Ramblings

I've been contributing here so infrequently I think some of you (my fondly imagined regular audience) may think I've given up altogether. Well here I am; back again. I don't often comment on current affairs but one or two items just got my goat recently and, while the last thing that I want to sound like is yet another why-oh-why merchant, I would like to express myself. It's what a blog is for after all.

I'm not going to refer, except very briefly, to events at Virginia Tech. What can anyone say about that, other than how inevitable it was that the crazies of the US gun lobby would come out and declare that such an event would not have been as bad if the campus had not been decreed to be a gun free environment. So that's what they want is it? A world where it is the norm for everyone learning or teaching or working at a university is armed with a gun?

No, it's not that event which has, well depressed me really. If something is almost guaranteed to upset me it is cruelty to children. And this past week we've had the sight of four odious slags avoiding a jail sentence after being foung guilty of cruelty against two toddlers in their "care" who they forced to fight each other, until the little boy and girl were so upset they tried to get away. But these slime were so entertained by what the kids were going through they goaded them on as if they were directing a dog-fight.

That they were not sent to jail is a scandal. The judge should think shame on himself. They"did not pose a danger to the public". The man is a fucking cretin. They sure posed a danger to the children they were supposed to be looking after, and they should be properly punished for it.

And now this. Oh I know there are cruelties and misery being heaped upon children the world over every minute of every day but sometimes something happens that brings it into sharp focus. The fat slags of North Prospect, Plymouth have more in common than they might think with the Taliban.

Lawrence Donegan

Maybe I should start a Lawrence Donegan fan club. Only of his books though; I'm no great fan of his weekend scribblings for the Herald. I've just finished No News At Throat Lake which is just a great read. I'm not surpised as Four Iron In The Soul was just the absolute definition of unputdownable. Maybe I'm overdoing the hyperbole but I think the man is the master of making the prosaic memorable. It's been a good number of years since I read Four Iron In The Soul, nine or more in fact, but the pleasant memory lingers on. I also read California Dreaming and, although I didn't think it had the depth that Four Iron had, it too was an unfailingly good read.

I love non-fiction of the class that Donegan can produce. Although he is not a travel writer in the same way that you could describe Paul Theroux or Eric Newby, in my humble opinion he is their equal in the art of human study. I see, looking at the fly-leaf, that he wrote Throat Lake in 1999 and I wonder at his lack of such good product since. Am I being unfair? I see there is something called Quiet Please about marshalling at the Ryder Cup. It's not brilliantly reviewed on Amazon but if I can find a second hand copy I'll be happy to read it.

My real point here is that I wonder if there are other readers out there who think that Donegan is under-achieving? Let me know; in fact, Lawrence, please pitch in. You're too good to be languishing in whatever place you are just now. I love your writing and I need more.