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To be fair, we did okay until 2.30 but after that it was a bit grim. But the result was the Telegraph crossword was completed but The Times less than half done.
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But Calliope 2014, the booklet of poems from Portsmouth Poetry Society, is nearing readiness and is set to go to the printers perhaps at the end of the month. It will be available in the Autumn, specifically at a reading held on National Poetry Day, October 2nd. The venue is now less likely to be at the University and more likely to be in Old Commercial Road, opposite Charles Dickens' birthplace, at the St. John's Ambulance premises.
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Almost in anticipation of the recent news item about which books are regularly left unfinished by their readers, I have at least temporarily abandoned Donna Tartt's The Little Friend. I am beyond halfway through it but it was increasingly becoming a chore. I had thought I needed to relish and savour every page because it will be a long time before there is another Donna Tartt novel to read but it began to drag somewhat and was not as compulsive as The Secret History or The Goldfinch.
And so I took up with Max Beerbohm's Wildean satire, Zuleika Dobson, which is good fun and then I have Thomas Hardy's A Laodicean lined up.
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And what a joy was the Motown Top 20 on telly on Sunday night. Yes, I Heard it Through the Grapevine was a worthy number 1 and it is a measure of the Motown Hit Factory's strength in depth that it doesn't feature in my Top 6 which picks itself as I couldn't possibly leave out any of, The Tracks of My Tears, Walk Away Renee, Stop! in the Name of Love, Just My Imagination, I Want You Back or I'm Still Waiting and then some.