Change in commute.

I used to really had my commute. Love my job, but the commute was horrible. Now that I have move to a different area things are better.

I have moved further from London but the travel time is the same. it used to be 15 minutes to drive to the station, then a 40 minute train ride to London then either tube, bus or walk to wherever I was going. Now I have a 5 minute walk, 1 hour on the train, and whatever to get to the site.

The trains are nicer, air con in the summer. Though it does look like they might keep the air con on in the winter too, guess we will see. Because I am so far out there is always a seat and they are much more comfortable then my old train, and they run on time, none of this several minutes late every day.

A pleasant journey.

History – boring or not?

I happen to like history, when I am not doing any sort of family history.  You see when I lived in London my mother, who is doing the family tree, would insist I do research for her at the records office Angel.  I hated it.  How boring to view a list of name and dates, nothing about the person.

Stories and seeing how people live, that is history.  Looking at an old chair that was in a school, seeing the graffiti of the school children.  Seeing how a building changed over the years.  A monastery changed to a farm building, changed to a home.

When I saw Sarah Arrow’s blog on Gallows Corner is like that, a normal persons view of where we live.  Who lived in our houses, 50, 75, 100 years ago.  What were they really like…

Would be nice to have a window to the past.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

I like all kinds of books, and I think I am quite forgiving about a lot. This book started out good.  Then seemed to wonder.  We read about the case, a real murder that happened over 150 years ago, then we get the history of how detectives came about, how the detective on the case Mr Whicher grew up, started his career, the high and low points, some guesses about how his days would have gone.

A little history of the detective would be good, but the authour Kate Summerscale gave way too much information.  This is something that trainers learn (hopefully) that too much information is not good, it is very bad, too much peoples minds wonder and I could not wait until the book got back on topic.

I think I skimmed over pages, and when I finally finished I was left wanting.  At the beginning of the book we are lead to believe that the answer is given at the end of the peoples lives, but it is guess work.  There is a hypothosis by a detective, that is not completely confirmed, there are still unknown bits.  I really could not wait until I had finished.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
interesting, but could have been 2 books, one about the case, the other about the history of the detective. Seemed to digress and go on and on before getting back to the case.

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