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Posted (edited)
On 31/10/2023 at 08:54, Ray S said:

'The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: - The Robin Friday Story' by Paul McGuigan and Paolo Hewitt.

 

This is about Robin Friday, who was a fabulous talent and played at Reading (in the old Fourth Division) and then Cardiff between 1973/6.

I think this is a great book (third time of reading it now) but I am rather biased. I is a great insight into the player as a person, and the troubles he had

 

Ray

 

PS McGuigan is 'Guigsy' from the rock band Oasis

@Ray S,

 

I've read this book, too, and heartily endorse everything you say.

 

I never saw him play for Cardiff City - my home town. (Nor Reading). My middle brother saw him play for Cardiff, and reckons he was the best player he ever saw.

 

When you mention the troubles he had, my goodness didn't he have some.

 

Incidentally, did you know a Welsh band called Super Furry Animals released a single called "the man don't give a **** ", the sleeve being a picture of Robin Friday showing a V sign to Luton Town goalkeeper Milija Aleksic while playing for Cardiff City?

 

The song isn't specifically about him, but it's an iconic photo of Robin Friday on the sleeve.

 

 

Edited by Whofan
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Posted
8 hours ago, Whofan said:

Incidentally, did you know a Welsh band called Super Furry Animals released a single called "the man don't give a **** ", the sleeve being a picture of Robin Friday showing a V sign to Luton Town goalkeeper Milija Aleksic while playing for Cardiff City?

 

No I didn't! He was a character. Nowadays, the players get away with much worse than that with little to no consequence. 

 

As an aside, it is not a good time to be a Reading supporter at the moment

 

Ray

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Posted
52 minutes ago, Ray S said:

 

No I didn't! He was a character. Nowadays, the players get away with much worse than that with little to no consequence. 

 

As an aside, it is not a good time to be a Reading supporter at the moment

 

Ray

He certainly sounded a character! I've got the CD single of "The man ... " and it's not a bad little ditty.

 

For once though, it isn't a bad time to be a Cardiff City fan!

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Posted

Racing in the Dark: How the Bentley Boys Conquered Le Mans, by Peter Grimsdale

 

Great book so far about how the Bentley brand was born and got into racing at Le Mans

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Posted

Max Hastings. The Secret War. WW2 Spies and guerillas. Not far into it and finding it very interesting.

It's already debunked some of the alleged facts that everyone knows from the pre War period.

It seems that the Russians*, Poles and Czechs were in the lead in the secret business with good networks by the mid thirties.

The Poles gave MI6 a commercial version of Enigma before the War started. And parts of a Military one too.

So far, MI6 aren't looking too bright. Oh, and the USA, Britain and most of Europe were riddled with traitors selling secrets.

 

*With Stalins paranoia being their main problem. Senior and experienced people kept getting recalled to Moscow and being executed.

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Posted

I'm not sure about pre-war myths: ever since the Enigma machine and its role became public knowledge it was known that the information and examples came from the Poles.

 

And the tales of Maclean/Burgess/ Philby have been very widely spread since their defections, not to mention appearing as a theme in pretty well every British spy thriller since.

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Posted

Over the last few months I've been - very slowly - making my way through Freeman Wills Crofts' Inspector French series of detective novels, written between the 1920s to 1950s. The bulk of them have been re-released in recent years by Harper Collins and have proven an utterly gripping read so if you like 'golden age' crime fiction, I'd heartily recommend.

 

Have also be re-reading early (pre-Kraken/Triffids etc.) John Wyndham as a period contrast - strange to think of Crofts and Wyndham inhabiting the same land at the same time with each seeing such different worlds.

 

 

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Posted

A trip away for BiLs mother's funeral netted a copy of Frederick Forsythe's "Avenger". Not heard of this one before & no idea what its like but I've generally enjoyed Forsythe's writing. I still blub over the Shepherd. :)

Steve.

 

Update: I read Avenger in a little over 24 hours & totally enjoyed it, Although it is a few years since I've read a Forsythe novel, I would rate this one up their with his best, a cracking story with a lot of real facts woven in, my idea of the way a book should be. :) 

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Posted

Trying my first audio book in the car at the minute backwards and forwards to work, so I'm listening to Stephen Kings  Salems Lot in the car and reading James Herberts    Sepulchre on my kindle :) 

Who says men can't multi task 🤣 🤣

 

 

Posted
11 hours ago, psdavidson said:

On a Robert Harris streak, currently reading Archangel

and slowly making headway with Moby Dick on audiobook

I might try Moby Dick on audiobook when I've finished Salems lot.

