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At last – some time to read this

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Dervla Murphy wrote over twenty books. I have read just two so far – Wheels within Wheels, and Full Tilt. I enjoyed both – really enjoyed both. For me there is something so inspiring about being in the company of a real travel writer, someone seemingly unimpeded by the need for any kind of comfort zone.

Ethel Crowley, who selected the pieces in this edition, was a great friend of Dervla Murphy’s and has chosen extracts from each of her 24 books. The forward tells me that they started work on the project together but that Dervla Murphy passed away shortly after they began, leaving her family to continue giving this new book the same trusting support that she had.

Now these extracts, drawn together with real knowledge and affection, are sitting next to me. Together they contain miles and miles of life observed. All I have to do is pick up Life at Full Tilt and start to read.

My thanks to Eland Publishing for sending me this copy.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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The appearance of an artist with a typewriter

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Today was one of those days that just ambled around itself, caught between sunshine and rain – the kind of day where you try to shut out the news and concentrate on what has to be done.

All was going reasonably well until I looked out of the window and saw someone crouched over a typewriter, and a long ream of paper. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing but could not. The pavements were still wet and the sky grey and cold, but the artist continued, head bowed and focused intently on the building in front of them, their fingers hitting the keyboard and the paper rolling out of the typewriter towards the floor.

Who were they? I have since discovered – typewriter artist Keira Rathbone. Seeing them at their work, so comfortable and at ease with what they were doing, restored my faith in humanity. The bright, creative, surprising side of life, still feels alive and well.

If you would like to see more of the work done by the typewriter artist, here’s a little more about her.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Shakespeare’s First Folio turns four hundred

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The volumes in the photograph above have nothing to do with the First Folio but they are Shakespeare, and just one of the many editions of his work that have been published in the four centuries since the First Folio came to be. The Folio, the first collection of Shakespeare’s plays, was produced seven years after he died.

I haven’t read much Shakespeare, in fact I haven’t read any voluntarily. School required us to read A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, and Macbeth but they made little sense to me in sub-Saharan Africa.

Since then I’ve travelled a bit, learned a bit, and even attended a talk by Germaine Greer on Shakespeare’s wife, Ann Hathaway. Germaine Greer’s viewpoint was fascinating, disrupting previous opinions with some awkwardly possible ones of her own about the role and influence of Shakespeare’s wife. She also suggests that Ann Hathaway might have been involved in the production of the First Folio.

As for the plays in the First Folio, I remain way too ignorant of them but a few days ago I came across this clip of Dame Judi Dench reciting a Shakespeare sonnet. Her delivery was like a candle lighting in my Shakespeare dark.

Here it is. It’s very short, and ends with a brief Arnold Schwarzenegger appearance.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023