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A typical Poirot mystery - Light must be shed, indeed, on the fateful dinner party staged by the famous actor Sir Charles Cartwright for thirteen guests. It will be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, whose martini glass, sent for chemical analysis after he chokes on its contents and dies, reveals no trace of poison. Just as there is no apparent motive for his murder. The first scene in a succession of carefully staged killings, but who is the director? Hercule Poirot is then called in to help solve the mystery of this and the subsequent murders.
The plot includes a test murder – make a slight difference when trying to guess who done it, but it is all part of the fun. I listened to this as an audio book, and it made a great way of passing several hours on the motorway. This is book 46 – week 35 – fiction 41 (11 on audio) non fiction 5
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This is part 5 of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. With any project it is good to have a set of milestones, and these blog entries record some of these milestones
 Lamb Recently this has all been about numbers. My word processing package gives details of revisions and total time spent working on the document. I was amazed to find that it had had 122 revisions and I had spent just under 32 hours writing this 29 page document. It is a bit of a false claim to say that the business plan is finished as it is a living document, and will be updated very regularly especially the section on finance.  Twelve This is all about the numbers and trying to work out what will happen with them over the next twelve months. Fortunately our plans are not that grand so the numbers are reasonably small, so if we have got them wrong there should be wriggle room. Roughly twenty years ago I was involved in a project that was dealing with millions and the gearing ratio was fairly high. It seemed that everyone and their aunt wanted to see the monthly sales (& profit) figures. When they weren't quite up to mark the invoices were Factored out to generate short term better figures. Fortunately for that business things improved and the numbers went back on track.  Relaxing Goat I am sure once we do get to the point of starting trading then we will be comparing the real figures with those we have in the Business Plan. Lets hope they are better than we have got written down. What we must not do is sit back and rest, but strive on to get to the point where we start trading.
This was a very readable book, the only criticism being that it is a fairly thin book and I zoomed through it in a couple of days. Surprise surprise I am now behind again with recording my book reviews.
The main theme of the book was comparing the times of Elijah 900BC with those of Britain today. Sadly there is quite a close comparison, and shows the state of our broken society. Elijah was a great example and inspiration, of his time and also for ours. He stood up to the King (Ahab) and the false religious establishment at the time proclaiming the truth, and challenging their false claims. The great thing about Elijah was that though he was such a great man of God, it is also possible to identify with him, especially as he goes through the whole gambit of human emotions during the several years of his life that we read about in the Bible. John is able to take these and make them relevant to us today. This is a book to recommend. This is book 45 – week 35 – fiction 40 (10 on audio) non fiction 5 What a lovely book, bits of it were so funny that it had me laughing out loud. I am sure that God has a sense of humour and He has given Adrian the ability to see the funny side of everyday things.
It is also so nice to have good comedy that is essentially not rude or plan nasty, as so often portrayed on the TV. One sketch in the book that was oh so real for anyone who has dealt recently with a solicitor about a house, is the questionnaire from “Umbrage, Hubris and Strop” - Than answers that Adrian gives are ones we would all love to give, but probably feel that he is being just a bit to honest, in pointing out all the faults with the house. Adrian is very clever at exploring the heart of life, especially Christian life, and then letting humour, bring out all the more profound points. Over the years I have read and enjoyed, (and given away as presents) several of Adrian's books, and this now gets added to the list. This is book 44 – week 34 – fiction 40 (10 on audio) non fiction 4 This is part 4 of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. Part 1 can be found here Part 2 can be found here and Part three here Today's post considers what type of business we are going to be. For a small business there are really four options:
For the second two the rules are not so complex, though adequate records need to be kept. National Insurance is class 2 and 4. There are also differences about how losses can be offset.  Two rusty wheels Having considered all the options, and going through all four of them over the last four months, we have finally decided on a Partnership. One of the other advantages of the last two options is that it is much easier to change status from 4 to 1 rather than the other way round.  Two worker bees Not that I think of the partnership as a pair of old rusty wheels rather more a pair of slick worker bees as can be seen here.
Now having made decided what we are going to trade as we can now finish our business plan. This is a Roderick Alleyn Mystery – though he is in disguise until almost the end of the book. The plot is fairly unbelievable, but it was good fun and made a light hearted read. All about spies, bullion, and assorted exiles in the back of beyond in New Zealand. The murderer uses boiling hot mud pools to kill – and no-one seems to be guilty.
Other reviews state that this is one of Ngaio Marsh's best written novels. Having not read many others I could not say, but I did enjoy it. This is book 43, week 33 read novels 30, poetry 1, study 2, audio 10. This book was quite a challenge. In essence I read for enjoyment, and part of the pleasure process is letting the mind fill in the gaps, that the text has left out. Or it could be thought of adding the colour to a black and white image. As such I feel that when a book goes into great detail it is moving to the land of a script for a play or film rather than a novel. This is fine so long as the story line is enjoyable, but I do not think it is a good thing if it is not. Describing pain, suffering death etc in great detail is just not needed, and is not enjoyable.
That being said we come to the book - I would say that it was a real smorgasbord of a book. The impression given was that it had been written over a long time, as different parts of it read in a totally different ways. (Maybe even an editor looked at it and told the author to add some grittiness to the book, as some sections certainly have this) Some parts were really enjoyable and brought back the happy memories I have of being on Lewis, other parts to me were just plain crude, and unpleasant. I very nearly gave up on the book and throw it away, as it has a totally unnecessarily detailed description of a post mortem, which ends up with people wanting to be sick, and the same can be said for the reader. I must say that I find it hard to identify with the reviews quoted on the cover about the book, but I did get to the end, and it did not end up being burnt on the fire, so it must have had some redeeming qualities. This is book 42, week 32 read novels 29, poetry 1, study, audio 10  Snail Sometimes it is often so hard to tell the difference between the genuine article and the a fake. Though hopefully it is not hard to tell that these are fake snails, metal copies.) I know when watching the Antiques road show and they have a bit of furniture, that seems to be old they often end up either turning it upside down or taking out all the draws, so the expert can see how it is put together.  Metal Snails The construction of the joints often seems to be a key, or even what type of screws that has been used.
The same applies to religious leaders – Sadly sometimes they can be false teachers, often being driven by greed to get hold of your money. This is not a new thing, but one that has been around for thousands of years. The Apostle Peter talks about this in his letter of 2 Peter Chapter 2 which can be found here In this passgae Peter is very clear as to what will happen to such false teachers – God will destroy them. (He even mentioning Balaam famous for his speaking donkey). Peter goes into this in some detail including giving advice as to how to recognise false teachers –As listeners we are not to take what they say for granted, we are to question it and test it to make sure that it is the genuine article. This chapter including more information on the donkey was the recent subject of our Bible studies and the notes can be found from these studies here |
Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
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