Forget Laboring on Labor Day - Free Reading! News of England and Top Tips

That book about which I have been blathering on about for the last year or more will be free for your Kindle (or Kindle app) over Labor Day Weekend.  To be more precise, it will be free to download  from midnight, Pacific time on August 30 to midnight September 2, 2013.

Here's a the link, for your linking convenience.

IN OTHER NEWS

I bought a plane ticket yesterday BOS to LHR - or, for you non baggage handlers, that's Boston to London.  I'll be over in Blighty from September 15 to the 23.

This trip is a case of how a mighty oak (trip to England) may grow from a small acorn (a twitter post).
I know: Please to explain!

Sometime in July The Paris Review (which I don't read but which I do follow on Twitter) posted this picture:

I had to get a closer look at that, obviously.  

Turns out that William Gladstone left his very fabulous personal library in trust for the public.  That's it, in the picture.  The library (and his whole estate) is in Flintshire in north Wales and (are you sitting down?) you can stay there!  For not very much.  Read all about it here.

So, I booked a room the very night I ran across that twitter post.  The deposit was non refundable and I figured I would be forced thereby to actually go to England.  

Of course, my head cooled thereafter.  It's a hassle scheduling things at work and the kids (my son is away on a school trip to Maine that week), it's expensive blah blah.  But I got a shove over the Atlantic from our English friends who are visiting Vermont as we speak and who leaned on the family Chief Financial Officer (not me) to allow the visit. They held out promises of accommodations for the days when I am not in Wales, tours of Oxford, London bookshops etc. into the mix.  And so.... BOS to LHR it is.

Another big pull was exerted by the fact that G's Library is only about half an hour from Erddig Hall, in Wrexham, Wales.  Erdigg is the National Trust property on which I based the fictional Quarter Sessions in the above-mentioned book.  I spent years reading about Erddig as I was writing and I feel like I am making a kind of pilgrimage.

Here is a little bit of that magic place as well:

So, that's my big news.  I promise to report back.  

ONE LAST THING...

I like to provide the occasional top tip here.  My way of giving back because I am that kind of generous person.  I listen to Pandora these days when I am at my computer and have been introduced to a lot of music that I love and that I couldn't believe that I had missed (some of it is not new).

So, I am here to recommend to you Knuddlemaus by Ulrich Schnauss

(nothing to look at in this video, but you can hear the music)

and most especially, this Morrissey Song: Come Back to Camden.

This song has such a hold on me right now that I had to research it on Wikipedia.  It was written by Morrissey and Boz Boorer, (whom I probably saw when I went to that Morrissey concert in Burlington last fall though I had no idea at the time what a big deal he is, musically speaking).  I am wondering if one of them might be the reincarnation of W.H. Auden or something because this song is a work of genius.  (Thank you, Youtube fans, for posting...)

You Are Repressed, But You're Remarkably Dressed

I didn't get any takers on the little challenge I set out at the end of the last post (from whence did I steal the title of that last post?) So, rather than keep you all in suspense for another minute, I am just going to tell you. It was from the Morrissey song on the Bona Drag album, "Hairdresser on Fire." This post title is another bit of lyric that sticks...

"Hairdresser on Fire" comes from the mid-career, post-Smiths, Morrissey ouevre, when he was still young and tormented. (I understand that lately he has settled a bit and might even have taken a stab at some form of romance).

There are a couple of live versions on Youtube, but I prefer to listen again to the one that plays in my head, from the days when Bona Drag was a regular in my car's CD rotation. Some fan painstakingly collected all these views of M and overlayed them on that familiar track, if you want to hear it for yourself.



Remember me to Sloane Square.

A little more follow up on the last post, keeping with our U.K. theme, I did make it to the British Invasion Car Show in Stowe last weekend. The best part of it was listening to the Beatles tribute band, "Britishmania" (not to be confused with Beatlesmania (TM)). They played at a block party on Stowe's lovely Main Street on Friday night. The kids danced. I bobbed my head and sang along and watched the other people in the audience - New England types who did not want to get too close to the stage and who also limited their display of interest to headbobbing and singing along. Late in the evening (like, 8:30) a few people migrated out of the beer cage (it was a very well-regulated event and beer was sold only in a small area enclosed by snow fencing) and some of those people moved their legs and arms a bit and shouted requests. We all sang "Yellow Submarine" together and bonded.

Adding to the festive atmosphere were all these fabulous old Jaguars and MGs and Minis and Sprites and even a Rolls or two that were parked up and down the street which was otherwise closed to traffic.

On Sunday, the Understudy and I went up to the show field and caught the tail end of the main show. Well, mostly we shopped feverishly in the goods tent as the vendors were packing up all around us. You'll be relieved to hear, I am sure, that we we were able to buy a bunch of things emblazoned with Union Jacks, albeit under pressure. We also got to see at least a few cars and I managed a few photos (above and below). These pictures don't do the cars justice because we had to hurry and also because it was too sunny and bright to get the romance of the things. Still, here ya go.

Giddy London

An English Car show held in Stowe, Vermont called the British Invasion is on this weekend. Lots of wee MGs were tooling down Main Street this evening and Union Jacks are fluttering from the light poles and at every retail establishment.

I have also been struggling with my Great Fiction Project (henceforth "GFP") some of which takes place in England of yesteryear. I have been researching various elements of daily life in the provinces and in the capital. I like that part. I have always loved reading about any kind of English history. I never have known why. It makes me wonder about reincarnation.



As a result, old England is on my mind and on my computer. I found a great website I wanted to share. "Twentieth Century London" is an Internet archive of objects and information from a dozen London-based museums all regarding life in London during, you guessed it, the 20th Century. (Some of us remember large swaths of that century and it was not without interest). The site has lots of great images (see above and below) and historical odds and ends. There's a cool feature for kids, a kind of animated London story book, and a London quiz (I got 8 out of 10 - and would have had 9 out of 10 if I had been paying closer attention, it was that easy).



I'll let you know how it goes (the British Invasion - maybe more later on the GFP).

Points for anyone who can tell me the name of the song, and the artist, from whom I filched the title of this post. I might even send you a bit of tat if you guess it right.