"Firing into the Brown" #85 - Top 10's, Cambers and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update.. apologies - may be a bit short this week - the weather is monumentally good in the UK at the moment so not attuned to long hours in loft or in front of keyboard... 😏

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While out on Gertrude the other week I happened to find myself on the opposite side of the Camber to where the Camber Bastion would have been, and noticed something interesting..  well I thought it was anyway..  😁

First some map'ery to orientate ourselves..  the gates are ringed as is the Camber Bastion our focus for today..

X marks the spot..

Photo was taken at X and looking across the basin to where the Bastion would have been...  note Bridge Tavern (pub) off left - named for the bridge between this side and the other side where the Gate was...

Close up of what got my attention...  look at that brickwork...  smacks of original to me... quite exciting..  I do wonder if that is the pointed front edge of the old bastion..??

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I was sitting there the other day having written the blog about Forsyth dying, and thinking I'd really like to put together that top 10 of all time novels I mentioned..  for no other reason than that I like a list, and if you put up a list someone is bound to tell you "your talking out of your ear", "know nothing", "what abut x, y and z", etc etc.. and I like the feedback and hearing what other peoples choices are..

So here is version 1..  a work in progress...  no rankings yet, as I'd like to get a list first..

• 'Wuthering Heights' - that Bronte girl was a story-teller...
• 'Pied Piper' - so many Nevil Shute books could go in the list but if I had to chose one this would be it
• 'Winter in Madrid' - CJ Sansom - set in Madrid at the end of the Civil War and when we were all holding our breath to find out whether Franco would come in to the war..
• 'Day of the Jackal' - Forsyth - for all the reasons previously mentioned but mostly because this was a genre defining book
• 'Captain Correlli's Mandolin' - Louis de Bernières - an absolute tour de force that I kick myself repeatedly for not having read sooner, and will read again soon..
• 'Lord of the Rings' - Tolkien of course - not fair you shout, as there are three books, so if I had to choose one it would be for the first one 'The Fellowship of the Ring'
• Jack Aubrey series by Patrick O'Brian.. 21 books in all but if I had to pick one it would be 'The Reverse Of The Medal'.. the "off hats!" passage causes the eyes to go blurry every bloody time... utter genius..
• 'Secret Water' - Arthur Ransome - part of his 'Swallows and Amazons' series of which I could have chose any other book from, but I think on balance this is the one I liked the most, and which for me (among may others) started a life long love of sailing..
• 'Wolf Hall' - Hilary Mantel - part of the trilogy on Thomas Cromwell - what a stunning imagination she had... a close run thing with 'The Mirror and the Light' which I may still nominate instead..

....that'll do for now - more will come to me... (Pullman 'Dark Materials'?? Simenon's Maigret? Certainly but which one - he wrote 75! Dibden I think as Zen is a fantastic creation, but which one... 😁)

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...