Roseann sent us this interesting Times clip on two Booker – prize- winning novelists of the Seventies who had those same manuscripts rejected by twenty modern publishers. I’m not sure exactly what it means– I have not read Middleton, and a lot of Booker prize winners have seemed like trendy lightweights to me. But NAIPAUL?? …
Month: January 2006
Pigeon Culture in Turkey..
.. could be a book, and IS an excellent website, which I urge anyone interested to consult before, during, and after reading this post– it contains breeds, photos, sport, advice, origins, and more. I have had it bookmarked for years, never thinking I might get a glimpse of eastern pigeons “on the ground”. Turkey is …
More Sporting Notes/ Doom & Gloom
More from Sir Terence. Our mutual friend John Burchard, who has apppeared here, asked what had happened to Fallujah, which once apparently was a hotbed of salukis and falcons rather than ‘insurgents”. He replied: “I suppose there were two main causes [of the change]: the first which goes back to the ’60s was the deliberate …
Big Surf
Over the last three weeks or so, we have had a number of storms and attendant swell here in Southern California that’s resulted in bigger than normal surf. There have been many days in this stretch that we have had waves in the 8-12 foot range. That has made these people very happy. My daughter …
(Sad) Sporting Notes from All Over
Queensland, Australia, has permanently ended bird hunting through a regulatory ruling, joining New South Wales,the Australian Capital Territory,and Western Australia. From the January/ February issue of Shooting Sportsman (not on line): ” ‘This is not an appropriate activity in contemporary life in the Smart State” [sic], announced Premier Peter Beattie. The number of citizens who …
…and of Almaty
My ornithologist friend Andrey Kovalenko in Almaty, Kazakhstan, who bred my Kiran, sent me this picture of brindle Lashyn’s grandfather Sherkhan standing on the steppes with the Tian Shan behind, by our friend (and pro photographer) Oleg Belyalov. I wish I had the “real” computer working so I could show you the drawing from the …
Dogs (and Mountains) of Home…
We celebrated the New Year’s, Jackson’s birthday, my return, and my recovery from flu, by hiking to the 10,000 foot ridge atop the Magdalenas nearby– only a 6- mile hike, but over 3500 feet vertically. It occurs that it also shows some differences in our Asian dogs, both between their two types and (greater) to …
Some Turkish Dogs
The hounds of Turkish Kurdistan are tall, strong, and long- legged. They are run on gazelles, at least in the south, as well as hares, which would certainly select for size. All we saw were also smooth coated. To me they resemble the salukis of Arabia or (most) Iran, more than those of Central Asia, …
Turkish Landscape
We started in Ankara, headed south, and crossed the Taurus range. I think the landscape, though long- inhabited and bearing traces of human presence since the Neolithic, would seem more familiar to an inhabitant of the Amercan West than an Easterner or European. The strangest thing for me was the abundant groves of nut trees …
We’re Still Standing
While I was in Turkey, Libby got a crew (thank you Simon Armijo and Charley Wagner among others) to build two concrete –or “SEE- ment” as we say here– buttresses to hold up the crumbling east wall of our 120- plus year- old stone house, which regular readers may recall was dumping fist- sized lumps …