Tuesday 6 July 2021

Silly Season: Summer Reading

À propos of a note I made about capitalist innovation at the dawn of the industrial revolution, yesterday one of our esteemed BTL anons kindly recommended my well-known classic on this topic: 

"The history of donkeys in pre-Industrial Great Britain"      Author - Nick Drew. ISBN 978-0-7334-2609-4. Price: £9.99

Haha! Cheap at twice the price: I have a few signed copies left ... 

Suckers who bought this also liked: 

  • "High Fashion on the High Street: how M&S single-handedly revived the British shopping experience" by Bill Quango
  • "A Capitalist's Giude to Spelling" by CU 
  • "Me and My Mask: cheerful floral designs for that essential, easy-to-wear accessory nobody should be without" by EK 
  • "Where Is He Now?" by BE    (who? - ed
  • "I Agree With Nick!" - the important new best-selller, by Timbo

What else are you taking to the Festival this summer, for those rainy afternoons?

 ND


19 comments:

Suff said...

A beginners guide to Woke.
How to recognise someone having fun and how to organise to put a stop to it.

John in Cheshire said...

1984 Revisited
An alternative interpretation of what it means and how to be happy owning nothing, by M Sedwill and O Robbins

andrew said...

Oddly and quite seriously,

I was on hols in northumberland last week and bought a secondhand folio soc. edition of "travels with a donkey" by Stephenson.

Clearly made a bad decision there - I backed the wrong donkey.
That error was moot as the weather was good all week and it now lies on that pile of worthy books I have not read.


decnine said...

"Hyperbole" An introduction to Fortune Telling for Profit and Prestige by Sir Ian Ferguson

CityUnslicker said...

My summer reading list..I love the old management BS stuff -

Leadership and Anger Management - G Brown
Judging Good Risks - D Cameron
How to be decisive - T May
Peace and Reconciliation - D Cummings


E-K said...

I think Kate Middleton rocked a little black number, Nick. I quite like the cammo look too... with matching bikini. Floral ? My wife wears one but looks like Darth Vader's wife at a WI meeting.

Anyway. Books:


The Mask Fetishist with No Chin - Matt Hancock

How to Get Top Totty with No Chin - Matt Hancock

How to Get Power and Keep it ... with No Chin - Matt Hancock

Idiot's Guide to Data Manipulation... with No Chin (Impressing and cavorting with your mistress whilst terrifying and fucking a whole country at the same time.) - Matt Hancock


Proof ?

Hand-cock's gone and it feels like a boot has been lifted off the throat of the whole country.


As for fashion shopping... I'm a Boohoo Man myself.

(Anon will like that one)

I model myself on this guy's look and am wearing this to the party... with an exemption lanyard, of course:



https://www.boohooman.com/oversized-man-graffiti-sweater-tracksuit/MZZ04034-105-56.html?istCompanyId=9de2f27a-9672-4ac4-b061-147ce3c3a633&istFeedId=9179cc73-11c3-442f-bb56-f89a61fdc694&istItemId=iqmlqlmmm&istBid=t&gclid=CjwKCAjw_o-HBhAsEiwANqYhp67ByGq3rdFbmTXB6NO-aoad2oX3wXtm7KAv2DHhqRU5T5BgSF0usxoCg1gQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Suff said...

I take an Enid classic on every trip. FIVE SHIPPED OFF TO DIVERSITY CAMP.
“ From behind the bicycle shed George could hear the others chatting around the campfire, while getting off their head on skunk and lashings of red bull......
”mutter mutter....I say Dick, has anybody else noticed that diversity officer Sandra seems to get a strange five o’clock shadow in the afternoons”.
“Yes and she develops an unusual bulge in her frock when bending over my desk”agreed Ann......mutter mutter
George looked down at Timmy and whispered “ I’m going to grass those Transphobic F@ckers up”
Timmy growled.

Elby the Beserk said...

"Travels with a Donkey" is indeed a very fine read...

But what am I reading? I always have two on the go, a bed book and a downstairs book.

Bedtime : The Anglo-Saxons : a history of the beginnings of England
Morris, Marc, 1973-

So good I have also reserved his book on the Norman Conquest

Downstairs - a return to "Democracy in America" by De Tocqueville, which becomes more and more relevant as the tyranny that de Tocqueville and other recognised as always a possible outcome of democracy rushes centre stage in the USA..

DJK said...

Elby: I'm also reading the Marc Morris Anglo-Saxons book. And a fine book it is too.

Anonymous said...

And there was me thinking this was a serious blog! Slight recalibration needed.

dearieme said...

The Age of Arthur by John Morris - a history of the British Isles from 350 to 650.

Arthur: I ask you! But putting aside his fond hope that there really was someone on whom the Arthur legend was based, it's a grand, fat book; well written - you'll smile and you'll groan - and refreshingly frank about how thin the evidence for this period is. They don't call it the Dark Ages for nothing.

Once the Britons had stopped repairing Roman buildings, and once the Germans had stopped using objects as part of their pagan burial rites, there is almost no archaeological evidence - it's as if the country was hardly populated at all.

I'd love to know whether the last forty-odd years has produced any revealing new evidence (other than DNA). I doubt it, based on the occasional newspaper report of some group of diggers claiming stunning new discoveries that, in fact, only confirm what Morris has to say.

(Such claims also reveal how corrupt academic research has become, but that's a bit off-topic.)

Anyway, wherever you stay for your British summer hols, do look to see whether anything interesting is known about its benighted past.

Don Cox said...

""Travels with a Donkey" is indeed a very fine read..."

"The Silverado Squatters" is good too.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-42595-1_6

"The Donkey Trade of the Indian Ocean World in the Long Nineteenth Century"

We forget where the phrase "donkey work" came from. In the absence of wind or water power, horses, donkeys or mules (donkey/horse cross) provided the horsepower.

"Lewis Paul and John Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham, which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey."

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/textile-manufacturing/

E-K said...

Old ladies are suckers for donkeys and bequeath their fortunes to sanctuaries run by millionaire execs.

Lesson. Don't piss off your Mum.

lilith said...

I'm reading "Grooming for confidence" by Anneliese Dodds.

I have "Going the Extra Mile: Journeys to the Off License " by Dianne Abbott next.

lilith said...

Then I must learn to spell

Elby the Beserk said...

@Dearime

I believe John Morris to be the above mentioned Marc Morris's father. Passed his love of our past to his son

dearieme said...

Golly, Elby: thank you.

Timbo614 said...

Having just returned from a short break - in the UK I hasten to add - it seems I'm late for my own fame as an author so in ND style, err... Je suis d'accord avec Nick!