Fashions change

I'm still in reading mode. Reading is definitely taking pride of place and writing has taken a bit of a back seat. Still doing it, but stealing every moment I can to read. So what has caught my imagination?
Well, Helen started it all with her gift of books for my birthday. Then I bought a copy of Sansom's Lamentations and I'm saving that up to read when I start writing Matho 2 since a) I really like Sansom's stories and style  b) his story and mine are set in almost the same year - 1544.

My reading list is nothing if not eclectic. The last few weeks has featured Ian McEwan, Tess Gerritsen, Robert Goddard, Lee Child, Hugh Howey, and Sarah J Bolton to name but a few. I've bought Ross Poldark by Winston Graham, first published 1945, in preparation for the tv series due to screen in March this year. Writing style will have changed since then. I wonder how he will compare?

It is an age since I ventured into a book shop. In actual fact, it is an age since I went into town or the Metrocentre. Buying things and having them delivered is so easy these days. Not what bookshops or any other kind of shop want to hear, but that's the way it goes.

I thought in the dark, dismal days after Christmas you might all appreciate a reminder of what summer looks like - so here you are - a shot across Blackhead Beach in Australia.

Poldarks revived

Outlander will arrive on our television screens at some point, but may be a while before it reaches the UK. The likelihood is that I shall see and  enjoy the re-make of the Poldark series before then. I loved the books, written in the 40s and 50s - and eagerly devoured the original seven. I don't think I followed up on the remaining five which were about descendants rather than the original characters. I adored the original tv series 1975-77, and so did many others. The series was hugely popular.

Still, that has to be balanced against the fact that when the series was shown, there were only three ( 3! ) television channels. That made life very much simpler and the ratings very much higher than they are today. Television audiences were a little more naive, too. Production values today - well, the techniques at least, are so much better than they were in the seventies. I'm really looking forward to the costumes and the locations. Let's just pray that the gremlins that haunted Bodmin Moor during the last production in Cornwall - Jamaica Inn - have been well and truly exorcised. If the BBC ruins Poldark, they may well be exorcised!

 I've collected together some links to the cast, the locations and general gossip about the series. I shall very likely dip into them from time to time, and you may wish to as well. I'm putting one of my favourite pictures of Aidan Turner up here in his costume as Ross Poldark. I don't know if there are any Poldarks in Cornwall, but if Winstan Graham dreamed up the name, I applaud him for selecting a wonderful name for a hero.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2596581/The-curse-Poldark-Stars-new-version-beware-The-originals-hit-tragedy-never-fame-again.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/poldark

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Poldark-2015/483979435006691

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-04-23/poldark-crew-to-remake-an-18th-century-gloucestershire-house-for-new-bbc-period-drama

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=poldark+remake&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=abzsU5aKL6qI7Aa_oYG4Bw&sqi=2&ved=0CGkQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=708

Enjoy the links!