Monday 22nd January

Hmm, I think I'm supposed to be saying more about Black and Blue. I finished it yesterday - at the moment, I'm so damaged by my fall that I can't get out and about, or go to work, so I'm sort of stuck at home. Reading is one of the few things that I can do without pain!
Anyhow, Black and Blue. As I mentioned, its a detective story, where the imaginary tale of Johny Bible is the object of Rebus' investigation, but its mixed in with an investigation into his past - where a tv documentary sparks off a corruption investigation, and on top of all this are the connections between the Johny Bible investigation and the old Bible John killings of the 60s. It's a very multi-layered story! Like all of Rankin's books, it starts slowly and builds up to the point where you can't put it down.
It's very hard to 'review' it, because it's an old book - ten years or so old (it's in the bedroom and I can't just zip up and check out the publication date right now!) And exactly how do I tell you what it's like without giving away any of the plot? I think I've pretty well said all I can say about it.

But I do have something different to talk about. There's been an anthropology series on Beeb 4. It's been a long time since anthropology took it's place on your everyday tv! And the cool thing about these programmes is how they've chosen to look at the theoretical figures - no Evans Pritchard as yet, but right now there's a programme on Malinowski's ground breaking work in the Trobriands. I did a bit of anthropology at university, and in particular I studied the Trobriands, so it's really good to see the old yam huts, and the canoes. Anthropology was great, all those old cool films to watch. Theories of gift exchange. Utilisation of magic as a means of explaining the universe. Brill.
But what I really wanted to talk about was the programme that was on the other day about Desmond Morris. It struck me as such an odd programme to be stuck in an anthropology series. Firstly, Desmond Morris isn't what I would call a major name in anthropology, certainly not in the way that Malinowski was, or even EP (as mentioned above.) But it was such an odd programme! It started off trying to posit him as this major figure, but then at the end it became really hyper critical, almost as if they were trying to tell him off for not going back to a university and finishing a major work. Morris himself sort of came across as rather a jolly chap, if such a thing could be said to exist in this day and age, the sort of person one would love to have at that mythical dinner party. And they did credit his earlier texts with a real respect. It was just that from this sort of huge build up they gave him in the beginning of the programme, they really did knock him down at the end. I felt quite sorry for him at the end of it.

So.. what's next? I don't know. I shall find something interesting! But right now, I'm severely curtailed movement-wise. Perhaps I shall order something over the net, but it'll take a day or two to arrive. If I get seriously into something old, then I shall blog on that. But I've a yen for the really old, perhaps a classic. I haven't read Wuthering Heights for yonks, perhaps because my copy of it has disappeared somewhere. So that's out, until I acquire a new one. I do have to make my way over to the family at some point in the next few days, and perhaps I shall feel well enough to make a quick trip to a bookshop. But frankly I doubt it, at least not until I've made it to the doctors on Wednesday. So I probably won't blog again for a few days.