May 27 2007

Recoil

Category: BooksChrisM @ 7:40 am

Recoil – Andy McNab

The 9th in the Nick Stone series, Recoil does feel quite similar to other books in the series, but then again I read these sorts of books because I enjoy them, not to actually challenge myself intellectually or anything.
The main character is in Switzerland, recovering from his last book/job, and is coming to terms with losing one of his best friends. His rich girlfriend tries to help him re-acclimatise, but her father doesn’t help much.
The girlfriend works for a charity, and disappears off to the Congo, which concerns Nick. Cue lots of fighting and details on using weapons. Nick had been to central Africa some two decades past, and has some unpleasant flashbacks.
We have the normal army chatter, obvious bad guys, crooked Ruperts (commissioned officers), helpless innocents and large explosions. If you’ve read all his books, you will end up buying this, even if it is just more of the same; if this book doesn’t interest you, you’re not going to care about the plot repetition with only minor tweaks…

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May 04 2007

Why Should You Care That…

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 6:56 pm

09 is the atomic number of fluorine

F9 Flying Fortress is a spying version of the B-17 plane

11 years is the average length of a sunspot cycle

02 when pronounced in cantonese sounds like ‘easy’

9D a common abbreviation for 9 days

74 is the bus you should take to get from Halewood to Liverpool Town Centre

E3 is an abbreviation for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, an event I would like to visit one day

5B was part of a classified series of US Vela satellites

D8 is airline code for Djibouti Airlines

41 is the international dialling code for Switzerland

56 ‘yeahs’ are sung by Michael Stipe in the REM Song “Man On The Moon”

C5 was a much maligned electric moped made by Clive Sinclair’s company

63 chromosomes can be found in the baby of a horse and donkey

56 men signed the United States Declaration of Independence

88 keys are found on a piano

C0 if misspelt, can mean carbon monoxide

If you would like to know, leave me a comment with a valid e-mail address in the appropriate field.

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May 01 2007

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld

Category: Books,Kazakh DrivingChrisM @ 4:27 pm

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld – Jeremy Clarkson

Despite not having seen the original TV series that this book is based upon, I do tend to like Jeremy’s style of presenting and writing. Aware of his own foibles, he still is very happy to talk about his greatest love, which is motoring. For those of you who have seen him in the Top Gear TV series, this isn’t simply a car review show in paper, it is so much more than that.

He travels around the world, to 12 different countries, and observes the different ways people interact with motor vehicles.
I do so wish he’d do an update on this series, and try and fit in a trip to Kazakhstan. (See my previous articles (You Drinking. Other People Driving , Driving Contd. and a few other shorter posts can all be found within the Kazakh Driving category on this blog) on the Kazakh driving style so prevalent over here.)

Enough shameless plugging of my own posts, back to the review :=>
From the khamic beliefs of some Indian drivers (seatbelts? why, if today is my day to die, it will happen anyway!) to the draconian laws in Switzerland, he takes a very light hearted look at the global relationship with cars. Although the book does now show its age in parts, I still believe it to be a worth read.

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