big circle though as a khet is about 57 yards (roughly 52 metres) so a single setat, or square khet, is roughly 3250 yd² or 2720 m². But how accurate is the result of 64? Well (4½)² x π, which is our way of doing the calculation, gives 63.62 so it’s pretty good. If I ever needed to work out the area of a circle in my head (oddly something I don’t do often) then the ancient Egyptian way is definitely the way to do it, no messing around with π needed.

I was intrigued, so some basic algebra (also not something I do every day anymore) shows that the way the calculation works means that their equivalent of π is 256 / 81 which is 3.16 to two decimal places which explains the accuracy. It is also by far the simplest calculation that is remotely accurate as simply subtracting a ninth from the diameter is very easy. I spent a little more time with a calculator and found that the next easiest fraction that gives a better result is to subtract 4/35ths which is lot more difficult than dividing by 9.

There is considerably more in the book for a keen mathematician to have fun with such as calculations of volumes and of course the all so important dimensions of a pyramid and truncated pyramid (i.e. one still under construction). So once you can get past the slightly confusing way it is written it’s fun to work through, preferably with some paper and a pencil nearby to do some quick calculations of your own.

Poirot and Me – David Suchet

On April 14, 2020April 11, 2020 By bookramblings142In ReviewsLeave a comment

20200414 Poirot and Me

A fascinating description of the years David Suchet took to film almost all the Hercule Poirot novels and short stories written by Agatha Christie over thirteen series comprising of seventy episodes. The first day of filming was the 1st July 1988 and the final one was on the 28th June 2013, so almost exactly twenty five years from start to finish. Right at the end of the book he admits that one very short story never got adapted which was The Lemesurier Inheritance, apart from that everything was either specifically filmed as an individual story or merged into another short tale.

But I feel I must get one major failing of the book over and done with right at the beginning of this review. Suchet is completely obsessed with his reviews, after each story about a series or sometimes even an episode you get two or three, or maybe five or six, newspaper reviews saying how wonderful it was. It’s not just a quick one line either some of them are longer and it really get tedious. It is also completely unnecessary, if the reader didn’t think that his performance as Poirot and indeed the series itself was good it is highly unlikely that they will have picked up the book in the first place. He also comes over as a terrible ‘luvvie’ every actor he refers to has done a magnificent performance in such and such, or was fabulous in the role of whoever, everybody is announced with gushing compliments. Having said that, you can just skip the reviews and the overblown introductions and in there is a very enjoyable book.

Suchet covers the entire story of the series from his first being offered the part and getting to meet Christie’s daughter Rosalind Hicks who controlled the rights to her mothers works. She wanted to be sure that he understood what she expected from his portrayal. The book though starts at Pinewood Studios with the death of Poirot in the filming of ‘Curtain’ as part of the thirteenth, and final, series. From having explained his sorrow and what it means to him and those who have worked with him over the years to film these scenes he sets the tone before we jump back to his first being offered the part. His descriptions at the beginning of the book of his struggles to find the voice for Poirot whilst filming another TV series set on the Isles of Scilly before starting filming at Twickenham studios and only then suddenly realising after seeing the first test shots that he simply had no idea how he should walk are interesting insights into how an actor approaches a role. What was really surprising was that despite the massive hit that the Poirot series became this first series was the only time that any of the TV companies involved actually had an option on Suchet doing another series, after that he went for months or sometimes years without knowing if he would ever play the character again.

What does become very clear is Suchet’s devotion to the Belgian detective, before starting to play him he read all the stories and made a list of ninety three characteristics that made him who he was so that he could play him as a real person rather than the caricatures that he feels have been Poirot’s fate with previous portrayals.

He was a character that demanded to be taken seriously. He wasn’t a funny little man with a silly accent any more than Sherlock Holmes was a morphine addict with a taste for playing the violin.

He carried this ‘Dossier of Characteristics’ with him throughout the twenty five years of playing the part and gave a copy to each director so that they could understand what he was trying to do, I love some of the examples he gives in the book, some of which are emphatic like number one

Belgian, not French

Others are more idiosyncratic, like number eight

Regards his moustache as a thing of perfect beauty, uses scented pomade.

And one that had only partly registered with me in reading the books, number ten

A man of faith and morals, regards himself as ‘Un bon Catholique’, reads his bible every night before he goes to sleep.

This was a side of Poirot that hadn’t been seen in previous screen representations of Poirot but Suchet shows him with his rosary several times during the films revealing a side to the man which helps flesh out his need to see justice be done. This was particularly a feature in ‘Curtain’ and the death scenes in that where Poirot is seen preparing himself for the end that he recognises is soon to come. Just as Agatha Christie wrote ‘Curtain’ many years before it was published, filming this episode was not the last that Suchet did, instead it was filmed first in that final series several months before the other four episodes that concludes the story arc, so allowing him to finish his portrayal of the Great Detective on a high rather than a low point. Fittingly the last part of filming was at Greenway, Agatha Christie’s own home and added an extra poignancy to Suchet’s final day as Poirot.

