A Doodle A Day

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

I'm a fan of travel writing and one of my favourite writers of this genre is Bill Bryson. His book 'A Walk in the Woods', his description of his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his one time and newly acquainted friend Stephen Katz is probably my favourite. As with most of my favourite reads I also purchase the audio cassette or CD of the book.

I had originally purchased the cassette abridgement of A Walk in the Woods read by Kerry Shale. I am always slightly disappointed with abridged versions as a lot of the favourite parts are left out, especially when as with this abridgement it was down to 2 cassettes and a running time of around 3 hours, that's a lot of good stuff gone. Kerry Shale is an excellent narrator though and it became an often listened to audio book. I was extremely disappointed to find a few months back that somehow I had lost one of the cassettes and while not earth shattering it becomes one of those things that once you know you have lost it, nags at the back of your mind and you want it all the more.

A few days ago while in a book shop that nagging whispered that I should make my way to the spoken word section and obtain a replacement. This time I went to the CDs rather than the cassettes and almost immediately spotted the niggling item. Flipping the CD case over I noticed that although abridged the running time was 6 hours on the CD. Good news, abridged but not quite so ruthlessly.

Returning home that evening I eagerly fed the first shiny disk into the CD player and then froze as this rather monotonous voice came from the speakers. I checked the CD cover and there under the title was 'read by the author. I was shocked. It was such a contrast to the energetic narration style of Kerry Shale. Kerry Shale sounded alive, vibrant; he did voices, he did amusing voices that brought characters to life. Bill Bryson sounded rather like he had been told to read the dictionary out loud from cover to cover and - he couldn't 'do' voices. Now admittedly Bill Bryson is an author, so entertaining voices and the ability to read interestingly aren't part of his remit, Kerry Shale is an actor so he would be in trouble if he didn't have those skills, but it was a disappointing shock. Bill Bryson didn't even sound like Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson should sound like Kerry Shale, you know the way you imagine a person would sound or look if you hadn't actually spoken to them or met them.

Now after a couple of listenings I am getting used to the mellow narration style that is Bill Bryson's, even to enjoy and appreciate the quieter more laid back approach, and the less abridged nature of the audio book is well twice the listening pleasure. The only thing is I can't quite get that little voice out of the back of my head that says 'Bill Bryson should sound like Kerry Shale'.

Anyway, while listening it did prompt the silly little doodle in this entry.

From A to B via CDEFGHI.....

A couple of weeks back I finally succumbed and purchased a satellite navigation system for the car. I reasoned that now prices had dropped somewhat that it was a good investment. I drive a lot, I cover everywhere from Southampton in the South to Glasgow in the North, Norwich in the East to Cardiff in the West and I am very good at getting myself lost and stressing over directions when I am driving.

I stress out enough at finding directions to a new hotel that I haven't stayed at before so trying to re-navigate while on the road when there is a traffic jam, a closed road or after taking an incorrect turning is tantamount to asking me to perform emergency surgery in the wild with a tooth-pic and a spoon. Time to de-stress, relax, let technology take the strain and replace my brain.

It works too. Over the last couple of weeks it has taken me to places I know and a few I didn't know. I have deliberately driven off course and it has politely directed me on course again. Wonderful. Well - apart from a couple of days ago when heading out to one of our London offices in Wimbledon.

Now there is a nice straight forward route there. I have driven it before but as it had been nearly a year since the last visit my mind had wiped the final and most important part of the route. Well, I don't have to worry do I. I have the technology to not have to pre look up the directions, simply pop in the post code and follow the voice.

I chose 'fastest route' and off I set. A very, very long time afterwards I arrived at my destination. I don't know how they decided that this was the 'fastest' route. I think possibly they meant the fastest route while having the opportunity to see as many streets in central London as possible. To see the most congested areas first hand, to be able to leisurely browse as many shop window displays as possible from a stationary vehicle, to even have time to read the special offers, to read street side cafe menus in the windows, to stop at two million sets of traffic lights while pedestrians crossed the road with the smug grins of those who know you really don't drive down this road unless you really really have to. A journey almost as long as that last sentence. To enjoy the kind of tour that a tourist would take of London from one of those open top buses, only with the difference that I am driving, I am trying to actually get somewhere today - this century, and when I am done I still have to drive another 120 or so miles to get back home.

