Rounding upward

. The entertainingly grumpy Bill Bryson, author of Notes from a Small Island, still one of the best-selling books in England, is up in arms over the state of rural England. He's incensed about "fly tipping." Seems there's an absolute epidemic of it; 340,000 incidents last year in Sheffield alone, and only one prosecution.

Something simply must be done about all those tipsy flies.

book/daddy confesses: He had to look it up. "Fly tipping" means dumping trash illegally -- doing it "on the fly." What book/daddy was imagining involved sneaking up on the sleeping critter, furtively taking hold of one of its tiny legs and carefully turning it over on its back. That way, when the fly awakens, it tries to fly "up" into the floor. Buzzing hilarity ensues.

even as a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin

"What was later described as the most ill-natured interview ever broadcast can be heard for the first time since 1953." The bilious Evelyn Waugh quizzed on the BBC show, "Frankly Speaking," by three aggressive questioners:

"Asked what failings in others he could most readily excuse Waugh replies quickly: "Drunkenness." Any others? "Em [long pause] ... anger. Lust. Dishonouring their father and mother. Coveting their neighbour's ox, ass, wife. Killing. I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshipping graven images. That seems to be idiotic."

In case someone hasn't already e-mailed you the link to it, the Village Voice printed an Official Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere, complete with portraits by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. One may certainly object to the names left off the list. And one can question evaluations based on a ratio of 'stupid" to "evil." (Is Michelle Malkin really that much more "stupid" than she's "evil"?). But Roy Edroso's guide is often spot-on. And funny.

Pity he had to read all that stuff, though.

April 21, 2008 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

2 Comments

By bok/daddy on April 21, 2008 12:33 PM

The flies could wear little team sweatshirts. And endorse products -- like finger gloves for the pro tippers: "Get a grip, don't let those flies slip -- with skintight Sure-Tippers."

There could even be steroid scandals.

By heather (errantdreams) on April 21, 2008 12:24 PM

I like your version of fly tipping better. It would require great amounts of skill, and soon fly tipping champions would compete in fly tipping reality show championships.

Books I'm currently recommending . . .

Richard Price's best novel since Clockers, Lush Life is a slice of life on the Lower East Side, complete with the ghetto kids, the new bohemians, the old Jews and the cops. A restaurant manager at 35 fears he's no longer the wannabe artiste who'd turn into a full-blown artiste some day. When he sees a younger version of himself get shot during a mugging (and then gets blamed by the cops), he comes apart. Price takes these cultures and stares through all of them. Lush Life is a crime novel, a terrific literary thriller, a sampler of Price's namebrand talents with dialogue and deadpan humor. Price is after more than just law-and-order, crime-and-punishment, justice-is-served. This is a portrait of big-city America..You think The Wire, Law and Order, the old Homicide are the best TV has to offer? This is all that -- between covers.

In Life Class, Booker Prize-winner Pat Barker returns to World War I, the setting for her magnificent Restoration trilogy. Where those novels followed shell-shocked poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfrid Owen through their convalescence, Life Class follows three painting students (based on real Slade School artists Christopher Nevinson and Paul Nash) as the war approaches. Elinor wants little to do with the war or with men: They're distractions from her art. Kit, a hot, young futurist, is primed for the war's industrialized destruction, while Paul flees his working-class background. As usual with Barker, the sexual relationships, war-time atmosphere and gruesome battlefield details are brilliantly conveyed: Her prose is lean but lyrical, compassionate yet cool-headed. No character is quite as compelling as Regeneration's bitter bisexual, Billy Prior, but the Great War's upheavals in art and combat, sex and class, provide Barker with material for exceptional historical novels. A new trilogy? One hopes so.

THE REVIEWS:

Pat Barker, Frankenstein, Cass Sunstein on the internet, Samuel Johnson, Thrillers, Denis Johnson, Alan Furst, Caryl Phillips, Richard Flanagan, George Saunders, Michael Harvey, Larry McMurtry, Harry Potter and more ...

ESSAY:

Big D between the sheets -- Dallas in fiction

ESSAY:

Reviewing the state of reviewing

ESSAY:

9/11 as a novel: Why?

ESSAY:

How can critics say the things they do? And why does anyone pay attention? It's the issue of authority.

The disappearing book pages:

Papers are cutting book coverage for little reason

Thrillers and Lists:

Noir favorites, who makes the cut and why