Month: June 2026

How to Land an A330 Airbus – James May

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First published in 2010 this book coincided with the first series of May’s television programme Man Lab, which it closely resembles in concept, indeed there are several items that appear in both. Let’s look at the nine “vital skills” the book attempts to teach which are as follows:

  • How to Land an A330 Airbus in an Emergency
  • How to Escape from Butlins – a holiday camp for those unfamiliar with the name
  • How to Fight a Duel
  • How to Deliver Twins
  • How to Drive the Peppercorn Class A1 4-6-2 Pacific Locomotive Tornado
  • How to Invade and Occupy the Isle of Wight
  • How to Defuse an Unexploded WWII German Bomb
  • How to Play the First Movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Sharp Minor (The Moonlight) with no Previous Experience

Of these ‘defusing a bomb’ was covered in series one, episode one of Man Lab, ‘duelling’ was also in series one but split between flintlock pistols in episode two and sabres in episode three, whilst ‘Escaping from Butlin’s’ became escaping from Dartmoor Prison in series two, episode one. There are quite obvious reasons why no attempt to deliver twins without medical supervision wasn’t attempted on the television show and invading the Isle of Wight would have been quite an undertaking for what was a fairly low budget programme. Landing an Airbus could have been safely done in a simulator. presumably driving steam locomotive Tornado could also have been done on a preserved line whilst May could definitely have played the Moonlight Sonata as he has a degree in music from Lancaster University. The closest he gets to this one is in series two, episode three where he teaches somebody to play the guitar.

The real joy of the book however are the superb, and absolutely essential, diagrams by Mike Garland and particular mention should go to Bobby & Co who designed the book it really is very well laid out and although nobody should actually attempt any of the things described in the book you feel that a lot of thought has gone into making it as real as possible. With that in mind here is the cockpit of an A330 to have a quick panic about.

It is helpfully followed on the next double page spread with all the things you can safely ignore blanked out but even so there are still a lot of knobs, switches and digital readouts (the mass of mechanical dials has thankfully been replaced) to pay attention to. There is also a helpful disclaimer:

This guide has been prepared only for use in absolute dire buttock-clenching emergency. None of the advice given above has been sanctioned by Airbus or any of its associates. Do not attempt to fly the A330 Airbus on a recreational basis or use one for joy riding in a hoodie. The A330 Airbus is not a toy.

The one ‘skill’ I do have a small amount of experience in is fighting a duel and this is due to being a competitive fencer in my youth and becoming the armourer of the local club. I can therefore say that the description of sword fighting is pretty accurate which bodes well for the rest of the information in the book and again there is a sensible piece of advice which in this case, when choosing your opponent for a duel it is advisable to avoid people who are champions at fencing or shooting you are bound to come off the loser and that is not a position you want in a duel.

At this point I’d like to include another of Mike Garland’s excellent illustrations, in this example clearly based on the opened cover of a Haynes vehicle maintenance guide:

May’s book, like indeed Man Lab, which I remember fondly, is great fun, and informative in a way that you hope to never need to know any of this and in fact its main drawback is that if you ever did actually need to do any of the nine ‘skills’ you almost certainly won’t have the book to hand, or indeed have any idea where you last saw it. Having said that it was a good read and I have probably learnt something which can never be a bad thing. Especially if the one thing you learn is always to try to find a professional, defusing a bomb is not for amateurs and they are only a phone call away.

Closed Casket – Sophie Hannah

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At first, or possibly even second and third glance, there seems to be nothing linking this weeks blog with the previous one, Finn Family Moomintroll. But it was Sophie Hannah who did the English verse translations of the three Moomin picture books published by Sort Of Books, ‘The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My’ in 2001 along with ‘Dangerous Journey’ and ‘Who Will Comfort Toffle?’ both in 2003. I must admit that I hadn’t initially realised this either, it was just a feeling of ‘that name sounds familiar, I wonder why?’ that prompted me to check. At the time Hannah was known as a poet rather than as a writer of mysteries, which is something she moved into later. Up until the time of writing this blog Hannah was published six novels continuing the stories of Agatha Christie’s great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, this is the only one I have and was the second title in the series she has written following ‘The Monogram Murders’.

This definitely feels like a story from the so called Golden Age of murder mysteries, the 1920’s to 1930’s, even down to the plan of the house where the crime was committed which appeared so often at the time. Large country house away from major conurbation, tick, disparate group of guests staying for the weekend, tick, guests include renowned detective, tick, taciturn butler, tick, moderately incompetent local police, tick, yes all the characteristics are there. That’s not to imply that the book is formulaic; rather that at least some of those points, and often all of them, would appear in bestsellers of the period. This time the large country house is in Ireland and the poison is the old familiar strychnine, used by Christie in five novels, including her first ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles‘, along with five short stories, although this time it isn’t immediately obvious that it is the cause of death. It does feel like a Poirot story though, I was initially worried that it would be a pastiche as it would have been so easy to write. Anyone familiar with the superb David Suchet TV adaptations feels they know exactly what Poirot would do or say in pretty well any scenario so a new Poirot story could easily fall into variants of those or worse a parody. I’m glad to say Hannah managed to avoid those traps waiting for her and wrote a story that could potentially come from the pen of the Queen of Crime herself.

