Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
SCROLL DOWN FOR EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
(This episode is marked as explicit because of strong language and sexual imagery.)
(Background noise might make this episode a challenging listen.)
Episode image is a detail from the cover of Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Joining Charles Adrian for the 15th Second Hand Book Factory is Jessie Greengrass, who describes herself as misanthropic and grumpy. They celebrate detective fiction at length – it turns out that they are both huge fans of detective stories. Who knew? There is a noise warning attached to the second piece of music played, which is a tale of drawn-out frustration, and the last reading is done in an amazing Kentish-type accent.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers is also discussed (briefly) in Page One 162.
More detective fiction is discussed in Page One 63.
Another book by Georgette Heyer, The Unfinished Clue, is discussed in Page 30.
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is also discussed in Page One 161.
This episode was recorded at the Wilton Way Café for London Fields Radio.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 19th February, 2013.
Book listing:
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Links:
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening... you're listening to London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
Hello. This is Charles Adrian in the Wilton Way Cafe for London Fields Radio. This is the 23rd Page One. This is the 15th Second Hand Book Factory. I thought I would start with something upbeat today so this is Bluegrass Stain'd by Mark Ronson featuring Anthony Hamilton.
Music
[Bluegrass Stain'd by Mark Ronson, Nappy Roots and Anthony Hamilton]
Charles Adrian
OK. So here we are. Jessie... Jessie Greengrass is my guest today and that's... that's... so that's why I played...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... Bluegrass Stain'd. Does that make sense?
Jessie Greengrass
That makes... That makes sense to me now. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Good. Good. How are you, Jessie?
Jessie Greengrass
I'm very well, thank you, on a very cold morning.
Charles Adrian
It is a cold morning but who knows? On the 19th of February when this goes up...
Jessie Greengrass
It might... It might... It might...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... online it might be a freakily warm day.
Jessie Greengrass
It'll probably be raining. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
It probably will be. February is a rainy month, isn't it, in general. How would you... How would you describe yourself Jessie?
Jessie Greengrass
I have... I have problems [laughing] with this question. Misanthropic probably and quite grumpy and...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... and I write a lot because that's a way of being misanthropic and grumpy and...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Jessie Greengrass
... and making it seem like a career choice. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Okay. That's good. I like that. So if this were a magazine article I would write: “Jessie Greengrass, comma, misanthropic and grumpy.”
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah, I'd be... and I'd be happy with that. I'd think that was an apt description. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Good. Okay. I like that. Thank you very much for coming and being grumpy here in the Wilton Way Cafe with us.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] No, it's very nice to do it outside of the house for once.
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
What book have you brought that you like?
Jessie Greengrass
The first book that I brought is a detective novel because I love detective stories.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Hooray! Me too!
Jessie Greengrass
And this one is... it's called Gaudy Night and it's by Dorothy Sayers.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Ah! I've never read it but I've heard it on the radio.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah, it's wonderful. The trouble with the radio adaptation was that they cut out a lot of what makes it, I think...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Jessie Greengrass
... a really interesting novel. So they kept the detective bit but they cut out... The detective part of it is... is, sort of, a subplot in a novel that's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! Okay.
Jessie Greengrass
... almost entirely made up of subplots.
Charles Adrian
Oh lovely. Okay.
Jessie Greengrass
So should I... should I read the first bit first?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, why don't you read... read... read to us and then we'll...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Okay. It's not the world's most gripping first page. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
That's okay. [laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square. The late tulips made a brave show in the Square garden, and a quartet of early tennis-players were energetically calling the score of a rather erratic and unpractised game. But Harriet saw neither tulips nor tennis-players. A letter lay open on the blotting-pad before her, but its images [sic] faded from her mind to make way for another picture. She saw a stone quadrangle, built by a modern architect in a style neither new nor old, but stretching out reconciling hands to past and present. Folded within its walls lay a trim grass plot, with flower-beds splashed at the angles, and surrounded by a wide stone plinth. Behind the leveller [sic] roofs of Cotswold slate rose the brick chimneys of an older and less formal pile of buildings - a quadrangle also of a kind, but still keeping a domestic remembrance of the original Victorian dwelling-houses that had sheltered the first shy students of Shrewsbury College. In front were the trees of Jowett Walk and, behind [sic] them, a jumble of ancient gables and the tower of New College, with its jackdaws wheeling against a windy sky.
