Book of the Month: The List of Suspicious Things

An early 'book of the month' this month because I had already finished reading this by the end of last month for one very simple reason: it was that good I tore through it on one of my return train trips to London, starting it somewhere just outside Cardiff on the way there and finishing it somewhere between Newport and Cardiff on the way back!

And also a shout out to whoever designed this book cover because this delightful scruffy crow on the cover, pilfering milk from a doorstep delivery caught my eye while on a wander in Griffin Books in Penarth. So I picked it up, read the back cover summary and thought 'hmmm'. Although - spoiler alert - crows don't feature much in the book. 

This is a fictionalised semi-memoir that carries a ring of authenticity heavily swirled in nostalgia. It is loosely based on Jennie Godfrey's own experience of growing up in Yorkshire during the early 1980s when Peter Sutcliffe, who was branded the Yorkshire Ripper by the press, murdered multiple young women. 

The two best friends in the story - Miv (Mavis) and Sharon - are drawn to the horror that starts overshadowing everyday life and follow the police's advice to look out for suspicious things. They start to create a list of things - and men - they think are suspicious. And along the way their investigations uncover a whole heap of other secrets in the lives of the adults around them.

It's a very engaging story and remains believable right up to the very end. I was worried that the story might turn silly with Miv and Sharon catching, or just encountering, the Ripper. But that doesn't happen. There is enough drama going on without fabricating that. Although it turns out there is a connection between Miv and the Ripper, based on the author's own childhood connection which meant she was just one step removed from the Ripper in real life. 

I have one very minor criticism: there are some slightly heavy-handed nostalgia drops into the text. As someone roughly the same age as the author I recognised the descriptions of certain fads and fashions and how particular brands were the must have thing among teenagers but the name checks amused me. I also recognised the freedom I had as a child, as Miv and Sharon head out after school on adventures with no phones, just an understanding they would be back for tea. 

Many of the secrets that Miv and Sharon uncover have very deep themes - loss, betrayal, unhappy marriages, child abuse, mental illness and racism. The girls grow up as they learn more about the people living around them, and while most of the characters have a happyish ending, several do not. There's a real emotional punch to the conclusion to the story, which shows how much it drew me in.

It's to the author's credit that there are no absolute villains, just hurt and broken people hurting and breaking other people. There's a deep underlying sadness for communities that are shifting sideways as the manufacturing industries abruptly shut down and despair kicks in, with some people kicking out in response and wounding others in the process. It's as much a nostalgic tribute to those disappearing mill towns as to the author's own family and childhood. 

This is the first book I've read this year that I would whole-heartedly recommend. I'm very glad the eye-catching rascal of a crow on the cover made me pick it up!

Speeding towards summer - May 2024

Me in most of May

In my previous monthly round-up I mentioned how we had moved out of our house due to home improvements. We spent the first few days in May in a flat in Cardiff Bay and then had a few days as guests with our friends Bryan and Elaine. That gave me and Bryan an opportunity to try out a new game called RumbleSlam - blogged about here.

But soon the plastering was complete and we were able to move back home. Besides being unsettled by being out of the house, there have been several other things to deal with. 

In the middle of the month, a friend and colleague was made redundant, the second member of our small team to leave under redundancy in the last few weeks. In addition to the sadness of the circumstances, it's left a hole in several plans we had in work. 

I also had the unsettling feeling of knowing that the two men who attacked me back in February were due to be sentenced. I wrote a victim impact statement for the sentencing, although opted not to attend the sentencing hearing. The man who actually hit me received a ten year imprisonment sentence and his accomplice who stood by and watched was given three years in prison. 

Overall, I feel physically and emotionally fine about the whole event. I don't feel particularly nervous or panicky about walking around outside. I've walked past the place where it happened a few times. It just all feels very surreal, and I feel slightly detached from it - like it happened to someone else. The police and the witness support unit have been excellent throughout, answering questions and keeping me updated. I know they are also pleased with the quick resolution and successful conviction. 

The day of the sentencing, I saw posts on LinkedIn saying that someone I used to work for had passed away. Professor Sir Mansel Aylward CB was chair of Public Health Wales, where I worked, and requested my services supporting his think tank the Bevan Commission. I worked closely with him to write various reports and we ended up chatting about all kinds of things. I remember him telling me about hearing Aneurin Bevan speaking, and about the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster. 

Once when I was on the team running an exhibition stall for NHS Wales at a big international conference in London, I ended up having a meal with him and my fellow stall-manager, Kelly, where he regaled us with stories from when he worked in the area when it was under the thrall of the Krays. But beyond the stories, Sir Mansel always seemed interested in hearing what everyone around the table had to say. I noticed other tributes on LinkedIn from people who worked at a similar junior level to me, saying the same thing, and expressing genuine sorrow that he had passed away.

