The Lost World: Arthur Conan Doyle

Here's Doyle muscling in on Wells' territory- intrepid white men go exploring beyond the edges of the maps- only where Wells is more than a little disgusted by the colonial enterprise Doyle backs his European adventurers to the hilt- even when they commit genocide. I like Doyle- he was a straight up guy- but he couldn't get his head above the cigar-fug of the Edwardian gentleman's club.

He has the knack of creating quirky, memorable characters- like Professor Challenger here- only to push them into caricature.

This isn't the first adventure story involving dinosaurs (I believe Jules Verne got there first) but it's a good half century earlier than Crichton and Spielberg.

Re Rolf Harris

Don't give sentimentalists the benefit of the doubt. They're always evading or covering up some truth.

Three Things

1' No-one has done anything much to the fields since we came here and now they're wildflower meadows. The buttercups are ending their season and the cowslips and selfheals are having theirs- with the clovers coming on . There are lots of small heath butterflies.

2. I'm a little dizzy with all the tennis I've been watching- and all the new names and faces I'm having to commit to memory: Bouchard, Kerber, Kyrgios, Raucic, Dimitrov.  Is the era of the Big Four over?  Nadal looked tired in his defeat yesterday and Murray today was positively sluggish- but nothing seems to touch Roger Federer.

3 Ailz sent her mother an email over three months ago telling her to rein back on the self pity and moral blackmail (only not quite in those terms) and for some reason she's only just read it. Now she's lovingly nursing her outrage. Have I ever known a person I disliked more? No, I don't think I have (unless it was Ailz's father.)