Projects in Hand

I'm sorry I haven't really blogged this week.  That's partly down the the fact that I was away for a few days last weekend and that there have been developments on the health/work front - Real Life does tend to get in the way sometime!

But mainly it's because I have been distracted by other projects, so I thought a few words of explanation might be in  order.

Military Medal Project

The first is a commitment I made some time ago (way back before I started this blog!) to do some drudge work to help in a book on recipients of the Military Medal that's projected to come out next year. I'd undertaken to do some collating of information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission registers and other sources on recipients who died in World War I, and I'm afraid to say that I've been neglecting it of late. 

Thus one of my New Year resolutions was to do a certain amount of that work every day before I thought of doing other things, like blogging.

I'm half-way through the 'Gs' and have several tens of thousands to go...

Depressed Diplomatist or Citizen Scientist?


Those who know me, or who have read between the lines of this blog, know that I have an interest in the planets of the Solar System, especially Mars.

An interesting project to map Mars has come up this week.  This is Planet Four, which is asking ordinary people to give some time to look at and classify photos of the southern polar region.  The idea is that thousands of people doing a little each can achieve more than a handful of scientists (and it's not a process that can be easily automated).

This Citizen Scientist project is from the Zooniverse stable, which has several projects on the go.  These range from astronomy (deep space, Mars and the Moon), to nature (whales, bats and the ocean floor), to the humanities (looking at ancient papyri).

In the past I've been involved in a climate project, transcribing WWI-era ships' logs to use as raw data in plotting weather patterns.  Of course, that has a spin-off for naval enthusiasts like myself, and I'm glad to say that the transcripts are now becoming available on naval-history.net. 

Hostages to Fortune

But I am committed to this blog, so to force me to actually do something, I'll make some rash promises about what you'll see in the near future...

I have in hand a draft of a profile of Sir William Goodenough, who was probably the RN admiral who saw most action in WWI.  After that, aware that I've lost the original concept of the Monday Moustaches by including too many admirals (Beardies?), I'll concentrate on army types to restore the balance.

I've also started drafting a post on the Order of Merit as part of the Orders of Knighthood series.  That, I suppose, should be partnered by a look at the Companions of Honour.

The next Royals in Medals will probably be Prince George and Princess Marina, the Duke and Duchess of Kent.  I haven't done anything toward this yet.

Over to You...

Oddly enough this neglect on my part has been matched by a peak in visitor numbers.  I'm interested in feedback.  What brought you here?  Do you come back regularly?  What do you like/dislike about the blog?  What would you like to see here? 

Bear in mind this is my blog, and I'm not going to go off in any radical new directions!

Books and Stuff

What's the point of posting, you ask, if for What I'm reading and On my to-read list I say 'The same as Last Week'?

Well, the point of having a regular post is to force me into reading and thus making a change.  Gone for me are the glory days of commuting, where I had almost three hours of enforced reading time each day.  I need incentive.

What I've bought this week...

I've had a bit of a charity shop blitz.

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveller's Wife - 50p

HG Wells, The Shape of Things to Come  - Although a 1973 paperback edition (the old Corgi Science Fiction Library), unread and very nice.  50p.

The First Aid Manual (9th Edn) - An as-new copy by Dorling Kindersley.  It'll sit next to First Aid for Dogs and hopefully be used less.  75p.

A Brief History of the Royal Air Force - Apparently distributed to every serving member of the RAF and reserves in 2004.  £1.00.

Leonard Mosley, Faces From The Fire: The biography of Sir Archibald McIndoe - £1.00

Books and stuff

What I've been reading this week.

I've a few things open at the moment, but my main book has been Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt, part of his Jackelian Series.  In principal Steampunk has always appealed to me, but I've been let down by the practice - many writers in the genre just aren't any good.  This is an exception, and I've been enjoying it.  Apparently there are six novels in the series so far - it remains to be seen whether the momentum can be maintained.

I don't like to have more than one novel on the go at the same time, as one often suffers.  That's what's happened with A Watery Grave by Joan Druett.  I've read about half of the book in a couple of sittings the other week, but put it down and haven't picked it up since.

Joan is an old friend of mine from the old days on the maritime history discussion group marhst-l.  To tell the truth, I much prefer her non-fiction, but I've been meaning to give this book a go for quite a while.  It's the first in the Wiki Coffin Mystery Series.  Wiki is a Maori interpreter/guide on the United States Exploring Expedition, which set off in 1838 to chart and explore the Pacific.  In the best tradition, Wiki has to solve the odd murder...

The copy I've got is the American paperback edition.  As always, American paperbacks are much better quality than the ones we get here in the UK.  It's a pleasure to hold and read.  If paperbacks here were regularly this quality, Kindle and other e-books wouldn't be doing so well.

In non-fiction, I've been reading Howard Williamson's The Great War Medal Collectors' Companion.  This is a ground-breaking compendium of work, weighty in all senses of the word, and will make a big difference to the collecting field.  It's surprisingly well-produced - I expected something a little more 'self-published' in feel, but this is a substantial hardback, printed on glossy paper and with thousands (rather than hundreds) of illustrations.

Me:  [Describes the book before it arrived...]
Wife: That sounds expensive.
Me: Does it?  How expensive would you say?
Wife: £60.

She knows me too well, and was spot on with the price of course.  Luckily for me, Howard was kind enough to give me a free copy in return for some drudge work I doing on a project on the awards of the Military Medal.

I detect some sniffiness about this book over on the British Medals Forum.  I'm not sure why.

Some people, who are quite happy to drop £500 on medals, will baulk at the price of books.  This is short-sighted and goes against the advice we always spout to new-comers.  As has been pointed out, if this £60 stops you buying a 1914 Star with a fake bar, it's paid for itself.  If it helps you pick out an MM for the first day of the Somme among all the other MMs on a dealer's list, it's made you a couple of hundred quid.  Apart from anything else, once the edition has sold-out copies will be selling well in advance of the cover price.  Sadly, medal reference works are never cheap!

On my 'to-read' list

My wife is pressing me to read Sergei Lukyanenko's The Night Watch.  But it's the first in a series of thick books and Russian...

One series I've been meaning to try out is The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (the first book is Storm Front).  They're about a private eye who happens to be a wizard and specialises in the paranormal cases the Chicago Police Department are stumped by.  It might be fun, it might be spectacularly bad...

I've been meaning the read Vol 6 of William Laird Clowes The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900.  Earlier in the summer I read Vol 7 (yes, I know, it's the wrong order), which covered the period from the Second China War (1856-1860) to Queen Victoria's death (1901 and the Boer War). I found it a surprisingly good read.  Vol 6 covers the War of 1812 to the Crimea War (1854).

What I've bought this week

Nothing.  That's not surprising, but as it was my birthday is a bit disappointing.

I had girded my loins to buy WH Fevyer's The Distinguished Service Medal 1914-1920, but the one I'd sourced on Bookfinder for £10 turned out to be The DSM, 1939-1945.  The actual copies of the book were more than I was prepared to pay.  Note how quickly I've changed my tune about the short-sightedness of trying to buy cheap medal books!