Charles Adrian
It's a very gentle beginning. I like it.
Jessie Greengrass
It is a very gentle beginning and it's, kind of, a... it's quite a gentle novel, although it's an incredibly thoughtful novel. Like, one of the reasons that I picked it is because I spent a lot of time trying to get people [laughing] to rea... to read it.
Charles Adrian
Okay. This is a really... This is... This is a mission for you is it?
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs] Yeah, actually both the books that I've... that I've got are missions...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... so this was a perfect opportunity for me. It's... Dorothy Sayers was a really interesting woman who was one of the first students to graduate... first female students to graduate from Oxford...
Charles Adrian
With a degree?
Jessie Greengrass
With a degree.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Jessie Greengrass
And she wrote this about fifteen years later.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Jessie Greengrass
But it was published in 1935, I think. And it really is about, kind of... So it's written at a very particular time when the doors were opening for women...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... but they were still... they were still phrased as choices. So...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Jessie Greengrass
... you could have an education...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... but you couldn't have... you couldn't be an academic and get married. So there was this choice to be made...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right. Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... about which... you know, and people are, kind of, necessarily, sort of, both romantic and intellectual beings...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... and so this novel is very much about how to make that choice and... Not... But not... not in a, kind of, 'having it all' way...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... but just in terms of... of how you are honest to yourself. And I think it's still... you know, it's still... I think what interests me about this book is that it still feels relevant. Like, it still feels like there are choices - possibly less politicised choices but for everyone...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... there are still those decisions that have to be made when you, you know...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... pick a partner or pick what you're going to do with your life about...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... you know, about how to operate as part of a couple or...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... or as part of this, like, you know, even a broader group.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Jessie Greengrass
And it's a detective novel! [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Which is... Which is... just wonderful in itself.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] I know! Because I really often find myself thinking: “God, this book would be really good but if only it had some murder in it.”
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Jessie Greengrass
Although there are no murders in [indistinct] [laughs]
Charles Adrian
In Gaudy Night?
Jessie Greengrass
There are no murders, no.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, okay. Just a poison pen.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] I'm sure... I don't... I don't think that's giving away... Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
And it really... I mean, I think that's... I think it's such a complicated book. And, again, like, people do tend to dismiss detective novels as genre fiction and it's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wrongly.
Jessie Greengrass
Wrongly, yeah - and it's very much of the, kind of, golden age of detective...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... fiction. So I think Dorothy Sayers gets lumped as a, kind of, like, slightly lesser Agatha Christie when she's this phenomenally good writer...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... and Agatha Christie was, for all of [laughing] her... for all of her joys, a [laughing] terrible writer.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] I don't think many people would argue with that.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah. So it's a real shame and Doro... you know, Dorothy Sayers did all these... you know, she translant... she translated Dante so...
Charles Adrian
Yes. Yes. I think I have probably...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] She wrote...
Charles Adrian
... one of her... I've never read it but I have a translation of her Purgatory possibly or... I don't remember which... which canto but... which part.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
What do you call the parts of...? [laughing] I should know that, I studied it.
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I'm really pleased that you brought that in. I haven't read as much Dorothy L. Sayers as I should have done. I've listened to a lot of them on the radio but actually I've only read one of her books, which I loved...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I loved. And I also [laughing] loved the fact that the solution to the whole thing was to give the guy whodunnit a gun to go and do the honourable thing outside somewhere.
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs] [speaking over] There's quite a lot of that. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
There's a lot of... Lord Peter Wimsey doesn't actually like putting people into the hands of the police, does he?
Jessie Greengrass
No. He...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] He prefers them to commit suicide.
Jessie Greengrass
Well, I think he prefers not to be faced with the spectre of the hangman, for which he feels...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm. Yes, he says that doesn't, he? He does. Yes
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he, kind of, is this sort of shell-shocked... He... He, yeah, kind of, suffers from shell shock...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Jessie Greengrass
... and every time he has to send anyone to the gallows...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... Bunter has to, kind of, put him to bed.
