TLS

Buying flour in Waitrose the other day, I fell, once again, for a TLS. Nostalgia, I suppose. And, as it turns out, not a particularly good number.

Off to a bad start with a review of a philosophy book from OUP about the finer points of whether or not Sherlock Holmes exists. A £25 contribution to a debate which has been going on for years, perhaps ever since Holmes was invented, towards the end of the nineteenth century. A review which did nothing to revise my poor opinion of the endeavours of today's philosophers.

Things got slightly better with a review of a book about the lives and times of marine mammals over the last 50 millions years or so. I learned that being a land mammal was easier as air does not conduct heat as well as water, but being a mammal was such a good thing that they learned to do it in water as well as on land. Sadly, I could not find anyone who would sell me the book for less than about £50, so it will have to wait until it gets remaindered somewhere.

And then we had a fictionalised version of the lives of James Joyce and his family from one Frank McGuiness, a writer of plays, an adapter of plays and a professor of creative writing at University College, Dublin, a place where he studied pure English as an undergraduate. Which piqued my curiosity, but no longer appears on the curriculum: perhaps it is code for not spending time on Gaelic, which one might of had enough of at school, where I believe it is compulsory. In any event, as an avid collector of Joyce memorabilia (see, for example, reference 1), I fell for the hardback version. No doubt I shall report in due course.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/earwig-redux.html.

Reference 2: https://www.myucd.ie/. Turn your sound well down before you try this one.