Making it happen was quite a fun read, strangely made me more sympathetic to Fred Goodwin carrying the media blame for institutional failure and mis alignment of incentives.
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Posted 10 years ago #
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Have to say I felt no sympathy for Fred - he came out of it as a nasty piece of work, really.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Rats, there's *another* twitching based thriller? I thought I'd written the only one. Now sadly only available on kindle until I pull my finger out and finish my second novel. Which might well have happened had I not got sucked into POP and various other cycling-based shenanigans. If anyone can think of a decent thrillerish plot based around a loose anarchist collective of cycle campaigners, please PM me
Posted 10 years ago # -
@sallyhinch
I've sketched out the plot of a novel based on the denizens of the canal. I'll never write it so you can have that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Well yes Goodwin did seem a nasty piece of work but to be running a large organization of that size think there is a selection effect, so would not expect some one particularly nice. A kind of adverse selection in respect to niceness there is the theory to get to number one more likely to be a social path.
The reason I felt sympathetic is I wonder if things had gone the other way Fred Goodwin would be a “national hero” in a sense the person that created such a large bank a pride to Scotland. His rudeness and bad manners would have been overlooked etc.
Posted 10 years ago # -
" a novel based on the denizens of the canal"
could it have a narrator watching them all beetle past going 'ding' as she brushes her teeth?
Posted 10 years ago # -
"I can lend you the original if you wish. It is astounding, but not, I would imagine, translatable."
Two English translations exist, I'm borrowing one later this week. I can't pretend my French is good enough to read the original in any depth.
"You have a 'workplace library'? Hospital or prison?"
Close. University.
Posted 10 years ago # -
" a novel based on the denizens of the canal"
'Tales of the Riverbank'?
Alexander Trocchi's novel 'Young Adam' is based on the canal: Union, Forth & Clyde, in fact. Adapted into a feature film by David McKenzie.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"plot of a novel based on the denizens of the canal"
Does it involve etiquette??
Posted 10 years ago # -
Rats, there's *another* twitching based thriller? I thought I'd written the only one.
You seem to have created a genre!
Posted 10 years ago # -
@SRD
Most certainly. No canal-based novel could be complete without a watchtower voyeuse and a woodland voyeur.
Or breaches of etiquette with serious and unforseen consequences.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Fred was a great example of Nero fiddling while Rome burned through his obsession to detail with his pet vanity projects. Despite all that was going on, found time to personally re-locate his office to the other side of the building half-way through construction, choose the location of all the newly planted trees he could see from his windows, issue a decree that no rabbits were to be allowed to be seen from his office, personally picked all the shades of yellowy-orange (his favourite colour) which would be allowed on RBS interior walls around his empire, enter into a siege mentality with the neighbouring golf course which he had desires on getting his hands on (possibly for the land and also possibly just to include it in the facilities on offer at the Gin Palace) and yet still somehow found time to arrange himself oodles of trips around the world on a private jet under the vanity registration G-RBSG.
Rumours are that Mrs Goodwin picked the orange-flecked carpets that make you think you're levitating off the floor if you stare at them long enough.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Mrs Goodwin may well have picked the flying carpets. She had to be kept busy after all.
Posted 10 years ago # -
There must be some RBS fiction (I mean novels).
Posted 10 years ago # -
There must be some RBS fiction
You never read the prospectus for the last rights issue, did you?
Posted 10 years ago # -
IWRATS Yes, yes and it's yours. Got a pocket in your flapper/masher outfit?
Sorry, later revelations put this quite out of my head! Thank you. I don't have a pocket but I am likely to be carrying some sort of bag so can pop it in there.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Two wonderful Scottish books are Sightlines and Findings by Kathleen Jamie. I find poetry is too much for me, but some poets' prose is great. Simon Armitage is another example.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Findings - excellent. The one about the peregrine.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Simon Armitage is another example
All Points North is a lovely (and entertaining) read.
Posted 10 years ago # -
This year I have been mostly reading Arthur Koestler, Venedikt Erofeev, re-reading PKD and Bukowski, and struggling with E.M Cioran.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@PS- as was Walking Home and my favourite, Moon Country (a prose-poetry mix) with Glyn Maxwell. Spent a lot of time in Iceland around the time it was written and it reflected the country really well. Not sure what they were on when they wrote it, but it was brilliant.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@paddyirish I enjoyed Walking Home too.
Moon Country sounds terrific (especially as I was just in Iceland a couple of weeks ago). Thanks for that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Got the 'Laid Back Books' dusty book corner with various tomes donated in the early days of the shop.
Recently read Gironimo! Riding the very terrible 1914 Tour of Italy by Tim Moore.
This was quite entertaining in a very gung-ho kind of way. Recommended by Italian customer Angelo - despite the expected Italian stereotypes. Was on BBC Radio 4 apparently.How Music Works by David Byrne reminds readers of how enjoyable a well written and designed book can be. I'd also suggest The Man Who Recorded the World: A Biography of Alan Lomax if you really like reading about as well as listening to music.
Went to launch of this book from local publisher Luath Press. Blossom: What Scotland Needs To Flourish by Lesley Riddoch
Luath also do the beautifully designed Monsieur Mackintosh: The travels and paintings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the Pyrenees Orientales 1923-1927
French and English text side by sidePosted 10 years ago # -
A copy of Swallows and Amazons being devoured by No.1 son at the moment: he seems to be thoroughly engrossed in it.
I have a copy of 'Blossom' but haven't reads it yet: need to finish the Grushin novel first.
Posted 10 years ago # -
My eldest devoured S&A last year. Sadly, I'm not sure she has made it through any of the others, although she's had a stab at several. Possibly still a bit young for them.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"A copy of Swallows and Amazons being devoured by No.1 son at the moment"
"My eldest devoured S&A last year"
There's no better sound in the world than a child reading. (I think that's the quote - can't remember who said it first)
Posted 10 years ago # -
What is it about S&A?
Pub. 1930 so I wasn't exactly an early adopter when I read it - young enough to not see any 'significance' in one of the children's names.
Long enough ago to not think anything unusual about 'free range kids' - that was my life then - and overnight camping without adults.
But now? How do parents explain the 'impossibilities' of it all??!
Posted 10 years ago # -
Currently reading "Lighthouse: The Mystery of the Eilean Mor* Lighthouse Keepers" by Keith McCloskey. If you like lighthouses and tales of intrigue, then this is for you.
After that I picked up a book at the Radial Book Fair about fracking, to get a better understanding of the bountiful benefits they have planned for us.
*Better known as the Flannan Isles.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Currently reading "Lighthouse: The Mystery of the Eilean Mor* Lighthouse Keepers" by Keith McCloskey. If you like lighthouses and tales of intrigue, then this is for you.
Oh I read that. You could have come to my talk on it last month. I learned the poem and everything. :-)
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Min indeed I would have had I known (although I didn't own the book at this point, it still would have floated my boat).
Did you solve it?
Posted 10 years ago #
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