Ramage & the Guillotine (The Lord Ramage Novels, #6) by Dudley Pope

This is a naval story without cannon balls or battles. Although touted as naval, it is actually a spy novel but a bit boring. As usual, it has long drawn out descriptions and conversations. I noticed that the author installed in the character a dislike of the Catholic Church whether this is personal or a sign of that time we will never know. 

"Brokenclaw" (John Gardner's Bond #10)

This story started with possibilities. But this Bond is not the Bond I know. He hides rather than confront. The story was readable with a predictable ending.

James Bond's "M"

In the James Bond movies they should have promoted Bond to "M".

"Puppet on a Chain" by Alistair MacLean

"Puppet on a Chain" is another MacLean spy novel set in the 50's. I did like that it had the morals of the era and a lack of swearing. That's as far as it went. Mjr. Sherman is an ass. I don't know how anyone could work for him or how he got prompted in the first place. Lots of gruesome murders to read about and a drug culture you would expect in Amsterdam. 

"When Eight Bells Toll" by Alistair MacLean

"When Eight Bells Toll" is a spy novel. It is characteristic of that genre written in the 50's. If you replaced the main character Calvert with James Bond, you would get a similar take on the book. It involves piracy on the coast of Scotland with the Secret Service to the rescue. The first part reminds me of the opening of a Bond film, instant excitement before the credits start rolling. Although the action was fairly fast paced, I was not too excited about the ending. The explanation for the sequences of events was long drawn out and tiring. Four stars for me.

"The Wrecking Crew" by Donald Hamilton

"The Wrecking Crew " is #2 of the Matt Helm series. It is a spy thriller of the cold war era and lacks the page turning quality of the modern age. What did surprise was the gems of wisdom that are still relevant today. I found the language had too much bravado, reminding me of the gangster movies of the 1930's.

Are We Naive Or just Dumb?

Tuesday morning and as far as weather is concerned, it will leave everythng as is. So the first thing I do get my coffee and grab the paper. I almost choked on my coffee when I read the headlines, "Spy agency to probe itself." That has to be the joke for the day. The newspaper must figure it has a lot of gullable readers. Then again, there are a lot of naive people running around. To be fair, all of us are a bit naive. Some are downright dumb. I knew a woman once that if I told her that headline, she would say,"Oh, that's good."

A friend was over yesterday looking for a wheel for his lawn mower. The ones I had were too small but then I remembered the mower I was throwing out. Sure enough, right size wheels. He took one of them and after he left I took off the other three. I remembered that he broke one last summer and now I have his next summer replacement. Then I mowed my neighbour's lawn.

From my list of summer projects, I only have two left. Electricity for the shed and work on the snow blower. I went to the hardware store and bought the parts I needed for the shed and found out the information about the underground wiring. Then I started on the shed part and I will finish it all today. I'll have to measure the cable length after that.

When "The Black eyed Peas" were in town, the promoter had asked the city for $400,000. He didn't get it and I'm glad of that. The promoter never said that he lost any money so I'm assuming that he made a profit. 30,000 people attended the show. Since he is a businessman, he should be treated as such. All the stores don't get a kickback when they open their door. All businessmen take a risk, charge for their wares and watch their expenses. I'm sure he knows how much to charge to make a profit. If you go to the show, you pay the piper. If I don't go to he show, I shouldn't have to pay.

Talking about dumb headlines. "When you're sick it pays to be rich." It goes on to say,"Study suggests wealthy cancer patients live linger; researchers wonder why differences exist." Duh! You needed a study. You know that someone got big money to that study. Later on it read that thry wanted to do another study to see if it was the same in other provinces. I can see where this is going. Looks like a career job.

Facebook entry for today: If you don't want to be noticed in the backwoods, squint a lot and and leave out half your words.