Beautiful design of a wireless in Wireless Museum, Kirkwall:-

Art Deco Wireless Designs, Wireless Museum, Kirkwall. Bakelite construction too:-

And on Wednesday it was the turn of Jeff Beck to leave us too early. He was one of that group of English exponents of the electric guitar which sprang up in the early to mid-sixties. But Beck was the electric guitarist’s electric guitarist.

Sadly he never gained the commercial success on his own account to match his status with his peers. He really only had the one hit and that track, Hi-Ho Silver Lining, wasn’t representative of Beck’s musical tastes.

I featured that hit here and his single Tallyman here. As the Jeff Beck Group he also had a hit with Donovan and the song Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love is Hot.)

His earliest brush with fame came with The Yardbirds. His guitar was a major part of their psychedelic sound.

This clip of the group performing Over, Under, Sideways, Down has a remastered stereo edit laid over the footage.

The Yardbirds: Over Under Sideways Down

Geoffrey Arnold (Jeff) Beck: 24/6/1944 – 10/1/2023. So it goes.

BCA, 1984, 366 p.

This is an overview of the Normandy campaign from its planning through D-Day itself and on to the breakout from the beachheads to the closing of the Falaise pocket. The author’s stance on the campaign is that the Germans had the better resolve, equipment and better trained soldiers, but the Allies an overwhelming superiority in matériel and supplies. Not that that necessarily meant victory was a foregone conclusion. Much hard fighting was required. Casualty rates – on both sides – were prodigious, in some units 100%.

After the landings there was a belief among the Allies that firepower alone would suffice to beat the Germans but events proved this to be misplaced and progress did not depend on leadership. Hastings says that “few American infantry units arrived in Normandy with a grasp of basic tactics,” though their airborne troops did. There were some less than effective commanders but replacing them tended to have little effect. Even the better generals (Patton included) could not improve the performance of poor quality divisions. Problems – in both Allied armies – often lay at regimental and battalion level. German soldiers, however, adapted at once to the need for infiltration in the bocage, “their junior leadership was much superior to that of the Americans, perhaps also to that of the British.” Hastings does note that Bradley’s response to the Mortain counter-attack was, being calm and unflustered, a better command achievement than Patton’s haring around north-western France.

One thing I hadn’t realised till reading this was that even in the run-up to D-Day both Allied Air Forces were still reluctant to carry out the softening up bombing required in Northern France as they were of the opinion that they could win the war by themselves by attacking German industry and so no ground invasion would be required. Quite how this belief held on is odd since it ought to have been obvious that the German bombing Blitz on British cities had not greatly damaged the morale of the British people. Certainly not so far as to make the Government sue for peace with Germany. However, the bombing campaign over Germany in early 1944, while not really limiting aircraft production, had led to the defeat of the Luftwaffe due to the Mustang P-51 fighter’s effectiveness in inflicting losses on the Germans, whose aeroplanes and more crucially pilots consequently were not available to contest control of the skies over the invasion force. Another contributor was the Allies’ denial to the Germans of weather recording stations in the North Atlantic so hampering their forecasting. And of course there was FORTITUDE, the deception plan which had many Germans believing the Normandy invasion was a feint and another attack would take place on the Pas de Calais. As a result the Germans were unprepared for the attack when it came. Rommel of course was famously at home for his wife’s birthday and Hastings seems so tickled by the tit-bit that the German general Feuchtinger was apparently closeted away with a female friend on the night of June 5^th – 6^th that he tells us this twice.

Since the area round Caen was the hinge of the Allied force (and closest to Germany if a breakout were to take place) the Germans of course sent their best forces there. This meant the British and Canadians always faced the cream of the German troops in Normandy. The pressure was nevertheless such that Rommel was forced to use his tanks to shore up his defensive line and consequently could not concentrate them for a counter-attack. Montgomery was always conscious that British manpower was limited and the need to minimise losses resulted in overuse of what the Allies had a lot of – armour – as against a mix of armour and infantry. However, he did his reputation no good by continually misrepresenting the situation and his intentions both at the time and afterwards. In the end it was massed fire-power, particularly artillery, which wore down the Germans. In this context it is noteworthy that the historian Basil Liddell Hart later said that OVERLORD was “An operation that went according to plan but not according to timetable.”