I've tried reading it a couple of times, but struggle somehow, maybe the audiobook version might do it for me :) 

Posted
2 hours ago, Redstaff said:

maybe the audiobook version might do it for me

don't know if it will make much more sense. I can only handle 20 minutes at a time

 

/P

  • Thanks 1
Posted
15 minutes ago, psdavidson said:

don't know if it will make much more sense. I can only handle 20 minutes at a time

 

/P

That should be ok then, it's about a 20 min to half hour drive to work depending on traffic. I found the book really heavy going and hard to get in to, but want to read / listen to it :) 

 

Ian :) 

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Posted

From Spitfires to Vampires and Beyond, by Owen Hardy. A Kiwi's tale of his wartime service & then his time in the postwar RAF, Really interesting on so many levels. A recent book being an edited version of a personal memoir by Air Marshal 'Black' Robertson. This is a library book but I'll be looking out for one for my collection of Kiwi memoirs.

Steve.

Posted
On 11/21/2023 at 7:10 PM, psdavidson said:

On a Robert Harris streak, currently reading Archangel

and slowly making headway with Moby Dick on audiobook

 

Audiobooks either get tuned out as noise by my single tracking mind and ignored OR result in the tuning out of all other conscious functions, one time causing me to overshoot Gloster, where I was supposedly meeting my ex-mother-in-law to hand over the kids, and pass Bristol in a trance going south. That was an error of 40+ miles but it was Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses so not my fault. 😆

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Posted
2 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses so not my fault.

That's perfectly understandable

 

I only listen to audiobooks in bed, otherwise I suffer the same problem

The only downside is the hard limit of 20 minutes before I fall asleep

 

/P

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Posted
2 minutes ago, psdavidson said:

That's perfectly understandable

 

I only listen to audiobooks in bed, otherwise I suffer the same problem

The only downside is the hard limit of 20 minutes before I fall asleep

 

/P

 

I wouldn't want to hear Moby Dick in my sleep - the dreams!

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Posted

Just finished a book called Traitor, by Ava Glass.

 

Now I don't know if I'm finding something there that isn't, but Ava Glass? Half a Glass?

 

Anyway, it's a fairly routine spy thriller, no great lterary effort, but it passed a half hour or so before kights out a couple of nights agreeably enough.

 

Still reading OP Barbarossa by Jonathan Dimpleby, past the halfway mark now, but it's slow going.

 

I may start Nemesis, another of the Wilbur Smith Courteny family series of books (but ghost written, as Wilbur died a couple of years ago) shortly.

 

There are almost as many books in the to be read stash as models in the to be made stash !!

 

 

Posted
On 11/22/2023 at 5:20 PM, Redstaff said:

I've tried reading it a couple of times, but struggle somehow, maybe the audiobook version might do it for me

 

I find the heavier tomes and classics can work very well with exceptional narration and also ensuring they are the unabridged version. I recently did that with the audio version of War and Peace and loved it.  I have got into the habit of repeat reading first in print and then returning in audio some time later. Did that with Masters of the Air. Having said that, I read Moby Dick again on Kindle and also thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

Just finished Thomas Asbridge The Crusades. I had put it off for some time due to comments on the narration. So glad I ignored this and completed it in time for the current issues in that region. 

 

Current audio book is The Brothers Karamazov. 

 

Ray

 

 

Posted

Just finished Rowland White's latest "Mosquito". It's a very entertaining, informative and easy to read account of some of the pin point raids carried out in Scandinavia etc.

It also covers the work of SOE, the formation etc. of the Mosquito groups and their special missions, as well as the story of the Mossie. It has much to tell about the Danish Resistance (something I knew zero about) and it's role in the planning for D Day and beyond. It even tells briefly, how the Mustang came to be what it came to be.

Thoroughly recommended, defo a 5 star rating.

Regards

Pete

 

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Posted
On 11/8/2023 at 8:00 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

 

So far, MI6 aren't looking too bright. Oh, and the USA, Britain and most of Europe were riddled with traitors selling sec

I gave up with Hastings due to his general tone being Britain always poor, USA always great narrative. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, PLC1966 said:

I gave up with Hastings

I'm about 2/3rds through it now, and to be fair, no one comes out of it that well so far.

The Allies were riddled with Communist sympathisers. Some very high up. Both in the UK and USA. The later McCarthy purges were justified. 

Russia had Stalin to contend with and his purges, suspicions  and rages held them back. He was told Babarrosa was coming but disbelieved everyone.

Germany had good and bad, as did the Japanese. A lot of very brave Men and Women lost their lives in the secret war.

I think it's a very interesting read. 

 

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Posted

Bought Geddy Lee's newish book ... My Effin Life  ... last week and got two chapters in so far, fascinating stuff, great read so far, when Lo and Behold I noticed he's doing a sort of Evening with Geddy this Thursday at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, he's reading chapters from the book and giving away a copies of the book to all attenddee's, probably paperback?  I bought the hard back as a keeper, also folks will be invited to ask him questions, awesome.

I did something similar with Bruce Dickenson from Iron Maiden in Edinburgh just after Covid recovery, and it was great fun ... Furthermore, I was lucky enough to be to get the chance and ask him a question and that was about his real Fokker Dr.1 he flies, hope I get lucky again with a question still to be thought up for Geddy, from Rush as I'm sure you all know :)

Fun, fun fun.

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