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Wonderful! Let's listen to the first track that you suggested for today. It's called No Pussy Blues by Grinderman. It's... It's... It's...
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
It is a great track. I want to warn listeners that it's pretty full on from about one minute thirty-six to two minutes nineteen and then again from three minutes thirty-two to the end...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs] [speaking over] Or just from the beginning until the end really.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... just so that you... Well, yeah, I'm talking just in terms of...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... noise level there. Yeah, [laughing] in terms of the song, it doesn't stop.
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
This is No Pussy Blues by Grinderman.
Music
[No Pussy Blues by Grinderman]
Charles Adrian
So that was No Pussy Blues by Grinderman. Thank you very much for that Jessie. Now I'm... I'm very excited about the book that I've chosen for you. This is... This is an entire coincidence but it's a felicitous coincidence, I think, because I have also chosen a detective story for you...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Hurrah! [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... not knowing that you were a fan of detective fiction.
Jessie Greengrass
I do love [laughing] detective fiction.
Charles Adrian
I had no idea but I'm... This is part of a personal quest to popularise Georgette Heyer as a writer of detective fiction.
Jessie Greengrass
[gasps] Which... Which one is it?
Charles Adrian
It's Duplicate Death.
Jessie Greengrass
I haven't read that. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[shouts] Wow! Amazing!
Jessie Greengrass
It's one of the very few that I [laughing] haven't read.
Charles Adrian
Oh superb! Oh my word. I sometimes think when I'm choosing these books that I have a, kind of... a link to some kind of universal brain that knows everything. This... Here you go...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
This is a... This is an Inspector Hemmingway novel. I don't know if he's my fav... I quite like Inspector Hannasyde but they're not terribly [laughing] different, all of her inspectors.
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs] I don't know as much of her detective stories as I do her, kind of, Regency romances actually.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. I've never read any of her Regency romances. I bought a job lot of...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] They're brilliant. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... her detective stories, not knowing previously...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... that she was a detective writer. They're really fun.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
They're really a lot of fun. In fact, I have a quote from Dorothy L. Sayers on the back here, saying: “Miss Heyer's characters are an abiding delight to me.”
Jessie Greengrass
I think that's... I think she's probably right actually. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I think she is. They are... They are.... I mean, most of the books contain the same little group of charac... I mean, they're... they're all called different things and they're in different parts of the world...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and things but they're basically... You have a, sort of, fay young man often, a very independent young woman...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... you have an overbearing older man and perhaps... Then there are various other... various, sort of... variations. In this one there's, I think, a more overbearing older woman as well. But this is... So this is about a bridge... bridge party and... and some murder gets done.
Jessie Greengrass
At a time at which bridge was the new thing...
Charles Adrian
Was it really? I didn't know that.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] ... interestingly. Yeah. Bridge is a much more modern game than... than people realise.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I didn't realise.
Jessie Greengrass
So there was a massive, kind of, bridge fad... phase thing that happened and... yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh what fun! Okay. And this is... this is... So this is what they're doing. They're having a big bridge party.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And it's a really huge bridge party that they have.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Yeah. So it was like the new thing.
Charles Adrian
I see. I see.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] The cool thing. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Right. Everyone's got bored of waltzing.
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah. And... and...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Now we're going to... [laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... waltzing is, like, done. Shoulders are no longer...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... exciting. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
This is... And, yeah, one of the things I like about these is that they were... they're written contemporaneously. So this one was first published in... Oh, no, wait, this is a late one. This is 1951. But she was... she started off in the thirties writing these.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
This one... So this is set in the twenties or thirties. It's a little bit... So it's written a little bit after the fact actually. But still, I get the sense that she does know what she's talking about...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... even if she writes very superficially.
Jessie Greengrass
She meticulously researched her books as well. Her... Not... Like, she was this, kind of... So the Regency romances... She was known as a, kind of, an extraordinary scholar of a particular very...
Charles Adrian
Really?
Jessie Greengrass
... narrowly particular, kind of...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Jessie Greengrass
... of history.