Pedant’s corner:- focussed (many times: focused,) ditto “focussing” (focusing.) “One of the greatest throngs of commanders ever assembled … were gathered” (One … was gathered,) “Canaris’ loyalties” (Canaris’s,) “Brigadier Williams’ worst fears” (Williams’s,) “reached a crescendo” (reached a climax,) “the infantry were deployed” (was deployed,) “less weapons” (fewer weapons,) “Sepp Dietrich’s I SS Panzer Corps were quite unable” (was quite unable,) “the sheer enormity of the forces” (not enormity, they were not monstrous except in so far as any army is; ‘extent’.) “The SS were increasingly obsessed” (this is the SS as a whole, therefore ‘The SS was’,) Hodges’ (Hodges’s.)

Despite its (for the time) Hi-Tech modernistic architecture, the Empire Exhibition, Scotland, 1938, was home to a very traditional type of building, that of the turf-roofed dwellings of the clachans of Highland Scotland. I featured a postcard contrasting the new with the old – the Tower of Empire overlooking Highland village cottages – here.

Clachan is Gaelic for a small settlement. A previous such village had been one of the hits of the Scottish National Exhibition held in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow, in 1911 and the population of Glasgow was keen to see such an exhibit revived.

Three of Brian Gerald’s art-drawn postcards of the 1938 Exhibition focused solely on the Clachan. As well as cottages the Clachan featured a ruined castle, a loch, with a lovely stone bridge over a burn running into it, and the occasional bagpiper strolling about:-

One of the cottages did double duty as the Exhibition’s Post Office:-

The American University in Cairo Press, 2008, 181 p. Translated from the Arabic, Niuran sadiqa, by Humphrey Davis

I have previously read the author’s most famous novel The Yacoubian Building but this is a collection of Aswamy’s shorter works and preceded by a Preface which apart from that word and its pagination is, curiously, entirely blank.

The first and by far the longest piece here is He Who Drew Close and Saw in which the narrator, Isam, describes at length his relationships with his family – an artist father whose hopes of changing Art history have been dashed, a mother who refuses to accept the death sentence of a cancer diagnosis, her mother with whom she has developed an antipathy and who revenges herself graphically – and at his work at the government Chemicals Department where he has managed to annoy everyone, especially his boss, with his air of superiority. Along the way he reflects on love of country and its spurious nature. He affects to despise the mass of Egyptians equally and tells a German woman whom he meets at a photography exhibition that her impressions of, and so fondness for, Egypt are misguided. The ending, however, casts doubt on all that passed before, or at least on Isam’s views on it.

Izzat Amin Iskander was a schoolmate of the narrator – a schoolmate with an artificial leg and a crutch. Neverthelees he sets off on a ride on the narrator’s new bicycle.

An Old Blue Dress and A Close-fitting Covering for the Head, Brightly Coloured comprises accounts of two contrasting relationships. In the first a woman puts up with the realities of life but her partner is more cynical. In the second the narrator is beguiled by a straight-laced ‘moral’ girl.

Mme Zitta Mendès, A Last Image again has two parts. In the first the narrator recalls his visits to Tante Zitta – whom the reader soon works out is his father’s mistress. The second sees him recognise her in old age at the foreigners’ table in Groppi’s.

Dear Sister Makarim takes the form of a letter, couched in very pious terms, of a worker abroad explaining to his sister in Egypt why he cannot possibly send money back home for their mother’s medical treatment.

Games are what Mohammad el-Dawakhli, an extremely fat schoolboy, tries to avoid at all costs. The gym teacher Miss Souad tacitly accepts this. One day she is replaced by Mr Hamid, who is not so indulgent. Thereafter the story writes itself.

The Kitchen Boy. Hisham is pushed by his mother into training as a doctor. Despite good exam results and practical experience on the wards he still finds his faculty head overly critical, necessitating a change of attitude towards him.