On the return journey, down streets that I am sure Jack the Ripper was the last person to travel, I spoke to a colleague. 'Oh yes, they are bloody awful for directions around London. The best thing to do around London is to get directions from the AA Website and then just use the satellite navigation to get you back on track if you take a wrong turn. Bloody nightmare they are, turn a 3 hour journey into a 6 hour one'.

In actuality it turned what should have been a five hour round trip of driving into an eight hour round trip with work prised somewhere in the middle of the four hours driving each way. I am sure that the system has to have been designed by Taxi drivers - 'What's that mate? - quickest route, no going down unnecessary roads to bump the cost up - as if I would! I'm as Honest as the day is long!'.

Technology - where would we be without it? Well apart from home three hours earlier.

If I wanted to...I could move..

Today most definitely had that kind of feeling about it.

You've missed this rubbish haven't you! Admit it!

I tend to forget that people know about this blog. I was at a proposed new site a week or so ago surveying amongst other things for installing a standby generator set. We climbed to the roof which could be an option and the one colleague pointed out that the view of the surrounding countryside was quite impressive, and then added that when we are carrying out the work I will probably be on the roof sketching. It caught me off guard for a moment as I thought how do you know I sketch. It's surprising the things people remember sometimes.

Was it really December?!

......I guess it was.

I've looked at the blog a few times and thought...'I really should update that sometime'..and that is as far as it has got - a well intentioned thought rather like I must put the bin out or I must get around to cutting the grass or I really must find and dispose of that half eaten sandwich that fell under the passenger seat in the car 3 months ago... until today. Well obviously I haven't done all of those things today; cutting the grass would disturb the small Pygmy tribe that now dwells in the garden and I would need some serious protection to locate and remove that sandwich as I think it has evolved into a life form all of its own.

Doodling has also been suffering from the same good intentions. It has even been the subject of some contention. 'You haven't drawn anything for ages'. 'I know'. 'Why not?' 'Because I haven't'. 'Why not?' 'Because'. 'Well you should'. 'Well I don't wan't to'. 'Why not?' 'Because'. 'You could paint something for me'. 'I could find that sandwich, but I'm not going to...'.

However here I am. And just to enter with a big splash it isn't even something of my own creation. Nope, just some quick doodles copied out of someone else's book from someone else's illustrations. Now that was worth reading all of this for wasn't it.

Anyway..to business.

I am a big fan of the Edge Chronicles written by Paul Stewart and illustrated by Chris Riddell. I love the bizarre worlds they create and as I have no talent what so ever for such creativity of writing or for the creation of such wonderful illustrations I sat there today flicking through another Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell creation 'Muddle Earth' scribbling little copies of some of the incidental illustrations down onto a pad. I think it was in a vain hope that by doing so one day a character of my very own will pop into my head and maybe also that when that character arrives I will have some idea of how to pose the character however I want. I don't envy people, but if I did, it would be guys like these that can create a complete world and characters such as these with such humour and then create illustrations that suit so well.

A more adult variant I guess would be the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, another favourite of mine, and with my love of line illustrations I wish that they were illustrated. The cover illustrations by Josh Kirby although superb are just not enough! I want more!

On a slightly different tangent I have become hooked of late on a number of old radio series. As I have mentioned before as well a being somewhat of a book worm I also listen to a lot of spoken word Cd's; book readings, dramatisations etc. It helps while away those long business trips and it is so much more involving that watching films or TV. You can also do other things at the same time - like sketch, well or not sketch as the case may have been recently. The old radio series in question here are; the classic 1950's 'Journey into Space, Earthsearch and the 'Paul Temple' crime thrillers. I don't know what it is that is so appealing about these old radio dramatisations but I am hooked on them. They are most definitely 'low tec', the dialogue is often quite stilted, the characters parodies of parodies, the Paul Temple cases quite repetitively formulaic, but they are wonderful! They don't have the depth of other BBC radio dramatisations such as the Lord of the Rings as they were I guess written solely for radio by script writers rather than authors and then dramatised because of their appeal, but they are still addictive. I have found myself recently feverishly heading over to the spoken work shelves of book shops on the off chance of finding another Paul Temple case.

All quite sad I am sure....and as I can hear 'Paul Temple Intervenes' calling me I shall exit leaving the scribbled copies of Chris Riddells originals just so there is some kind of doodling content to this post. Just to reiterate the point...these are not my creations, they are idly scribbled poor copies for fun of the excellent illustrations of Chris Ridell and I would highly recommend The Edge Chronicles published by Random House and Muddle Earth written by Paul Stewart and illustrated by Chris Riddell.