What snack would you eat right now?
As I am writing this at 7.44, I would not eat anything at all. I can never eat before 8am and breakfast is often later. When I was commuting I would not eat breakfast at all. I would have a Breakfast Bar at work either between 9 and 10 if I wasn’t teaching or at the break in the lesson if I was. That would be it until lunch, although if I had a packet of crisps or cheddars I might dig into them at about 11. If someone bought in sweets, chocolates or fruit they would be put on the table by the staff room door I would generally grab something on my way past every time I had to use it! Work tends to be a snack filled space because the environment is often stressful and sometimes unpleasant and workers need something to make them feel valued at least temporarily.
Home can be a very snack filled environment, but I have a rule which I stick to very closely which is not to have a snack before midday. This is helped by the fact that I don’t have breakfast until around 9am, because I never feel like a full meal before that time. After lunch, I may have a handful of raisins or some biscuits, but I usually manage to keep to what I ate at lunch. By the evening I have had a full dinner and after dessert I don’t generally want anything else.
I have one big weakness, my wife’s baking! If there is a bun or similar in the tin I am very likely to grab one on a whim, but I know that as far as baking goes these are incredibly healthy. There is half the suggested amount of sugar and no preservatives. When I tell people that Janet only uses a relatively small amount of sugar they wonder if it just tastes bland. I can assure them that it doesn’t because there are sweet spices in the buns to give them a real hit of flavour. Today I am going to snack at least once because Janet has just baked a batch of mince pies which are my absolute favourites!!
The writing of a sequel to a well loved novel is fraught with danger for the author who takes a chance on imagining where the characters will be after the end of the original, where their motivation lies in dealing with different situations and how to deepen those characters whilst remaining true to the originals.
I started my reading year by reading a sequel to my favourite novel. It was quite frankly appalling. The characters bore no resemblance to the originals, their situation a decade on from the original novel was so at odds with the way they had ended the story and they might as well have been a completely different set of people, as indeed they were. By tying them to a much loved original, the author guaranteed sales but it was a badly plotted travesty of a novel. I lasted two chapters and it went straight to the charity pile where some poor unfortunate may pick it up!
Luckily, my second novel, based on a story by the same author was Estella’s Fury, featuring Estella Drummle (Havisham) from Great Expectations. This is the sequel to Estella’s Revenge, which you should read first if you haven’t already. I went to an evening with Barbara Havelocke where she explained her deep love for the novel and its characters and the reason why she wanted to revisit the story of Estella as she moves away from her adoptive mother and into marriage. In the Q&A I asked if she had changed her view on any of the characters and she mentioned Jaggers, the very complex lawyer whose motivations and loyalties appeared to be unfathomable to everyone around him. We meet Jaggers again in this novel, and he plays a very important role in moving the story along.
The Story
Estella has been taught from a very early age that the male of the species is not to be trusted. Indeed, Mrs Havisham shaped her as a weapon against them, instructing her how best to hurt them and giving her Pip to practice upon. As she enters higher society through her unhappy marriage to the vicious Bentley Drummle, she realises that the higher the society the worse the men become, because they have no one with the power to rein in their behaviour. She decides that she will become the weapon that her mother always wanted her to be but perhaps even more deadly than her mother can possibly have imagined. After the events of Estella’s Revenge, she decides that she needs to move away from the extreme vengeance she has dished out, and to fit her behaviour more to the expectations of society. She goes to visit Lady Elizabeth Taykall, one of her closest friends and the wife of the much older Sir John Taykall. When she gets to Wynterton Manor, their home, she finds a place of dark secrets that frighten everyone both above and below stairs. She is assigned a young girl called Nora as her lady’s maid and she builds a very quick bond with her. Nora, however, is frightened by a threat that she cannot bring herself to talk about. When she disappears and that threat becomes all too real, Estella starts to investigate, not knowing that this investigation will lead her into danger and reach the very highest echelons of society. As well as this, she will have to face her own past in the most shocking way imaginable as she realises that someone else knows her own most dangerous secret.