The Society of the Faithful is the remnants of a former political grouping whose dead leader one of their number experiences speaking to him.

The Sorrows of Hagg Ahmad are due to his father dying just as Hagg is starting his predawn Ramadan meal.

A Look into Nagi’s Face is again set in a school environment. Nagi is the new boy who shines academically and eventually even refuses the teacher’s corporal punishment. What happens next isn’t what you might expect from that circumstance.

Pedant’s corner:- Translated into USian, “wasn’t one of those husbands who lay down the law” (laid down,) a missing full stop at the end of one sentence, “he would be compelled to loosened the belt of his pants” (to loosen,) “showing how both sad he is and also how he clings” (showing both how sad he is and also….)

A couple of buildings in Kirkwall I missed on our 2017 visit to Orkney.

The Library:-

Closer view:-

Window and decal detail:-

Viking ship detail above a doorway of the Post Office:-

Bantam, 1994, 300 p.

This is the second in McIntyre’s Starfarer series the first of which I reviewed here.

The spaceship Starfarer has ridden a line of cosmic string to the solar system of Tau Ceti. Unfortunately the nuclear bomb sent after it by the US Government to prevent the voyage has gone off partly damaging the ship but also scaring off the inhabitants at Tau Ceti II. In addition something, probably sabotage, has crashed the Starfarer>’s operating system, Arachne, so that the crew and passengers can no longer interact with it.

The survey team sent down to Tau Ceti II’s moon to investigate the dome there is disappointed when the dome collapses as soon as they try to enter it. Only one small artifact is salvaged. Unlike our solar system Tau Ceti is inundated with cosmic string but these are beginning to drift away and no further exploration of the apparently hospitable Tau Ceti II is possible. The choice is between meekly returning to Earth or following the tantalising glimpse of an alien ship fleeing their arrival.

A jump to Sirius is undertaken where they are pursued by a small blue replica of Earth. This turns out to be the ship which had fled Tau Ceti but Starfarer has somehow outpaced it. The aliens on it transpire to be descendants of humans plucked from Earth millennia ago and frustratingly unforthcoming about galactic civilisation.

Also in the mix here is the internal politics on board Starfarer, the search for the saboteur and the unusual relationships structures to be found in this future. (See my review of Starfarers in the link above.)

Transition is interesting but is the second in a four book series so not much is resolved.

Pedant’s corner:- “it’s surface set” (its,) “‘somebody you absolutely loath’” (loathe,) “powers haven fallen” (have fallen,) “‘Jesus christ’” (usually both parts of the name are capitalised.) “The planet passed, beyond J.D.’s reach” (passed beyond,) a missing comma at the end of a piece of direct speech, “version of an omnipotent goddesses from ancient India” (goddess,) “the hoi polloi” (‘hoi’ is Greek for ‘the’ so it ought to be just ‘hoi polloi’,) nonplused (nonplussed,) “‘that we’ve cause them nothing but trouble’” (caused,) “petrie dish” (x 2, Petri dish,) “but could to keep from laughing” (garbled, the sense is ‘couldn’t keep from laughing’.) “A rippled passed through” (A ripple.)

Sons’ game today was postponed due to too much water on the pitch for the referee’s liking.

It’s a pity because it was a big game, first (us) against second.

Mind you it may have been a good thing (apart from the likelihood of a smaller crowd for a midweek rescheduled game) since in each of today’s other games in the Division the lower placed team won.

It’s getting tight at the bottom of the table. Only five points separate fourth from tenth.

Another postcard of the Empire Exhibition, Scotland 1938. The Cascade and Lake on Dominions Avenue, art drawn by Brian Gerald:-

I feel like I’m writing posts like these far too often these days.

Writer Fay Weldon and footballer Gianluca Vialli have both gone from us.

I confess I have not read anything by Weldon but I realise she was an important writer.

Vialli I was more familiar with.

Sad in both cases but Vialli was still relatively young.

Fay Weldon; 22/9/1931 – 4/1/2023: Gianluca Vialli; 9/71964 – 6/1/2023. So it goes.