The 4-Play Meme (as book and crime related as possible...)

For a little light relief, I compiled my lists earlier today.  Maxine has mentioned somewhere that she prefers memes that concentrate more on the world of books, so I have tried to make this as connected as possible, including related to crime and crime fiction.  (The food bit being the most difficult!)  Here are my results:

4 places you have lived:

• Aberdare, South Wales, UK – I bumped into someone from school last year, after over twenty years.  Her memory of me is that I always had a book in my hand.
• Cardiff, South Wales – for 8 years and during a lot of studying, but I do remember devouring the novels of David Lodge and reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover as a distraction the night before my father had an operation.
• Toronto, Canada – for 18 months.  Great bookshops and I made some great discoveries.  Crime fiction addiction started at this clean city.
• London – for almost a decade.  Biggest memories include reading Mary Wesley’s tomes on the District Line; discovering Minette Walters, John Lawton and Mo Hayder; taking two books out of a brown paper bag and starting to read the Simon Brett on the same tube line, only to replace in the bag after a few stops as the opening (sex) scene went on for pages…

4 places you have visited:

• Egypt, for a cruise down the Nile and a stay in Luxor.  Came home with no deaths a la Agatha experienced.
• Amsterdam, on two occasions to date.  And where was one of my main visits, last year?  The American Book Center.  Three purchases made.
• Washington D.C., specifically to visit the newly opened Holocaust Museum.  I have a few books on The Holocaust in my collection.
• St Emilion, France. It was a beautiful and peaceful place when I visited it.  I still have some wine guides in my book collection.

4 places you want to go:

• Bamburgh, Northumberland, UK.  It came up in a 1980 UK TV series, Barriers and looked like a beautiful place to go, but I’ve still not achieved it.  The series itself involved a mystery, so it was sowing the seeds of my future crime addiction.
• More places in the Netherlands.  It’s underrated and often misunderstood.  This year, having read 3 Dutch crime authors translated into English, my “want” has been fuelled futher.
• Edinburgh – for the book festival.  Never been so far…
• Alnwick, again Northumberland, UK - to see the book shop, Barter Books in what used to be the railway station and is the one of the largest second hand bookshops in Europe.

4 TV shows you love to watch (& sticking with a crime theme, although I watch very little TV overall):

• Criminal Minds (love the pace).
• NCIS (love the banter).
• Dr Who (for David Tennant’s performance & quality BBC Wales production).
• The BBC’s Have I Got News For You (because it would be a crime to miss it).

4 of your favorite foods:

• Cheddar cheese.  (It’s a crime what the Canadians do to this one: very mild and hence no taste and very orange and rubbery.  Oddly, but fortuitously, here in the UK the Canadian Cheddar is quite mature, tasty and very pale.)
• Hereford strawberries.  (They are simply the best of the British crops and it would be crime to miss out on them.  US imported, water-filled mega-sized versions can’t even compare.)
• Chicken dhansak.  (My favourite treat when not low-carbing.  But not in Leeds where they add pineapple to it, for some reason.  Totally criminal behaviour!)
• Slow-roasted lamb, usually a shoulder.  (I discovered this one through low-carbing.  Succulent, juicy and tender meat that falls off the bone.  Absolutely nothing criminal about that.)

4 Web sites you visit daily (there are far more crime and book blogs on my daily list, as well as some political ones):

• Maxine at Petrona.
• Clare at Keeper of the Snails.
• Norm at Crime Scraps.
• Martin at Do You Write Under Your Own Name?

4 places you would rather be right now:

• In employment, as opposed to still looking for a job.
• In a country that’s managed not to develop a knife and thug culture and is not “ASBO Central”.
• Back in the womb.  (It’s been a bad week.)
• Back five years ago to be able to apply a decent moisturiser, daily, to the eye area that’s getting wrinkles at the moment.  (Perhaps it’s just the bad week/fortnight taking its toll?)

4 things you want to do before you die:

• Visit the top of Snowdonia to see the view, smell the air and try out the new café.
• Go back to Egypt and visit Cairo.
• Get hitched.  (I'd prefer marriage and if it happens it will be a major event I can assure you.  If I live long enough, perhaps I'll meet someone in the old people's home?)
• Write something that gets published and paid for. (And I am not talking a crime novel here.)

4 books you wish you could read again for the first time:

• John Lawton’s Black Out, an all time favourite.
• Robert Wilson’s The Blind Man of Seville.
• Patricia Cornwell’s Post Mortem.
• Minette Walters’s The Scold’s Bridle.

I am not tagging anyone because I am too kind.  Actually, depending on the time of day, my mood and a number of other variables, including hormones, you might find me a complete pushover.

Comments

[cfr]

Thanks, Norm. Your comments are much appreciated.

I can't believe that after the bulk of two working weeks, I still have no feedback from a second interview with a company, through an agency. It seems surreal and exceptionally rude too, but not sure where to lay the blame on the latter.

Now then, I can't do the dhansak at home, but I can do the slow-roasted lamb. Happy to provide service of this if ever you desire. It's lush, I promise you. Really yummy amd more, more, moreish.

[Martin Edwards]

Thanks for mentioning my blog, Rhian. As for Bamburgh and Barter Books, I can promise you will not be disappointed with them.

[cfr]

Thank you, Philip. What a lovely comment!
Things are pretty bad in a lot of places at the moment and people's attitudes seem to stink too on times.

[Philip]

Great stuff. It afforded me a few smiles, and things not being so great here these days, what with one thing or another, I regard that as an unexpected gift. I'm a miserable sod most of the time. Thanks, cfr.

[Kerrie]

Excellent interpretation Crimefic. Well done

[Norm]

Great post CFR and not only because you mentioned Crime Scraps.Thanks for that.
I admit the chicken dhansak and slow roasted lamb got my attention but I hope the weeks ahead are better for you and that your wish list is achieved very soon.
Black Out is next on my Lawton list to read so if it is better than the first two chronologically I am in for a real treat.