It’s been another memorable year on Diddly Squat Farm – will the chickens finally come home to roost?
—-
Welcome back to Clarkson’s Farm.
So, that went well . . .
The spring barley crop failed.
Just like the oil seed rape.
And the durum wheat.
Then the oats turned the colour of a hearing aid and the mushrooms went mouldy.
Farming sheep, pigs and cows was hardly more lucrative. Jeremy would be better off trying to breed ostriches.
But in the face of uncooperative weather, the relentless realities of the agricultural economy, bureaucracy, a truculent local planning department and the world’s persistent refusal to recognise his ingenuity and genius, our hero’s not beaten yet. Not while the farm shop’s still doing a roaring trade in candles that smell like his knacker hammock, he isn’t.
On the face of it, the challenges of making a success of Diddly Squat are enough to have you weeping into your (Hawkstone) beer, but misery loves company and in girlfriend Lisa, Farm Manager Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald his Head of Security Jeremy knows he’s got the best. And it’s hard for a chap to feel too gloomy about things when there’s a JCB telehandler, a crop-spraying hovercraft and a digger in the barn.
Because as a wise man* once said, ‘there’s no man alive who wouldn’t have fun with a digger . . .’
*Jeremy
Review
I do love the Diddly Squat books and TV series and have read all the previous books so I was very excited when this book came out. These books are always short and sweet and can easily be read in one sitting so I always find them the perfect breather from the chaos of the run up to Christmas.
This book had me laughing out loud whilst reading it. However, it was also really interesting and thoughtful. Clarkson really highlights the plight of farmers in England from the red tape they have to deal with to the changing climate, to how little money they make from their produce. He also highlights quite a bit about the plight of the average pub owner.
I really found that in this book Clarkson has realised that in farming he can’t please everyone and so has decided to make certain decisions and deal with the consequences. He can’t farm and be environmentally friendly to both the soil and the air so he has to decide which one to choose.
I know these books are just compiled from the newspaper column that Clarkson writes and is just another money spinner for him but I thoroughly enjoy them and find them excellent accompaniments to the TV series. I give this book a full 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born April 11, 1960) is an English broadcaster and writer who specialises in motoring.
He writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is better known for his role on the BBC television programme Top Gear.
From a career as a local journalist in the north of England, he rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s Clarkson has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Hello!
I can’t believe it is nearly December. I am still throughly enjoying my Nonfiction November reading and I might let it continue into December as well. However, I do have a lot of Christmas books planned for December.
What I am Currently Reading
Why have I never come across Mary Hollingsworth before? I can’t put the Catherine De’ Medici book down which does mean my Wheel of Time reading has been a little neglected recently.
Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII 1547-1558
Blurb
At his death in 1547, King Henry VIII left four heirs to the English his only son, the nine-year-old Prince Edward; the Lady Mary, the adult daughter of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon; the Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and his young great-niece, the Lady Jane Grey. These are the players in a royal drama that ultimate led to Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne–one of the most spectacularly successful reigns in English history.
Review
This is the second book I have read for nonfiction November and I will be honest I am actually loving all my nonfiction reading this month.
This is one of Alison Weir’s earlier books and I could tell because her writing style is not quite the same as her newer books. It is still excellent but it lacks that special something that her other books have. I also would have liked modern equivalents of the monetary values like her newer books have.
The thing I liked a lot about this book is what I learned about Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey. I have never really bothered to learn about poor Edward’s reign as Elizabeth I has always been my favourite Tudor but I found him a fascinating character. I loved reading extracts from his diaries and letters in this book and I couldn’t quite believe how serious he was even as a young child. I also found it amusing how he takes on a fatherly role in his letters. He is a child still and yet he tries to look after and care for his sisters.
Even though the book is titled Children of Henry VIII we get to learn about Lady Jane Grey. Again I didn’t know much about Lady Jane Grey other than she was wrongly used by those who should have protected her and her reign was a matter of days. I loved learning more about Lady Jane Grey but at the same time it was a heart breaking read. Her death was not her fault and should never have happened and her last days were just bleak.
I did know quite a bit about Mary I but I did learn quite a bit about her that I didn’t know. Again I did find Mary’s story quite sad at times. Her desperation for a child and a loving husband were very devastating. Through no fault of her own she was not married at a younger age and when she eventually married her husband had no interest in her and just wanted the title of King and she never got the child she longed for. She was a godmother to so many children but never had the chance to have a child of her own. Mary also had a scarier side which we learn about but mainly I just found her to be a very sad character who was badly used and influenced by men.
This was a brilliantly written book and the order was a perfect flow of chronological order of the reigns. I really liked reading how these figures from history interacted with each other, how they grew up and what they became. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Alison Weir was born in 1951 and is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British Royalty.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. My day has been full with teaching with very little reading sadly. If I can keep my eyes open I plan to do some reading later.
My chosen book this week is by one of my favourites. I absolutely love The Expanse series so I am very excited to read another series by James S. A. Corey.
The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey
How humanity came to the planet called Anjiin is lost in the fog of history, but that history is about to end.