Charles Adrian
But I... What I... What I like about this... she... I don't get the feeling that she's putting stuff in to make it seem...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... like a... like a period...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... novel. It's just...
Jessie Greengrass
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... stuff happens. I mean, you get a lot of people don't have very much to do. I don't know how...
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
... how accurate that is. But. Yeah. No. I've.. I have... I've heard - well, again, radio - I've heard one of her Regency novels on the radio and it was a lot of fun. It was very silly.
Jessie Greengrass
They are very silly but they're also just... they're wonderful. They're like the best thing...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... to read when you've got a bad cold.
Charles Adrian
Oh, I can imagine.
Jessie Greengrass
Or...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... you know, or you don't want to do anything for a day.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. Well, this... I tend to read these when I'm... when I'm at home in the evening and I don't have much to do and I'm...
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... going to go to bed. I'll read... I'll read this for an hour...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... before I go to bed. This... So this is... This is Duplicate Death:
One
THERE WERE SEVERAL promising-looking letters in the pile laid on Mrs James Kane's virgin breakfast-plate on Monday morning, but, having sorted all the envelopes with the air of one expectant of discovering treasure-trove, she extracted two addressed to her in hands indicative either of illiteracy or of extreme youth. One was tastefully inscribed in red ink; the other appeared to have been written with a crossed nib trailing a hair. Both were addressed to Mr and Mrs James Kane, but the incorporation of her husband's style with her own Mrs Kane very properly ignored. Both missives would undoubtedly open with the formula: Dear Mummy and Daddy, but any share in the [sic] contents to which Mr James Kane could lay claim would be indicated by the words: ‘Tell Daddy’. Such information as was conveyed under this heading would be of a sporting nature. Urgent needs, ranging from money for the defraying of unforeseen and inescapable expenses to the instant forwarding of possessions only to be found after several days of intensive and exhausting search, would be addressed, with rare prescience, to Mummy.
So that's the first page. It's a shame, actually, because the second and third pages are really rather fun. You start to... You... You... You find out a little bit of the [laughing] contents...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... of these... of these letters and then I think the children don't come up again. They're just there to... to, kind of, entertain us for the first few pages of the book.
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
Let's play the second... the second track that you suggested. This is Dark Is [sic] The Night by Blind Willie Johnson. We're going to listen to this now. I imagine afterwards we will drown ourselves in a bucket. This is... this is [laughing] quite...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughing] It's very much an entry into my... into my other book, which is very much a change of tone. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Okay. Good. Good. So this is... This is Blind Willie Johnson with Dark Was The Night.
Music
[Dark Was The Night by Blind Willie Johnson]
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
It is. It's London Fields Radio. I'm Charles Adrian. I'm here in the Wilton Way Cafe in Hackney with Jessie Greengrass. Now is the part of the show where you... you give me something... where you tell me what you're going to give me.
Jessie Greengrass
I'm quite excited about this although it's very much a departure from two detective stories.
Charles Adrian
Right. That's [indistinct].
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] The novel that I've brought for you is Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker.
Charles Adrian
Oh, I've never heard of it.
Jessie Greengrass
Sadly, few people have, which is why I have given away [laughing] every single...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... copy of this novel that I have ever bought. And on deciding that I was going to... was going to bring it here I had to go out and buy another copy.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] To replace it!
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] And I must have bought a dozen of them in my life.
Charles Adrian
Wow.
Jessie Greengrass
It's a phenomenal novel and it's a really...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Every writer should have a fan like you.
Jessie Greengrass
Well, I think it's... He's got quite a lot of... There are a lot of... I think people who have read this are always, kind of, like, wow, you know, that's the one book that I would choose to talk about if I had the chance.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Jessie Greengrass
So it's a post-apocalyptic novel, of which there are many. But what's interesting about it is that it's, kind of, set several millennia after a nuclear apocalypse which has brought humanity incredibly low...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... and what he, kind of, realises is that the fee... or, kind of, puts forward as a hypothesis is that... that what that would feel like to be essentially, kind of, Iron Age man surrounded by the remnants of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Ah. Right. Yes. Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... of a barely remembered technological society is enormous shame...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm.