The book appears to have been remaindered, judging by the sheer number of copies some secondhand book dealers have available even now. This does mean that it is easily available for very little money on either Biblio or Abebooks should you wish to obtain a copy.

Marvel: The Silver Age 1960-1970

On April 7, 2020April 8, 2020 By bookramblings142In Reviews1 Comment

20200407 Marvel 1 At this time of lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus I needed something completely escapist to read and also to take me back to happier times. This magnificent set is part of the 2020 Spring collection from The Folio Society and is a follow up to the 2019 offering entitled Marvel: The Golden Age – 1939-1949. Although I enjoyed the first set, what is regarded as The Silver Age encompasses the comics and characters I remember reading as a child, even if in the slightly later UK editions of the comics rather than the hard to track down American imports. As Michael Moorcroft says in his introduction

these new titles were hard to come by in the early 1960’s. Marvel had yet to have a national distribution in Britain. Two powerful and puritanical chains then owned or controlled UK newsagents in every high street, every railway station and airport. Other distribution through independent suppliers was patchy and erratic. US distributors frequently sold mixed bundles of American returns through UK distributors after they came off sale in the US

…

Patchy distribution, usually on wobbly racks in obscure corners of the shop meant that sometimes an issue of the Avengers would arrive two weeks after the following issue had just appeared, leading to somewhat surreal story lines.

Living in a small market town in England finding these comics was a real challenge so I treasured the ones I did mange to track down but even then it was rare to be able to find all of a multi-part story. You needed a lot of imagination to fill in the gaps until the later UK printed licensed editions finally came out in the 1970’s. Interestingly the UK versions were larger than the standard US comic book although from memory not as big as the reproductions included in this book which are considerably over size. The original comics were 10 inches tall by 7 inches wide whilst each page of this volume is 13 inches by 9 inches.

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The book itself includes fourteen complete comics ranging from The Fantastic Four number 5 from July 1962 to The Silver Surfer number 3 from December 1968 but includes several important issues such as the one illustrated above which sees the first appearance of Spiderman. Also making their debut in the book are Iron Man (in his incredibly clunky original suit) and The Vision and we also get the first re-appearance of Captain America after he was apparently killed off back in the 1940’s. The pages are quite heavy paper-stock and very glossy making the book pretty heavy. The comics are beautifully presented with black separating pages and the quality of the printing is superb.

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The Avengers issue included is from March 1964 as this is where we see not only the return of Captain America but also another long standing character, Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. He has been running in his own comic for decades by now, having been one of the first characters featured in their comics before Marvel even existed as a name and they were known as Timely Comics, but also had a habit of appearing in the comics dedicated to other characters, usually as the bad guy. In truth he is normally more misguided and misunderstood then actually evil and varies from being an antihero combating The Avengers and others (see below) to for a while being part of both The Avengers and also The Defenders which was a similar group of heroes.

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Daredevil is the first blind superhero and here in issue 7 he is combating The Sub-Mariner but this is also a highly sympathetic portrayal of Prince Namor. Daredevil is a good example of Marvel’s creation of heroes with failings, in fact pretty well all their characters have their own problems, there is no all powerful hero who is just too good to be true and that is one of the reasons why I liked their production so much. That strong character development was unusual in the genre at the time and the need to have a back story rooted them in their environment and made them more than just throwaway ciphers you felt you could get to know them over a run of comics.

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There is one comic in the fourteen selected that stands out as it looks so very different to the others, Nick Fury was written and drawn by Jim Steranko and this issue was clearly inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. The artwork is completely unlike any Marvel Comic I have seen. Nick Fury completely passed me by as a youth so this was the first time I had read anything featuring him. This is much darker in tone and style with full page and even double page illustrations alongside the normal comic book cells. This looks more like an illustrated book in places rather than a comic and I really need to find more work by Steranko.

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There is also a magnificent facsimile version of the first Fantastic Four comic which includes their origin story although confusingly The Human Torch had been a regular character with his own comic since 1940 as android Jim Hammond with his sidekick Toro so he was completely re-invented to go with the others. Number 5 of The Human Torch comic from 1941 is included in the Golden Age book and makes an interesting contrast to his relaunch as part of the Fantastic Four as the two characters despite both being called The Human Torch have almost nothing else in common. The facsimile (like the one included in the Golden Age set) is scanned from an original and printed on as close as they could get to the right paper. The one in The Silver Age is considerably more successful as the 1939 comic has serious ink bleeds and blurring which makes it quite difficult to read whilst the newer version is very clear.

All in all the unlikely collaboration of The Folio Society and Marvel to produce these books must be regarded as a success and I’m glad that both of them are in my library. As you can see from the picture below the first one has a blue embossed cover with red page edging all round in a gold foil box whilst the latest book has a red embossed cover with blue page edging in a silver foil box.

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