Lots happening, but also, goslings!!

On the last bank holiday weekend of the month, Cathy and I had a day trip to Torquay. This was mainly to visit the memorial stone for Cathy's parents at the crematorium. But we also had a drive along the sea front, visited the big toy shop in Paington, and had a picnic tea at Hay Tor on Dartmoor before driving home. We couldn't see much of Hay Tor because of the mist, but we did get to see some of the wild ponies that live on the moor!

Ponies!

In the wider world, we also had news that a general election has been called for 4th July with the Prime Minister standing in pouring rain during the announcement. That in itself prompted lots of comments.  

So far, I haven't received any political bumf through the letterbox, but I will be doing an election leaflet round up like I've done previously (most recently for the Senedd elections in 2021). 

The election announcement torpedoed a news story for us in work because two of the young people who volunteer in our programme had met the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care just the day before the election was announced!

Then right at the end of the month, another big politics news story broke, with Donald Trump becoming the first former US President to be convicted of criminal charges. This made me think back to when I was complaining about how boring politics was when I studied it at A-Level. I can't imagine anyone studying it now would find it dull.

I also managed to fit in five football matches in May. I will be writing them up soon and there will also be an end of season review because that's it - the season is over for me! (But I will be watching the European Championships next month...)

Love and crime - events of February 2024

And suddenly we are at the end of February, even though this year we had a bonus Leap Day. 

For Valentine's Day, Cathy and I celebrated by building a cute Lego set together. I hope these two hedgehogs are as happy together as we are.

February was a difficult month all told. Halfway through the month a "change programme" was announced in work, which will have an impact on my team. Morale and motivation have definitely taken a hit as a result. It's almost inevitable that it will, particularly if people are leaving as a result - it's reminded me of several aspects of organisational change that I studied in my Business Psychology MSc. 

On the home front we have had some stress too. What started initially with enquiries about some repairs to the house turned into a full blown roof replacement. We are very happy with the result, which included taking the top part of the chimney out and roofing over it. The state of the chimney has been worrying me for a long time and I'm very glad it's sorted. 

However, getting a new roof during one of the wettest Februarys on record meant it took a lot longer to complete than anticipated. The benefit of having it done while it was lashing down with rain every other day meant we could instantly check whether it was watertight. Fair play, it held during some downpours even before the new slates went on. 

Also, I've discovered that getting a new roof fitted is a great way to meet some of your neighbours. We had several people knock on the door asking if our roofers were any good and seeing if they could get quotes for their roof repairs. 

Our roofer, Sheldon, was very good. I liked him a lot and when he finished on the final day and said goodbye I honestly told him I was going to miss him. Apparently he is going to be back in our street soon working on someone else's roof and he says he will knock on the door to say hi. 

Less pleasantly, for the first time in my life I was the target of muggers. I won't go into too much detail, but basically, I was walking home from the city centre at about 6.30pm on a Friday evening. There were two youngish lads at the end of the street and as I walked past them one of them lashed out without warning, hit me and pushed me to the ground, then demanded some money. 

After taking some money, he proceeded to run off. His mate ran off after him. I phoned the police and talked to a 999 call handler all the way home, which was only a few minutes. Obviously Cathy had a horrid shock when I walked in bashed and bleeding. Police officers were able to attend and take a statement within minutes. CID called round the next day. And I'm very happy to say that within two weeks, the police had arrested my assailant, had charged him and he's currently being held on remand.

While the incident was horrible, the response I have had from family, friends, neighbours and colleagues has been lovely. I genuinely felt loved and supported by so many people, many telling me how outraged this had happened to me. Some of our neighbours brought a box of cookies because they saw the police car outside and saw my black eye and wanted to check I was OK. That was the only time I cried about what had happened - crying because of their unexpected kindness.

So, yes, a bad thing happened, but there are still lots of good people in the world and the response to the bad thing really brought that home to me. 

And on a final note, even having that incident happen, didn't stop me from going to nine football matches (full report to follow!), my first ever international ice hockey game, and making a dent in my pile of shame by building one of my Blood Bowl teams that had been sitting there unbuilt for two and a half years! So a good sporting month all round. 

New Blood Bowl Orc team ready for mayhem

A week in the Tamar Valley

I mentioned in my previous blog post that we unexpectedly ended up going to Cornwall for a week. We had been planning to go to Cambridge but then our reason for going over there got cancelled. So we headed to Kernow instead, literally just inside the county staying in sight of the River Tamar with Devon on the far bank. 

We were staying in a little cottage in Calstock, a small village with an impressive viaduct over the Tamar.

We could see the river over the roofs and chimneys from our bedroom window.

Calstock isn't very big. It had a couple of pubs, some nice art galleries, a coffee shop and an ice cream parlour. I tried the peanut ice cream. It was delicious.

