One thing leads to another

A favourite film in the Thorley household is Field of Dreams. Even if you've never watched it, you might have heard people quoting the line 'If you build it, he will come.' It's a lovely film and if you have time (!), I recommend you take a look. The film is great, but the book on which it is based is even better: Shoeless Joe by W P Kinsella. On the edition that I have there is a quote on the cover from Andrew Kaufman who says: 'The movie only captured half the magic of the book. This is a masterpiece.' Can't argue with that. It has moved on to the shortlist of titles from which I shall choose one to take with me on Desert Island Discs one day.

Anyway, author J D Salinger features in Shoeless Joe, so I was moved to read Catcher in the Rye. I've tried to do this before, but just found Holden Caulfield so irritating I couldn't get very far. This time, however, I made it to the end. Sorry, but I still don't like it.

After a quick Jack Reacher to cleanse the palate, I 've now moved on to Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native, which is mentioned in the Salinger book. I've not read this for many a long year and I'm really enjoying it. It's one of those book that needs reading word by word, if you know what I mean. It is from its pages that I've gleaned today's Word of the Day for the thread I'm running on my author Facebook page. Perhaps for the sake of continuing the connection, I should now watch the film of the book, but the only version I can find stars Catherine Zeta Jones and Clive Owen, which doesn't exactly blow my skirt up.

The question is, then, what is the next chain in this link? Any suggestions?

CTST as November draws to a close

Today I'm celebrating a week where I've been connecting and reconnecting with  people. (I wrote about this on my yoga blog here, too.)

On Monday I went to see a friend I made when I had my first proper publishing job many moons ago. It was lovely to catch up and to meet his fiancee. On Tuesday I had a cuppa with a yoga friend and then another friend popped in for a chat, too. I've also had a regular so-called working lunch with a fellow freelance. As if that wasn't enough, I've also had an email from the wife of my cousin out of the blue for no reason other than to say hello.

This is all good stuff, and when the world is going slightly mad for Black Friday it's been a useful reminder about what is really important.

Have a good weekend, folks.

If you would like to join this bloghop, send your details to laura.6eg@gmail.com  and she will do the necessary.

The way my mind works

Who is this?

For reasons that need not detain us here, I found myself saying the phrase: 'with a spoon in my hand' this morning. This fired up a connection in my brain somewhere and next thing I knew I was singing 'With a song in my heart' - which of course put me in mind of 'The Yorkshire Pudding Programme'. This is not, as Mr Thorley quipped, the latest recipe book to hit the shelves, but is the way I used to refer to the old radio programme Two Way Family Favourites.


Are you following? 'With a song...' was the theme tune to TWFF. Why the Yorkshires reference? Because in my memory bank this is what my mum was cooking whenever the show was on when I was a young lass.  Now, I'm sure this recollection has been distorted by the lens of time, because I can't imagine we had this savoury delight every week, or that Mum's timing was so impeccable. Nevertheless, that's how my mind jumped from one thing to another.

If you can remember this programme, then I'm sorry but you're older than you think you are - although checking the dates, I learned that although it began just after the end of the Second World War  it wasn't axed until 1984! It's heyday though, was definitely the 1950s, '60s and '70s. TWFF was broadcast on the Light Programme (which became Radio 2) and was hosted by real-life couple Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalfe (above). It was originally devised as a way for British families to keep in touch with relatives serving in the forces overseas, initially in Germany, but later extending to include Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. It's USP (although they didn't call it that then) was that it played mostly recorded music as opposed to live performances, which was the norm. Ah, different times.