The Pickled Egg Library

[NewcastleFalcon]

Limited interest for many, fascinating for me!

Just a thread reminder, no doubt over the period the good old fashioned book will provide some pleasure, and be fodder for our thread, whether you treat yourself or receive a gift.

Regards Neil

[Hell Razor5543]

I have just started reading "This is Going to Hurt", by Adam Kay. Hysterical, heart-breaking, and horrifying (often all on the same page). One of the lesser horrifying facts was that, in 2005, the author (who was a Senior House Officer (a junior doctor with 1 year experience)) was on £6:60 an hour, which was slightly more than till staff at McDonalds, but significantly less than the shift supervisors.

I have just finished reading this. It hurt. It REALLY hurt. The last case he fully wrote about has had me properly in tears. He was not found negligent (in the GMC eyes, as they showed that he had done everything his peers would have done, with the same outcome, based on the information they had AT THE TIME OF THE OPERATION (my capitals)), but that wasn't good enough for him. He feels that if he had been better he might have saved the baby's life, and saved the mother from permanent complications.

I am not going to get into the political ramifications, but next time those gits in Westminster denigrate the NHS read this book and then ask yourself who you ACTUALLY believe.

We all know that the A&E departments now have a 4 hour rule, in that every patient MUST be seen within 4 hours. Well, try this from "This is Going to Hurt";

"Monday, 22 November, 2010.

A patient awaiting review in A&E for some minor abdominal pain has sunk lower and lower down my list of priorities throughout the afternoon as labour ward has become busier and busier. I'm in the middle of stabilising a patient with severe pre-eclampsia when I'm bleeped by a furious A&E registrar.

'If you don't come to A&E right now this patient is going to breach the four-hour target'.

'OK. But if I do come right now my current patient is going to die'. Mic drop.

There is a good five seconds of radio silence where he clearly wonders if there's anything he can fire back that will persuade me to come down and save him a load of aggro. I spend this time marvelling at a system that's so obsessed with arbitrary targets that his reply should take this long to generate.

'Fine. Just come when you can', he replies. 'But I'm really not happy about this'. When she's out of the woods I must remember to have my pre-eclamptic patient write him an apology."

[Hell Razor5543]

I have just started reading the 'Slough House' series of books by Mick Herron. I became aware of them when Gary Oldman was being interviewed, as he was playing the part of 'Jackson Lamb' (which is an interesting choice, as (in the books) Jackson Lamb is described as a seedy version of Timothy Spall!).

The concept is very simple. Slough House is part of MI5, and where all of the major misfits are sent (it is worse than being sent to Coventry; you might get recalled from Coventry at some time, but NOBODY has ever made it back from Slough House). One left a floppy disk marked 'Top Secret' on a train, another 'lost' a consignment of decommissioned weapons that got recommissioned and ended up back on the streets of London. If it was not possible to fire the 'agent' (and they refused to resign) they were sent to Slough House to rot. Most then get the hint and quit (so are not part of the stories), but some are desperate to get back in favour. Jackson Lamb runs Slough House and is NOT a nice person. Whenever Regents Park (H/O of MI5) need some utterly menial task to be done it gets assigned to Slough House. The 'Slow Horses' (as the denizens of Slough House are known) should never get to do anything meaningful, but sometimes they do. This is where the books come in. The first book is 'Slow Horses'.

[bobins]

I have just started reading "This is Going to Hurt", by Adam Kay. Hysterical, heart-breaking, and horrifying (often all on the same page). One of the lesser horrifying facts was that, in 2005, the author (who was a Senior House Officer (a junior doctor with 1 year experience)) was on £6:60 an hour, which was slightly more than till staff at McDonalds, but significantly less than the shift supervisors.

+1 for James' recommendation. I got a copy of the book after reading his suggestion. Just get a copy and read it - it won't take long and it won't hurt you Second hand copies are around £3 delivered via eBay - can't grumble at that

[myglaren]

£4.99 for the Kindle edition.

[Hell Razor5543]

After seeing what happened in the USA a few days ago I remembered a book by John Brunner; "The Jagged Orbit" (published in 1969). It is set in the (then) future of 2014, where (among other things) a cartel sells weaponry to anybody and everybody who can afford them. As the book progresses this cartel is developing a weapon system that is (pretty much) the ultimate system. It is also very expensive. However, much to the cartels' surprise, it appears that anybody who is wealthy enough to purchase this system is likely to be killed in order to prevent them FROM purchasing it! This book has multiple threads, as this Wiki article shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jagged_Orbit

[myglaren]

Must be fifty years since I read that.
Will be in one of the heaps here, somewhere.