Jessie Greengrass
... that you would know that... that once you were more than you are now...
Charles Adrian
Interesting, yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... and that you canno... you can't get back there.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Jessie Greengrass
And in terms of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's a total reversal of our belief in progress, isn't it?
Jessie Greengrass
Yeah, absolutely. And this, kind of... So they, sort of... Riddly Walker, the... is the... is the hero and he's, kind of, the first writer in this...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, okay. Mmm. Interesting
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] ... in this history. And there's lots of in... there's lots of, kind of, just incredible detail. And it's also - I'm going to read the first page but...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Jessie Greengrass
... it's written in a decayed version of a Kentish dialect so I've a little bit...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] [speaking over] Good luck with that. [laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
I, kind of, went: “Oh, this is a terrible one because I'm going to have to read it and it's just...” I'm just going to show you this page. It's not... It's just not really readable out loud but...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No.
Jessie Greengrass
... I'm going to give it a go.
Charles Adrian
Well, I think... I think it might...
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I don't know. It might work better out loud.
Jessie Greengrass
It might do. It's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] See how it goes. [laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
Yes, I shall give it a go anyway.
On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundle Downs any how there hadn't ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and then there we were [sic]. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, ‘Your tern now my tern later.’ The other spears gone in then and he wer dead and the steam coming up off him in the rain and we all yelt, ‘Offert!’
The woal thing fealt jus that littl bit stupid. Us running that boar thru in [sic] that las littl scrump of woodling with the forms all roun. Cows mooing sheap baaing cocks crowing and us foraging our las boar in a thin grey girzel on the day I come a man.
The Bernt Arse pack ben follering us [sic] jus out of bow shot. When the shout gone up ther ears all prickt up. Ther leader he wer a big black and red spottit dog he come forit a littl like he ben going to make a speach or some thing til 1 or 2 bloaks uppit bow then he slumpt back agen and kep his farness follering us back. I took noatis of that leader tho. He wernt close a nuff for me to see his eyes but I thot his eye ben on me.
Coming back with the boar on a poal we come a long by the rivver. It wer hevvyer woodlit [sic] there. Thru the girzel you cud see blue smoak hanging in be twean the black trees and the stumps pink and red where they ben loppt off. Aulder trees in there and chard coal berners in amongst them working ther harts. You cud see 1 of them in there with his red jumper what they all ways wear. Making chard coal for the iron reddy at Widders Dump. Every 1 made the Bad Luck go away syn when we walk [sic] past him.
Um...
Charles Adrian
Wonderful. I'm making the ‘Bad Luck go away sign’ right now. [laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs] It's just such... Like, there's so much thought and detail. There's a... an introduction to this which appears to be obligatory to publish...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay.
Jessie Greengrass
... by Will Self, which is terrible. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay. That's a shame.
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] I don't recommend that you... that you start with that.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. I'll skip that. I tend not to read introductions before I've read books.
Jessie Greengrass
It's an extremely pretentious bit of, you know...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Jessie Greengrass
It's just... It's just a wonderful, wonderful book.
Jessie and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Wow. Well, thank you so much for that. And thank you very much for coming in, Jessie. This has been...
Jessie Greengrass
[speaking over] Thank you for having me. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
This has been a pleasure. It's been... It's now very, very quiet here in the cafe. And still cold.
Jessie Greengrass
Still very cold.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. And I'm going let you go off home to do whatever it is that you're doing for the rest of today.
Jessie Greengrass
I don't know what that is yet. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Perhaps you'll be reading Georgette Heyer.
Jessie Greengrass
I think... I think I might be I think that...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Jessie Greengrass
... everything else I was going to do could possibly be jettisoned...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] [indistinct]
Jessie Greengrass
... in order to wrap myself in a duvet and read Georgette Heyer. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
I will imagine you doing that.
Jessie Greengrass
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
And to... This is to, sort of, cheer us up at the end of the half hour and also a reference to... to the book I gave you, which is about bridge. This is Simon & Garfunkel singing The 59th Street Bridge Song brackets Feeling Groovy. Thank you, Jessie.
Jessie Greengrass
Thank you very much.
Music
[59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy) by Simon & Garfunkel]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]