The Carryx – part empire, part hive – have waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy. Now, they are facing a great and deathless enemy. The key to their survival may rest with the humans of Anjiin.
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them.
They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure. Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to survive: learning to understand – and manipulate – the Carryx themselves.
With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers.
Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. He will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people.
I started Catherine De’ Medici today and haven’t been able to put it down. I’m finding it so fascinating and love how Hollingsworth is telling her story.
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
I was rather naughty this week and went book shopping. I did however have a book voucher so I had the perfect excuse. My local independent local bookshop has a brilliant loyalty scheme where if you collect ten stamps you get a £10 voucher. I had a voucher so I thought it was high time to spend it.
I love the poetry books compiled by Allie Esiri so I was really pleased to see there is one for Christmas. I’m looking forward to starting this on the 1st December.
I’ve always been interested by Catherine De’ Medici but don’t know much about her so I was quite excited to see this book by Mary Hollingsworth on the bookshelves. There was only one copy and apparently it had literally only just been put on the shelves that day so I was quite pleased to have gone in just at the right time.
From one of Britain’s best selling historians, a sweeping and magisterial history of the extraordinary lives of five queens in England’s turbulent Age of Chivalry
Medieval queens were seen as mere dynastic trophies, yet many of the Plantagenet queens of the High Middle Ages dramatically broke away from the restrictions imposed on their sex, as Alison Weir shows in this gripping group biography of England’s fourteenth-century consorts.
Using personal letters and wonderfully vivid sources, Alison Weir evokes the lives of five remarkable Marguerite of France, Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault, Anne of Bohemia and Isabella of Valois.
The turbulent, brutal Age of Chivalry witnessed the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Hundred Years War against France and savage baronial wars against the monarchy in which these queens were passionately involved. Queens of the Age of Chivalry brilliantly recreates this truly dramatic period of history through the lives of five extraordinary women.
Review
Now I will be honest I have started with the third book of the England’s Medieval Queens series but this book is the book that contains the queens I know least about so I thought I would work my way backwards. I own the other books but still wanted to start with the third book because why be normal?
The Plantagenet period during the fourteenth century is a period I am not overly familiar with so I was really keen to learn more about Marguerite of France, Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault, Anne of Bohemia and Isabella of Valois.
The thing I love about Weir’s books is that they never read like a stuffy history book. They read more like a novel even though they are packed with facts. I love how she includes financial details and gives you modern day values, she includes clothing details and even what they ate if the data still exists. I love how there are subtle little jokes and that I just want to keep reading because I want to know what happens next. What happens to these queens from history?
This book isn’t all about the queens because we also get a lot of detail about their spouses and this is because the only reason we know these poor women existed is because they came from royalty and married a king. An everyday woman of the period would never have been remembered and as it is we only know so much about these women because of their spouses. History sadly remembers men because history is recorded by men, so we only know what we know because these men from history decided to record what the wife did occasionally.
However, what is left behind has been meticulously researched and collected into this brilliant book by Alison Weir. She has also tried to make the book about the Queens, rather than their husbands and tried to keep the husbands to the bare minimum. I found this a brilliantly informative read where I have learned a great deal. I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Alison Weir was born in 1951 and is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British Royalty.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For more info please check out Jana’s blog.
Hello!
I was going to do a book review today but when I saw the prompt for today for Top Ten Tuesday I thought it was perfect. I love reading the classics and although I haven’t read many recently it is my plan to get back into reading more next year.
Here is my list:
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Quite a few Gaskell and Hardy but I’ve always hoped to read all of Hardy’s full length novels. I’ve also hoped to read all of Dickens’ books so Little Dorrit would be quite a substantial book to tick off the list.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far. I have managed a little bit of reading between lessons today which has been nice.
My chosen book to feature off my Goodreads TBR is another recent addition but one that I am really excited about reading. I have read all the previous books from the series and loved them. It is a nonfiction book so I think I might read it during my Nonfiction November.
Diddly Squat: Home to Roost by Jeremy Clarkson
Welcome back to Clarkson’s Farm.
So, that went well . . .
The spring barley crop failed.
Just like the oil seed rape.
And the durum wheat.
Then the oats turned the colour of a hearing aid and the mushrooms went mouldy.
Farming sheep, pigs and cows was hardly more lucrative. Jeremy would be better off trying to breed ostriches.
But in the face of uncooperative weather, the relentless realities of the agricultural economy, bureaucracy, a truculent local planning department and the world’s persistent refusal to recognise his ingenuity and genius, our hero’s not beaten yet. Not while the farm shop’s still doing a roaring trade in candles that smell like his knacker hammock, he isn’t.
On the face of it, the challenges of making a success of Diddly Squat are enough to have you weeping into your (Hawkstone) beer, but misery loves company and in girlfriend Lisa, Farm Manager Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald his Head of Security Jeremy knows he’s got the best. And it’s hard for a chap to feel too gloomy about things when there’s a JCB telehandler, a crop-spraying hovercraft and a digger in the barn.
Because as a wise man* once said, ‘there’s no man alive who wouldn’t have fun with a digger . . .’
Lady Book Dragon 