Another Brian Gerald Art-drawn postcard from the Empire Exhibition Scotland 1938. Pavilions for South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Canada on left with Palace of Engineering at far end:-

Valentine’s sepia postcard of the Dominions and Colonial Avenues at the Empire Exhibition Scotland 1938 featuring fountains, Australian Pavilion and Palace of Engineering:-

Reverse view. Another Valentine’s postcard. Australia and Canada Pavilions to near right, Palace of Industries at far end:-

Valentine’s sepia postcard of Canada Pavilion plus Palace of Engineering at far end. Tower of Empire in background left:-

Original Dedication. “To the glorious memory of the men of the burgh and parish of Inverness who laid down their lives in the Great War 1914-1919.”

First Internal Dedication. “An Codagh Mor,” and “We honour them for what we owe them.”

Second Internal Dedication. “An Codagh Mor,” and “They fought for King and country, faith and freedom, nor did they fight in vain.”

Dedication on rear of memorial. “In three continents and in the deep they lie, but in our hearts their deeds forever are enshrined.”

More than 5,000 men of Inverness parish served in the Great War. 117 did not return.

Second World War dedication. “To the glorious memory of the men and women of the burgh and parish who made the supreme sacrifice in defence of their country in the Second World War.”

Post 1945 dedication. Borneo, Canada, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Belize, Cyprus, Air Accident. “We will remember them, today, tomorrow, for ever.”

Here are two more of my collection of postcards of the Empire Exhibition, Scotland 1938.

The first shows three of the Colonial Pavilions, part of the South African building on left – one of the few “traditional” structures present (rather than the deco/moderne that dominated the Exhibition) – then New Zealand and finally Canada. As ever Thomas Tait’s Tower of Empire is in the background.

This next one is captioned wrongly. It shows the South African and New Zealand Pavilions and not Australia.

Another postcard of a building from the 1938 Empire Exhibition held in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow. Great central tower, nice curved frontage. The full length flag standards have nice detailing halfway up the building.

Gollancz, 2012, 611 p

Why does Willis have a fascination with the 1940s Britain of the Second World War? One of her most celebrated short stories, Fire Watch, is about the preservation of St Paul’s from destruction in the Blitz, To Say Nothing of the Dog relied on the bombing of Coventry Cathedral for its plot motor and now we have a whole novel (split into two parts – I still have All Clear to come) devoted to the subject. (There are scenes set in the similarly troubled London of 1944 under doodlebug bombardment but these end when one of the characters is apparently hit by a V1 and we are thereafter firmly stuck in 1940.) Fair enough, Pearl Harbor, D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge get mentions but you’d have thought a USian would have been more interested in these scenarios – or the Pacific War. Or is it that the details of those would be more familiar to her core US readership and she thinks she can busk it here? I certainly wasn’t convinced that life during the Blitz was anything like Willis describes it here.

As to details, the back cover puff from the Washington Post “every detail rings true” raises a hollow laugh in a British reader; for the details are what consistently hit wrong notes. For example, we hang out the washing, not the laundry – hanging out a building where washing takes place would be a mite difficult. And again, our trains and buses have timetables, not schedules. The text is littered with such divergences in use of language. This is not a trivial criticism; the characters are supposed to be British (though one has a US language implant) and it is their viewpoints we experience. Even more egregiously, in a chapter heading about not evacuating the princesses to Canada the relevant quote is attributed to their grandmother Queen Mary rather than their mother Queen Elizabeth.

As is usual in Willis’s Oxford Time Travel stories we start in the Oxford of 2060 where historians are “prepping” to make use of the time travel apparatus to experience their periods of study themselves. Between our time and then there has been some sort of disruption (the Pandemic – and a terrorist with a pinpoint bomb has blown up St Paul’s) but the feel of this future is curiously old-fashioned. Desk top telephones for urgent communication?

The plot depends on things going wrong with the mechanism of time travel, preventing the historians’ return to the future. Slippage of location and time of each “drop” are not unexpected – there are apparently inviolable rules for when and where a historian can be dropped and when the drop may reopen plus divergence points to which there is no access. It is not surprising to the reader, though, that not all goes smoothly: disorganised is too mild a word to describe the 2060s lab. This renders all the anguishing of the characters as to why their drops won’t open, that it’s their fault, tiresome.

Blackout is the usual Willis read, though, despite her famous technique, in her presentation of awards speeches, of digression to build up tension being grossly overused. In a novel it only delays getting to the point and is an almighty irritant but I suppose it helps to increase the word count.

I’m at a loss to understand why the Blackout, All Clear combination won the Hugo Award last year. The only other novel on that year’s list I have read, Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House, far outshone this.

I was thinking about Cadbury’s Caramello again today and I suddenly remembered that the bar had another name, Caramilk. It had disappeared once before and was brought back under a new name.

I can’t now remember which name came first – possibly Caramilk was the one which was around in my youth and Caramello came later.

I looked up Caramilk and it seems there is a bar of this name sold by Cadbury’s in Canada, and Caramello is found in the US, Australia and New Zealand. The Wiki article doesn’t mention Ireland though.

Here’s a link to the Irish shop and its picture of a Caramello bar which looks more like the non-vending machine size I remember buying back in the day. When I looked there though it said, “Sold Out!”

Some of the images on this page (I see mine has got on there somehow; it’s about halfway down) are of the old packaging.

I see that the Military Wives are making the news – even in Canada.

Much like Strictly Come Dancing which, while its run lasts is impossible to avoid even when you don’t watch it so determined is the BBC to ensure synergy across all its outlets, the Military Wives never seem to be off the airwaves here.

At least it means that that other pile of kack on the other side – which I also never watch – won’t be providing this year’s Christmas No. 1.

I know that the proceeds from the sale of each Military Wives CD will be donated jointly to The Royal British Legion and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Families Association – two worthwhile causes (though it could be argued that the welfare of ex-servicemen is a direct government responsibility) – and that the formation of the choir itself will have boosted the morale of the choir’s members (and for all I know their partners in the forces) but the whole thing strikes me as being something of an exercise in manipulation.

OK, the words may not be the purest poetry, they are taken from letters from and to forces sweethearts after all, but that’s forgiveable.

But does anyone else think the tune is just awful?