"Stolen Legacy" which is bloody fascinating.  It argues that so called Greek innovations and philosophy were really nicked from the Egyptians and Africans and we have wrongly attributed them to classical Greece for thousands of years.

The Steidl spring/summer 2019 catalogue.

The Germans don’t fook around with their promotional materials.

I swear I am not making this up but yesterday finished Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie which is teaching me there are several points of view to be seen when “jihadis” go to the Islamic State and then want to come back to the UK against Tory rhetoric and policy. 

The Aztec Heresy by Paul Christopher.  It is wonderfully exciting nonsense.  Learning about Cortez and stuff.

“Into the Silence” which is a history of the early expeditions to Everest and a partial biography of each of the expedition members including Mallory.

I did not find home fires relatable. I don't understand protagonists motivated by siblings. Who cares, man, fookem.

heh@Clergs.

I really liked Home Fire, although I didn't find the Haemon-Antigone relationship believable.

I'm reading "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs". The main thing I'm learning (other than some random interesting facts) is how rewarding you job can be if it is your calling, a passion you can really devote yourself to, such that you don't mind having bad beers in a hotel lobby during a conference to "talk shop" with other people in your field. Needless to say that is not my job.

I recently finished "The Salt Path" from which I learned that you are not too old to train to be a teacher even at the age of 50.

The two lessons are somehow related, perhaps.

Grazia.

What the new emojis tell us about 2019, that Meghan Markle has “a ring of steel” (and what it says), that hiking boots and fleeces are the height of fashion, and that I should probably just cancel my subscription these days. 

a biography of Johnny Cash

that Roseanne Cash was named by combining his pet names for his wife’s breasts

Roseanne is a ledge, her Dad was by all accounts an asshole.

His songs were ace tho.  the cover album is my fave.

I had high hopes for 'Home Fires', but didn't find it convincing on how the brother got radicalised.

I had high hopes for 'Home Fires', but didn't find it convincing on how the brother got radicalised.

We as in roffers Elphi?  

Draco on fascism

Clergs on existence

Dawnhandbags on Pythagoras

Supes on the plight of man

Tecco on the nature of reality

Judo on feminism

Hyoo on economics

I would be bloody good at existence so there

Evening in the Palace of Reason.  

It takes me Bach.

An advice from counsel 

I'm learning he doesn't like my star case very much. 

Women's Oppression Today which is Marxist feminism (although more second wave as it was published in the 80s)

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. 

Just finished Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel which was a fairly decent post apocalyptic sci fi romp that got dull toward the end.

And my monthly football magazine has just arrived so looking forward to that. 

I love reading. 

Today South London, Tomorrow South London which is just a series of entertaining tales of people boozing south of the river. Not learning much from it other than perhaps some pubs I may wish to visit.

I object to being referred to as a professional.

The Book Of R.

What am I learning from it: R, mainly.

Retraining, folks. It's all the rage. 

Mystery Train by Greil Marcus. Its a fairly old book which I have browsed through before, but reading it again properly now.

Even you don't like old blues music and Americana its a good read.

Elphi a teacher of mine tried teaching us philosophy at school and got us to read a couple of books by philosophers and it was all way to abstract for me and I had no idea what anyone was on about.

The book I'm reading about Everest is teaching me that WW1 gave us a strange breed of explorers who having survived the war had no fear of death and were quite happy to try strolling up a mountain in a tweed suit regardless of the risk of almost certain death.

I've just finished Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. It never gets easier - I suspect my copy is a very old translation. Might try to find something that's a bit newer. Prior to that Sartre's La Nausée and Gide's The Immoralist. All works on my regular rotation, along with Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Kafka, Camus, Nietzsche, Hesse etc. So I suppose not really learning much from them.

Halfway through Keith Richards' autobiography Life now. Lots of rich social stuff from the post-war years in Dartford and thereabouts, which is really interesting. Nowhere near enough stuff about his musical gear. Not written for musicians, sadly. Keef goes to great lengths to cast Mick as comparatively upper-class. Bangs on about drugs altogether too much. As autobiographies of musicians go though, it's reasonably interesting.

Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers

um basically if women do something in the workplace we are seen as a bitch by everyone

But sadly phoebs there are plenty of women and men in offices who are complete bitches.

Obviously ethics should be taught in school from an early age. It doesn’t have to be abstract. But it would undermine the established church of course, so it’s unlilely. Especially as we lurch into an age of illiberality when bizarrely we’re also supposed to tolerate terrorists out of some perverse sense of balance. 

That Deserter book about boozing in South London sounds interesting until you remember its about boozing in south London.

FWIW I’m reading Diamonds Are Forever. An accurate description of  its contents.

Mystery Train is a fine book. 

Does the book offer a whitelist or anything, pheebz? I often think about this problem. It's all very well telling women to lean in but what works for men just doesnt work for us. V annoying.

Very disappointed that the revelation that Meghan Markle has a ring of steel didn't lead to any further comment.

Yeah I got distracted just as I read that and now wonder

Wang, feminists ruined my life!  If it weren't for those damned blue-stockings, I'd be living in the country (Glos. / Ox.) by now with a hedgie husband and 5 children.

To answer the OP, a treatise on the yield curve.

I don't think feminists have stopped you from doing that, Judo.

Srsly, they did.  I spent my entire thirties, fooking working my arse off - doing night after night of all-nighters and working weekends.

My perfectionism and obsessive nature were exploited by the law.

You could have chosen not to though.

no, I couldn't.  I went to a very feminist school and was indoctrinated into thinking that having a successful career was extremely important.

I didn't have the tools at the right stage in my life into realising what would truly make me happy.

Of course, you could have gone down that road and found it didn't make you happy.

 a treatise on the yield curve.

Chapter 1

Inverted curve mean doom

The End.

the huge point is that women and men are not the same.  Women do have a biological clock.  Men don't.  There is a time limit that we have that men don't. 

There are plenty of women who go down exactly the road that you wish you had gone down, and end up desperately unhappy. My seat in family law taught me that.

The Death Of Grass.

I'm not sure yet.

I don't think having kids makes people happy tho

In fact lots of evidence to the contrary

Anyway you are a super youthful person so I have confidence it will work out

And yeah imagine being financially reliant on some total bastard 

It would be gash

Better to seek the moderate path

Gash is my word de semaine

Clerghers - I look terrible today! Really haggard and aged.  I want to get a super facial but I can't because I have just received massive utility bills and my rich friend still hasn't paid me back.

Everyone has an arg face day now and then it will pass.

What does your friend owe you for?? I hate this!

*awaits inevitable follow-up post to JC's 11:26 from Teclis*

borrowed cash off me when he forgot his wallet after a particularly boozy lunch (circa £500)!

borrowed cash off me when he forgot his wallet after a particularly boozy lunch (circa £500)!

WHAT THE fook! Get him to send his coutts butler round this instant!!!

You need to turn up on his doorstep with a baseball bat.

threads on rof. disappointingly little

maybe it's me not you

Flying Fury: Five Years in The Royal Flying Corps by WW1 British ace James McCudden.

Poignant as he wrote it one month before he was killed

So far I am mostly learning how dangerous it was to even fly in one of those planes, never mind dogfight in one

Re-reading Dune (by Frank Herbert). 

Lessons:  don't move to a desert planet, overdose on melange and become a messianic figure, unleashing the Fremen hoards upon an unsuspecting universe.  Useful stuff.

Badman, I take it you heard that they are doing another remake of the movie.

I heard.  I hope they're giving it the big-budget treatment.  Every single made-for-tv series they've done since the David Lynch original was fooking jank.

"it's all very well telling women to lean in but what works for men just doesnt work for us. V annoying."

It's the system that's broken. Long hours and stress doesn't really work for anybody except absolute throbbers. I'm surprised that women are being told to lean into it rather than question why we are insistent on having a commercial culture that requires people to be arseholes to succeed. 

The Day of the Jackal

It taught me that the French had a military conspiracy to commit terrorist violence and murder de Gaulle that actually called itself the Secret Army Organisation lol