Walking along the river, we visited Cotehele, which the locals call C'teel. It's a big National Trust property set in nicely scaped gardens.

The closest 'big' place was Tavistock, just across the county border. Neither of us had visited the town before and we enjoyed exploring it. It has some impressive 19th century buildings.

In the Guild Hall we got to see the old magistrates court (and the cells underneath!). Cathy got to sit on the magistrates bench...

... while I was in the dock!

In the exhibition in the building, the list of offences tried in the court included "refusing vaccination" (is it time to bring that back?) and the 19th century equivalent of road rage.

Tavistock also seemed to have an abundance of toy shops, which was great! We got the obligatory photo with a giant Playmobil figure outside the Toymaster.

I really love the wildness of the Cornish coast and the dinky little traditional fishing ports. We went to see the sea at Portwrinkle and then went for an explore in Looe.

And we were also very close to Plymouth. We had both been to Plymouth before. I had a memory of it being a dismal city centre built out of concrete. We saw a different side to the city this time. We parked near the Barbican area next to the Marina.

We saw the Mayflower steps, where the pilgrims set sail for the New World.

And we saw the Leviathan, which is apparently also referred to as the Prawn.

The Barbican is claimed to have more cobbled streets than anywhere else in England. It was full of galleries, boutiques and independent eating houses. Apparently it is where both Catherine of Aragon and Pocahontas both first set foot in England (not off the same boat!). It's also where the word "potatoes" was used for the first time!

We finished our exploring by driving around Plymouth Hoe. The views out to sea were wonderful.

We, thankfully, didn't see any Armadas though.

We drove through the outskirts of Plymouth another day as well - on our way to Dartmoor Zoo. We took lots of photos of animals, enough for a standalone blog post. So that's coming next!

Vehicle crime sinks to a new low

I spotted this on the pavement opposite my office.

You know times are hard when people are jacking wheels off buggies...

I'm not saying I agree with vigilante-ism

But when a guy who has flushed 24 billion pounds of tax-payers money down the toilet and then retires with a tax-payer funded salary of £700,000 a year, it's hard to feel any sympathy when yobbos brick his house.

Score 1 for the yobbos.

Christmassy Echo headline

I could tell it's nearly Christmas today when we drove past the papershop and one of the headlines on the Echo boards was "Man has tongue bitten off in assault."

Now obviously that's horrific. But it did make me wonder what the full story was - which I suppose is the point of the boards. I wondered if the assaulter was a man or a woman, because it's bad enough if a member of the opposite sex bit off your tongue, but, as a bloke, to think there's a french-kissing thug roaming the streets waiting to pounce on another victim is even more worrying.

And then there's the aftermath. You can imagine the reporting being something like this: "The victim described his attacker as 'mmmth phththth mmphthfth'."

Which wouldn't be much help really.

Maddening

The latest revelation in the Madeleine McCann saga is that "friends of the McCanns" saw a man carrying (possibly) a child, which could have been Madeleine. And the papers are full of it again - the McCanns are back on the radio - when will this ever end?

I don't know how many people I've talked to about this, but it seems most people reckon there's something fishy about the whole thing. And the verdict on the media coverage is that 'Kate and Gerry', as they're known to Daily Mail readers, benefit from being middle class and reasonably photogenic. Or at least Kate does. It was a single mother friend of mine - bizarrely also called Madeleine - who said "Now if it had been me who'd left my child alone, the papers would have had a field day and I'd be in prison right now."

As far as I can see there are four main possibilities.
1 - while 'Kate and Gerry' were out eating their meal, an unidentified intruder siezed the chance to snatch a child and either a) killed her, or b) is holding her hostage still over four months later [you decide which is the most likely scenario]
2 - while 'Kate and Gerry' eat dinner, an unidentified intruder, wrongly assuming no parent would leave their children alone for the evening, broke into the apartment to nick stuff, was surprised to find the children there and then had to do something because Madeleine woke up, and so either a) killed her, or b) is holding her hostage still over four months later [again, you decide which is the most likely scenario]
3 - 'Kate and Gerry' drugged Madeleine, even though they've now denied the accusations of sedating their kids, but cocked up the dosage, then cooked up the abduction as a way of avoiding jail, while disposing of her body themselves
4 - Madeleine is safe and sound somewhere and the McCanns know where she is, but, hey, they're famous now and got to meet the Pope etc. etc. So they keep the whole mystery going.

I honestly feel exhausted to the point of boredom with this whole case. Deep down, like most people, I think a little girl is tragically dead. We don't know what happened; we might never know. The McCanns might know, although I think they don't. What they do know is what we know - the guiltiest parties in this are the parents who abandoned their daughter so they could go out for a meal.