The Man who was Thursday

The Man who was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton, is quoted at several points in Deus Ex. Not only that, but it was referenced in the help file of the excellent Evil Sorceror’s Party (as a scrapped ending). When collecting audiobooks for my trip, I noticed on a “best of librivox” list and knew that I had to give it a listen.

The narrative centres around a poet (who is also an undercover policeman) who finds himself elected to the Central Anarchists’ Council. Each member of the council is named for a day of the week, hence “The Man who was Thursday”. The bulk of the novel deals with the council’s plan to conduct an assassination in Paris, and the protagonist’s efforts to stop it.

I know that there are deeper layers to this work than the surface story, and I know that I’ve missed them (and audiobooks don’t allow poring over the work like a dead tree does), but it’s an enjoyable yarn nevertheless.

The work is well read, and read by a single person, something I consider essential for a good audiobook. The reader also reads each of the characters in a different voice, making the dialogue easy to follow.

First Voyage

From the 10^th to the 12^th of September was my first voyage with Windeward Bound. (Actually, we left on the 9^th), but we immediately proceeded to a nearby anchorage and went to sleep.

We had so many passengers on board that there were more crew than crew bunks, so hot bunking was necessary. In addition, someone had to sleep in the saloon. Being the newest member of the crew, that someone was mostly me. Ths saloon couch is pretty comfortable, if a little short. It’s also right next to the engine room hatch, which has its bilge checked regularly. It’s also right next to the mates’ cabin and the captain’s cabin. Somehow I slept like a log regardless.

High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

On my days off, I like to go for a walk with an audiobook running. When I was in Melbourne, Stefan introduced me to the LibriVox Project, where volunteers create public domain audiobooks based on Project Gutenberg eBooks. If I find ones I particularly enjoy, I’ll write about them here.

The book I most recently listend to is High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France. The entire book is read by one person, and he does an excellent job. The story is very interesting as well. The parts where the author is first learning to fly make me want to build a flying machine in a shed. I don’t want to say any more to avoid spoilers. Strongly recommended.

Blackwall Hitch

We were recently given a list of knots that we had to know cold. At the end of the list was the blackwall hitch, which I firmly believe is the stupidest knot ever.

My new home

This is the Windeward Bound, my new home for at least the next 6 months.

Come-by-Chance

I was reading through a collection of A B Paterson’s work recently, and came upon a neat little poem called Come-By-Chance. I was going to write a few words about it, but this guy did a much better job of talking about it than I could.