The biggest difference between Hannah’s book and those of Christie can best be illustrated by pulling from my shelves a small number of Agatha Christie examples, taken from the first Penguin million of her books to make sure the titles are suitably random:

  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – 242 pages
  • Lord Edgware Dies – 244 pages
  • Murder on the Orient Express – 215 pages
  • The Sittaford Mystery – 250 pages
  • The Mystery of the Blue Train – 245 pages

In contrast this edition of ‘Closed Casket’ sprawls over 369 pages, in all cases I have ignored in the page count contents lists, pages of diagrams such as the plan of the house in ‘Closed Casket’, and other extras to the main body of the text. You can clearly see that the new book is vastly larger than Christie’s own works. Indeed looking at most writers from the golden age 230 to 250 pages seems about the normal length of a book. Bearing this in mind it is perhaps surprising that ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, despite being one of the most famous and having such a large number of suspects, is quite so short. At this length Hannah is by no means unusual with modern murder mysteries frequently being around 400 pages, Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books are all between 400 and 450 pages, however I did feel that in the spirit of the Golden Age a tightening up of the prose would have been appropriate for a Christie follow-up, but that is a minor criticism of what was a very enjoyable read, I started with book two as that was the one I had to hand but I will go back to ‘The Monogram Murders’ and on to the later tales when I come across them. The books aren’t Agatha Christie but are probably as good as we are going to get and a suitable tribute to a great writer fifty years after she died in 1976.

Finn Family Moomintroll – Tove Jansson

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This is the third book in the Moomin series, written and illustrated by Tove Jansson in 1948, but the first to be set in the Moomin house and the surrounding area, it was also the first to be translated into English. Oddly the first Moomin book was the last to be translated as I covered in ‘The Moomins and the Great Flood‘ back in 2018. Finn Family Moomintroll consists of seven interlinked stories, each of which can be read on their own but together tell of a character called The Hobgoblin and his magical hat who rides around on a flying black panther in his hunt for rubies to add to his collection, especially the huge King’s Ruby. Indeed the original Swedish title is Trollkarlens Hatt (The Hobgoblin’s Hat). The main problem with having this children’s book as the first English language one is the relatively large number of characters that had made their home in the Moomin house by now. Apart from Moominmamma, Moominpappa and their son Moomintroll there is Snork Maiden and her brother The Snork, Snufkin, The Muskrat, Sniff and even a Hemulen all of whom have their own personalities that had mainly been explored in the first two books so it can be a bit confusing for new readers. This volume adds Thingumy and Bob as new residents and The Groke as a rather scary visitor wanting to retrieve something that Thingumy and Bob had taken from her and hidden in their suitcase. Fortunately Little My and her own brand of chaos hasn’t appeared yet.

Unusually the book starts with a preface and all the characters preparing for the winter hibernation with Moomintroll looking at the first snow:

“Tonight”, he thought, “we shall settle down for our long winter’s sleep.” (All Moomintrolls go to sleep about November. This is a good idea, too, if you don’t like the cold and the long winter darkness.)

So after a final meal of pine needles, which apparently helps sleepiness and provides long term sustenance, they all go to bed and the next thing we know it is the first proper chapter and Snufkin has already got up from his long one hundred nights sleep. He and Moomintroll wake Sniff and together they got for a walk up a nearby hill where they find on the top a large top hat which they decide to take home for Moominpappa. The hat is too large for him so they decide to use it as a waste paper basket and Moomin threw the eggshell from his breakfast into it. The next day some small clouds are drifting about the house, but unusual ones because you could get on and ride them, see Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden doing just that on the cover. It turns out that the hat had changed the eggshell pieces into the clouds and anything in the hat for any time is also randomly altered ut only for a short period, no more than a day. Jansson uses this transformative power to explore the concepts of things changing and peoples acceptance or resistance to the way things alter. Even Moomintroll is completely changed when he hides in the hat and nobody recognises him apart from his mother when she looks deep into his eyes and recognises her son at which point he changes back.

I have a couple of copies of this book, the one at the top is a lovely collectors hardback from Sort Of Books and was first printed by them in 2017, it includes a fold out map of Moomin Valley as opposed to the single page illustration from earlier editions. I also have a paperback version in the form of the first Puffin edition from 1961 which can be seen below and which really popularised the Moomin stories in the English speaking world. Both books have the same text using a translation by Tove Jansson’s friend Elizabeth Portch which was done in 1950 and originally published by Ernest Benn Ltd.

Included in this edition and also the Ernest Benn volume from 1950 is a charming letter from Moominmamma introducing the Moomins and saying that she has heard that there aren’t any Moomintrolls in England, I apologise for the poor reproduction of this letter but despite the paperback being sixty five years old it is in mint condition and appears to be unread and I don’t want to crack the spine to take the photo. This letter is not included in the more recent Sort Of Books edition,

The book covers almost a complete year with the final lines of being: “It is autumn in Moomin Valley, for how else can spring come back again?” A final positive sentiment in a book that deals with important issues around change and resistance to change in a way that speaks to children everywhere.