[Hell Razor5543]

Might I suggest looking at the books by Tom Holt. They are not highbrow, they are silly, and they are amusing. Some characters turn up in multiple books (the one that comes to mind is Kurt Lundquist, assassin extraordinaire and former hitman for the Milk Marketing Board!). This is an excerpt from his book "Open, Sesame" (the protagonists are held in a secure room, but Fang (a tooth fairy) has managed to come up with an unusual plan);

'There', said Fang, emerging breathless and bedraggled from the mirror. 'Here you go. What do you reckon to that, then?'.
Ali Baba looked down. 'It's an aspidistra', he said, 'how nice. What am I supposed to do with it?'.
For a small portion of a second Fang was tempted to make a suggestion; since she was back to full human size, however, she decided it wouldn't be ladylike, and desisted.
'Not an aspidistra', she panted. 'Look at the label'.
Akram picked out the little white plastic flag, read it and smiled. 'Neat', he said. 'Absolutely no way it'll work, mind you, but a lovely piece of imaginative thinking'. He handed the plastic flag to Michelle, who read it and gave it back.
'So that's what a sesame plant looks like' she said. 'Hang on, though. Are you seriously trying to suggest that if we put this thing against the door and say open, sesame...'
It was probably the most enjoyable four seconds of Fang's life so far. The tremendous feeling of smugness when the plant hopped out of its' pot, waddled across on root-tip to the massive oak door and kicked it in was so utterly, orgasmically satisfying that she wouldn't have swapped it for every molar ever pulled. With her head held high, she walked over to the doorway and pushed the shattered remains of the door aside.
'Yes', she said, with a little bow. 'Come on'.

[CitroJim]

^^ That really made me giggle James Absolute top quality...

I rarely read such stuff but on the strength of that I think I will make an exception

The concept of a Milk Marketing Board hitman made me giggle too

[Hell Razor5543]

Another of Tom Holts' books is "Paint Your Dragon". Binaca Wilson is contracted to produce a sculpture of St George and the Dragon. It is very lifelike; so lifelike, in fact, that first the Dragon wakes up and causes a bit of mayhem, and then (when the dragon has fallen asleep and returned to the plinth) St George does the same. Just to add to the mayhem a small group of demons get left behind on a holiday from Hell, and join in. Then Kurt Lundquist makes an appearance.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Here's a new idea for a thread

Lets try this one see how it goes. From time to time I have deposited something interesting in the Pickled Egg snug hopefully for others to enjoy. Books/magazines/newspaper articles that sort of thing. We all have our different interests but if you have come across a bit of literature which you have enjoyed, post it up here in the Pickled Egg Library.

Revive it if you can!

Now this is a very challenging read, but it does relate to todays POTD viewtopic.php?p=748064#p748064
and may well appear on the trivia Investigation thread. It does! viewtopic.php?p=748067#p748067

and yes you can read the whole thing, or listen to the whole thing, on the Internet Archive Open Library
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1399589 ... hrase_code

Neil

[CitroJim]

I have a deep interest in the Great Train Robbery and as reported in my blog on here, I visited the scene of the crime today...

I'm also re-reading what I consider the best, so far, of the many books on the subject...

I love the deep detail in this book, even down to the tiniest...

I first got interested in the subject when this book was first released in 1978

It's another good account and it's very instructive to read these two back-to-back and see both where they diverge and converge.

Which is what I'll be doing - again...

This, if I ever appeared on the show, would be my Mastermind Specialist Subject, having studied it for nigh on 45 years...

[CitroJim]

I've just noticed... On the rear of the dust jacket of Piers Paul Read's book, the name of the bridge in the postmark is mis-spelled...

You never stop learning something new when studying the Great Train Robbery

[myglaren]

Just posted this in the odd signs thread as it was relevant to Jim's post there.

I've just finished a book called "The Dictionary Of Lost Words", a superb book set around the late 1800s/early 1900s and it is an eye opener the way that our language has degenerated. Basically the production of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language but with a quite fascinating and cheeky side operation, the said dictionary of lost words.
While I was quite entranced by the characters and the plot, I was staggered to find that it was essentially true, just some fiddling with the names and characters a bit.

I generally moan on about American spelling, pronunciation and their made up words but it has to be acknowledged that we too are contributors to the general degeneration.

I don't usually contribute here as although I read a lot it would be of no interest to the majority, or even minority, of readers of this thread.

If it does capture anyone's interest I bought it from Amazon Kindle for a quid.

A Review far better written than I could manage.

[Hell Razor5543]

Car we add Stephen Pile's book "The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures" (and the two before that, "The Book of Heroic Failures", and "The Return of Heroic Failures")? I have just bought the "Ultimate", and have owned "Book" (in the past). Absolutely hilarious, and TRUE. Try this for a laugh;

"The Biggest Football Defeat,

For more than a century the all-important team in world football was Bon Accord, who lost 36-0 in a Scottish League match against Arbroath in 1885. This feat was completely overshadowed in October 2002 when Stade Olympique de L'Emyrne lost 149-0 to their arch rivals AS Adema in a Madagascar national league match. Even more impressively, they were all own goals.

In commanding form Stade Olympique took complete control of the match. No member of the winning team touched the ball between the first goal and the hundred and forty-ninth. From kick-off SOE thumped the goal back to their defenders who whacked it past their own goalkeeper, while the out-played Adema team stood around looking bemused.

The dominant performance was masterminded from the stands by the SOE coach in protest over refereeing decisions that had gone against them in an earlier match."