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Missing White Woman Syndrome, the short story.
MWWS: "a term used by social scientists and media commentators to refer to extensive media coverage, especially in television of missing person cases involving young, white, upper-middle-class women or girls ... compared to coverage of missing women of color, women of lower social classes and missing men or boys. Although the term was coined in the context of missing person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes." [wikipedia]

Sadly my review of this book was lost, but it is a gentle and engaging guide to that county between Wales and the Black Country, a place of mountain, flood (especially last winter!) and mystery. The towns and cities are here and also the mythology, the ironfounders and the writers such as the incomparable Mary Webb, who should at some time have written the story of Hannah Cullwick, surely a Webb protagonist come to life.  

This is I would say not your average travel guide, more a spirited introduction to one of the most underrated and surprising parts of England.

Intriguing if dated look at the British aircraft industry and how it was sold down the river by politicians in the 1960s and '70s. Old enough though that the BAe146 is described as 'cancelled' when it was later uncancelled and achieved some success.

Enjoyable read although apparently inaccurate in places. The author levels this accusation against Ossendowski's "Of Beasts, Men and Gods," but it is also true here. Later parts of the book dispense with the Baron himself and become a diatribe about Soviet misrule in Mongolia. Von Ungern-Sternberg is a fascinating figure though: insanely courageous and just plain insane, mystic and monarchist, born into the wrong era if anyone ever was. 

Cracking adventure set in the interwar period and bringing a kind of Lost Horizon vibe to it. Read just after reading "The Bloody White Baron" so perhaps not surprising here is everyone's favourite batshit insane White warlord, Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg (who I've also fictionalised in a thing called "Desk Job").
Easterman is an apostate from the Baha'i religion. von Ungern-Sternberg's proclamation that 'religion is the main cause of war' (though he didn't think this was a bad thing) may have gelled within him.

Let’s all meet up in the Year 2000 …

A portrait of growing up in the 1980s in a world of inappropriate colours, lurid drinks and electronic music. Three girls who met at school and share almost the same birthday promise to meet up when they’re 25 (i.e. in 1992), and on Millennium Eve, and when they’re 50. A picture of those decades with all the over-consumerism and socio-economic dread that it entailed.
The present-day story is of them turning fifty ... in 2017 which avoids inconvenient questions about the current Covid-and-Brexit situation. All three get into the music scene and music journalism – at which Maya proves particularly adept and makes a career of it, while dowdy Sandra who seems set for the marriage – kids – suburbia route drifts into retail. Jane comments on both of them and doesn’t seem to have much time for either of them, her East Birmingham background distancing her from the Moseley shoals of Sandra and Maya, although those two clearly accept her, which she is too much of a snob and a fault-finder to appreciate.

And of course it isn't all good. Jane is an unreliable narrator not least because she takes a long time to realise she’s the one at fault. Jane alone wonders why at least one of her friends has distanced herself while, even without the specific things she did when she was young, the reader is quite aware.

It’s refreshing to see the talented d’Souza back on the scene – her novels developed a genuine talent and one rooted very often in her native Birmingham (which of course gets a sneer from Jane there – but an underrated city it is. If all you can see is surface, you’ll see nothing). Much of her fiction evokes a particular moment that will be nostalgic before you know it.

All very gritty but I couldn't take it seriously after a while.

Years ago while walking in the country we happened upon a herd of what may have been Hieland Coos. Although I thought, someone's breeding back to the Aurochs.
Were they?
Were they Heck.
Well if they were Heck Cattle, then yes, a teleo-Aurochs ('teleos' being the opposite of 'protos' thus, Last or Later) bred under a certain mid-20th century regime notorious for its warlike nature and hating everyone who wasn't them, the Heck was renowned in turn for being a nightmare to work with, hardly surprising when they are descended in part from Spanish fighting bulls which are not known for their placidity.
Although that is only a small part of what is in Wilding, which is about I think the attempt to return the land to a kind of Edenic nature where human endeavour is only part of what goes on, where we appreciate that humanity is there to serve the natural world and not command it. Very Taoist and very distant from the large-scale agriculture we see around us.
The project described in Wilding, well, wouldn't it be good to be on their side. The grass literally is greener over there.

I listened to this on Audible (which made sense). Much good thought here. I have already installed Freedom to block social media on work days and some day soon will get around to getting rid of of most of my social media accounts. Trouble is the damn things are useful. Or interesting. Twitter can get stuffed though. I already don't use my phone that much, so it's just sitting at a computer.