My thoughts
I have been going through a lull in my reading, but Estella’s Fury has completely overcome it. The novel has short, sharp chapters that do not waste a word and the action moves on quickly and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. It is almost certainly the style of novel Dickens himself would be writing if he was a modern day author. He wrote as he did because that was what Victorian readers wanted, and he would have been just as great today because he would have adjusted his style to the market. The story is different from Dickens only in the lack of humorous characters like Wemmick’s Aged P, but this is not that type of novel. Other than that, all the characters have stepped straight from the pages of Great Expectations or, as in one particular well judged scene, Oliver Twist. The ability to deepen these characters so effectively is quite amazing at times, with Jaggers in particular having the hidden past and present, to which Dickens alluded, developed in a way that makes the reader say, ‘Of course! That’s what happened.’
I cannot recommend the Estella novels too highly. The third one, which I hope will not be too long in arriving has a number of threads left loose from Estella’s Fury, but with Barbara Havelocke’s incredible knowledge and feeling for the original characters she could easily leave those threads to a later novel. I hope we see Pip again, but if we do it will only be because it serves the story and that assurance is rare indeed in the writing of sequels to original novels of the past, and indeed in the wider literary world. Here’s to Estella, a thoroughly modern character in a thoroughly realised past.
Come up with a crazy business idea.
I have had a similar prompt before in this occasionally repetitive daily prompt asking what type of shop I would open. As a result I am going to look at our seemingly increasing determination either to just work for ourselves or to set up a money earning opportunity alongside our main jobs.
As with so many things, the Internet is to blame for the increasing obsession with opening up businesses. Ebay, Etsy, Amazon and the various reselling sites are full of ‘success stories’ of people who have made thousands of pounds for very little effort. That is of course untrue. It reminds me of the old pyramid schemes where the people setting them up got very rich while the clueless individuals who signed up either got very little or they actually lost money.
On the Internet the life cycle of these firms is far shorter than the old mail in promises of getting rich quick. That is not the only problem. We are constantly being encouraged to ‘monetise’ our skills, or those things we don’t need or want anymore, to make ‘easy money’! Of course, in reality hardly anyone makes more than pocket money from building a business of any sort, either on or offline, and the vast majority lose all the time and money which are invested. The people who can least afford the time and the investment plunge into a market that, with vanishingly few exceptions, they don’t understand and can’t devote the time to.
So, unless you want to develop a proper business plan, can afford to lose all the money invested and have the money behind you to concentrate only on the new business, don’t bother. It’s doomed to failure!
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
I have always worn my favourite clothes for many years. I have a suit I first got in 1987 and a very garish Hawaiian shirt I got in America during my summer there in 1986! The first piece of clothing that I took to was a jumper that I wore throughout my teens and into my twenties.
I am the taller of the two figures wearing the jumper I called Old Faithful. It was a black and white jumper which fitted like a glove whatever my height or shape. My tendency as a child, and as an adult to this day, has been to become very attached to inanimate objects and to give them an almost talismanic quality. I wonder if it’s connected to my Asperger’s. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, whenever I wore it I always felt better because it was like a comfort blanket. As a teenager it was much needed given how difficult things were at school in particular.
It went missing in a move, one of many I had in my teens and twenties. I was sad at the time but I now look back with wry amusement at the way I was determined to associate it with things being better for me. It worked it’s magic then and I was very grateful, but I realise now that I had the control because my mindset changed when I wore it and that was down to me not the clothes.
What is your mission?
Ever since I got married, my mission has never changed. I have always wanted to do the best for my family. They are central to my life and my purpose. I am always thinking about them first and I know I am not alone. When I have a decision to make I instantly think about how it will affect them. If I feel like I am putting myself first I feel guilty about that. I should always think about what they need first.
When I was in Australia back in 2003 we had left Hong Kong ahead of schedule and whilst I knew that we were making the correct decision I also knew that financially it was going to be difficult. I was lucky enough to be able to get 3 or 4 days teaching a week alongside the University work and Janet was also able to find some part time work along the way. Despite this, we were very tight for cash so I gave up alcohol and pretty much all non essential spending in order to ensure that my children could get the most of the opportunities available in Australia for sport and dance. The self imposed ban lasted about 8 years and I still barely touch alcohol and I always consider every bit of spending to make sure I am not being selfish. It’s a really good thing because I know I am always doing my best for my family at whatever stages of their lives they are.
Mission Statement
Family First, Last and Always
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 