Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

There used to be an absolutely lovely family a few doors down the road: dad commuted, presumably to London, and struck me as a fairly senior civil servant type. Mum and two little girls were delightful, dog was friendly and cat was quite splendidly aloof. When they put their house on the market, I asked dad where they were moving to and he said Hereford. Gosh, I replied, I didn't realise you were connected to the SAS! The look of horror on his face said it all. Whoops!

When I was a baby, my mother taught evening classes in French and Italian at Hereford Technical College. There were quite a few muscly and taciturn chaps in her classes who used to disappear inexplicably for a week or two here and there, and say "work trip" when asked where they'd been....

I used to teach O level and then GCSE English near a NATO base, and when the Navy changed its rules about promotion and required people going for promotion to have a certain number of exam passes I got a lot of their cooks and stewards (including one who had been steward on the Riyal yacht Britannia) as students for a couple of years. They were lovely guys and so well disciplined. No homework was ever left undone, all group discussion assignments were concentrated on. It was wonderful!

I grew up around soldiers (army brat) and worked with them in my 20s in Cyprus and Germany, and they were mostly fab. I fear that may have changed since the 70s, though. My best SAS-type story (not actually SAS) was an intelligence officer called Willie who looked like a young Boris Johnson (but fatter) and was about as mentally sharp. He would wander around Kyrenia harbour out of uniform, looking out for commies/EOKA/whatever, while the rest of us sat around in swimsuits drinking brandy sours and greeting him with cries of "It's the spy!"

Oh, and there were the Italian officers (in Italy) who were off to Iraq with the UN ... along with another Brit, I taught them English. This was done on the sensible assumption that nobody in Basra would understand Italian. They were hard-working and utterly charming and during the last class we taught them what they said was the most important thing: "Don't shoot! I'm Italian!"

I was aware of some ex-SAS in Hereford bu also knew that anyone who told you they were SAS were full of shit. One of the ex-SAS worked in the pub we went to and it was run by another former member. My boyfriend's dad had been a member and I suspected that his brother - who looked like Nookie Bear - was a current member but of course I never found out because he'd never have told his secrets.

If anyone fancies being read-to, there's an enjoyable 10-episode serialisation of Robert Harris's Precipice on BBC radio. His stuff really lends itself to radio - there was a fantastic (if harrowing!) dramatised version of Fatherland some years ago, which is still available.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024w9h

Is Fatherland actually any good? I never read it, but I remember it was one of the last birthday or Xmas presents I ever bought my DF. I thought for someone who'd lived through the war, it would be an interesting read. True to form, he pretty much threw it back at me, it was a massive insult, etc etc.

I think it's a very interesting story in the "what if ...?" genre. I've read it several times, over the years, which shows that I enjoyed it. The BBC dramatisation (with Anton Lesser) is rather good, though the female character is annoying. But she's pretty annoying in the book too ... or maybe it's just me?

I like alternative histories and it's on my list of books to read. I've only read Conclave by him so far (it was for book club, I wouldn't have sought it out by myself) and really enjoyed it which has made me want to read more of his work.

I wasn't overly keen on the idea of Precipice until I heard it on radio 4. I agree, Gonners, it was a really good serialisation. I refrained from listening to all of it because I'd decided I wanted to read it and didn't want the end spoiled although I'm not sure how it could be given I can just look up actual history.

OMG, Gonners, my RLBF, who spent several years in Cyprus as a child, introduced me to the brandy sour. It's absolutely brilliant, even if you make it with cheapo lemon squash (her mother's original recipe...)

I like alternative history stories, and Robert Harris is a good solid writer, so I might try that one. I'm also a fan of dystopian futures, so I enjoyed a book called The Great Transition recently, which I read for a book club - story set in the future when humanity has achieved Net Zero carbon emissions but climate change has done such a number on humanity that the major city is now in Greenland.

I like Robert Harris though have only read a couple. Loved 'Pompeii' and found 'The Second Sleep' fascinating. In both there's a character who's something of an ogre, which Harris is very good at writing.

@duc748 that must have been horrible for you!

What a nasty thing to do @duc748 - sounds like you were well rid of him!

'Well rid' is a bit strong for one's parents, Kuc! I didn't hate him, but he was a grumpy old sod.

And ungrateful!

Fans of Fatherland may also like Jo Walton's trilogy, Small Change, based on a similar premise.

Also, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick.

I started TMITHC on Amazon Prime ages ago, but didn't persist after a few eps. I think partly cos I realised it went on and on and on.

When our mother died (going on for 10 years ago now) I phoned my sister in New Zealand and said "Tragic news ... you're an orphan!" and she laughed rather a lot.

It was my brother who told me our mother had died. Apart from relief I didn't feel anything at all and haven't really done so since. She was a terrible mother in every way.

My husband's brother phoned one of their sisters to tell her that their father had died, and announced "well the old sod is dead at last"...

I enjoyed the series but I don't think I watched it all the way to the end. I may go back to it some time though because it was good.

Interestingly, or not, the series is far longer and more developed than the novel which at 240 pages is a shortish read. Definitely worth giving a go if you like that sort of thing.