12th Blogoversary

 

Yesterday it somehow slipped my mind, but today I remembered: Yesterday was my 12th anniversary as a blogger. My first blog was entitled The Island of the Voices, and to a handful of faithful old followers, the screenshot below (of my very first blog post) may seem vaguely familiar by now - not because anyone actually started following already from day one, but because I've probably celebrated every year since by repeating that post...

In connection with moving the blog to its present address two years later, I changed the name to Beyond the Lone Islands - still referring to the same book. ('The Island of the Voices' was one of the 'Lone Islands'.) I ran into some problems with image storage, plus there was some major layout change at Blogger, and I didn't want to risk losing or messing up the previous posts.

One thing that is pretty amazing to me is that some of the friends I made during the very first one or two years in the Blogworld are still following (and I them). And looking back at this last year of global pandemic, social distancing and lock-downs etc, blogging and other international contacts have continued to be a true blessing, serving to keep up a bit of normality in the general chaos. So thanks, everyone! 

PS. I just had a peek at a list of names of wedding anniversaries. It says 11 years is Steel, and 12 years is Silk. So if 2020 was a hard year, let's hope 2021 will be smoother! 

Statistics

 Most of you (dear readers) are probably familiar with a quote often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain (who in turn wrongly attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli - who according to the omniscient Wikipedia doesn't deserve the credit either):

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Whoever said it first, this still tends to be repeated a lot, and it came to mind for me once again when I looked at some of my own statistics from 2020.

 

BOOKS & AUDIO BOOKS

On my computer, I keep a database list of books I've read, going back to 2002. Usually at the end of a year it tells me that I've been reading about one book per week (including printed books, e-books and audio books). That was also my conclusion when printing out my list for 2020: 51 titles.

However,  I also received some statistics from Audible, which is where I keep most of my audio books. According to them, I listened to 58 titles (for a total of 703 hours). 

As on my own book list I've only marked 22 titles as Audible books, their statistics surprised me. I know there are some titles I've listened to that I did not enter on my own list as they were lectures or drama rather than books. There are are also some books I've listened to partly, but have not finished (so also did not get added to my own list). The total number of hours spent listening may perhaps be right, considering all the times I've fallen asleep listening and have had to rewind and re-listen. (I usually set a sleep timer, but it happens that I miss that, and some books have been talking away all through the night...)  But that I should have listened to as many as 58 different titles in one year still seems very unlikely (or a statistic lie!), however I count.

Ah well - never mind... I'm just curious about how they're counting!

The official 2020 Postcrossing statistics are probably more correct:

However, those statistics do not include all the postcards exchanged with friends... 

 

 

 Then there is Duolingo. They sent me their figures already back in October, claiming that...

and

Sounds impressive, doesn't it? (counting minutes and words...) They also claim I earned 23560 "XP" (points) and 431 "crowns" (to do with finishing levels within courses) and advanced to Diamond League (whatever that means).  I am very sure that "studying" a word is not the same as memorizing it, though... (There's an awful lot of forgetting and repeating and wild guessing involved in trying to learn multiple languages...) 

Spanish is indeed the Duolingo language I still spend the most time on; and having started from zero some 4½ years ago, I have definitely made progress - but Spanish is also their main course, which they keep updating and adding new lessons to all the time. 

Finnish is my latest added course - it was introduced last summer (2020), still in beta version. There are a lot of people of Finnish origin living in Sweden, and back in my childhood they were the dominant group of labour immigrants. So nearly all my life I've always heard a lot of Finnish spoken (but never understood a word...) Even learning just a few words and a teeny tiny bit of the most basic grammar (very different from Swedish) feels like progress.

Well. At least when I ask myself what I do with my time, I have some statistics!

Read in Nov/Dec 2020

 November

 

The Palest Ink
by Kay Bratt (2015)
Audio book narrated by Will Damron (12h 15min)

"A sheltered son from an intellectual family in Shanghai, Benfu spends 1966 anticipating a promising violinist career and an arranged marriage. On the other side of town lives Pony Boy, a member of a lower-class family - but Benfu's best friend all the same. Their futures look different but guaranteed...until they're faced with a perilous opportunity to leave a mark on history.

At the announcement of China's Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao's Red Guard members begin their assault ---. With political turmoil at their door, both Benfu and Pony Boy must face heart-wrenching decisions regarding family, friendship, courage, and loyalty to their country during one of the most chaotic periods in history."

This is supposed to be a prequel to a series I never read or heard about (The Scavenger's Daughters). I think this book works quite well as a stand-alone, though. Besides being interesting as a historical novel from Mao's Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s, it also made me reflect on recent news reports of re-education camps in China in our own time. (Now for minorities of different cultural background, rather than "intellectuals".)

 

 

 

 

Harry Potter - A History of Magic
(Pottermore Publishing)
Audio documentary narrated by Natalie Dormer (11h 39 min)

This is a "audio documentary" rather than a book; inspired by an exhibition held at the British Library in 2017, and at the New-York Historical Society in 2018. 

It reveals some of the hidden stories behind real-world magic and explores some of J.K. Rowling's own inventions alongside their folkloric, cultural and historical forebears. Having been a HP fan for a while now, I already knew some of these things - but found this audio presentation enjoyable as well.

December

Lewis Amnesia
by FMT Macdonald (2020)

This is a sequel to St Kilda Fever by the same author, which I reviewed here in 2019. It is still the 1970s, and Doctor Helen MacAllister (with her dog George) returns to the Outer Hebrides to again work in a medical practice on the west coast of Lewis. She is hoping for a quiet time and a chance to get her own life in order - but of course things do not turn out quite as she hoped, as she begins to suspect that some recent deaths and fires on the island may not be quite accidental. And then there is the handsome fireman who keeps turning up everywhere, but whom George the dog seems not to like... 

As in the first book, the author is good at making the reader feel both the charm and the quirks of island life, seen through the eyes of the doctor - who is herself an "incomer" (even if not from further away than Glasgow).

 

 

 

 

The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling (2020)
Narrated by Stephen Fry (7:52 h)

This is a story of fairy tale kind that J.K. Rowling started writing in between the Harry Potter books, but which has nothing to do with that magical world. She used to read it aloud to her own children, but never quite finished it, and the manuscript got put away for over a decade. But when the covid-19 pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, she got the idea to dust off this story and put it online for free for all the children stuck at home, and unable to attend school - and also to invite children to illustrate it. She published the the story online back in the summer, one or two chapters per day - and I too (still a child at heart!) first read it that way. When later in the autumn the book was published in print, including illustrations by children from different countries, I also decided to use a gift card I got for my birthday in August to buy it. And when I saw that the audio book was narrated by Stephen Fry, I could not resist getting that as well... Just like the Harry Potter books, I suspect I'll be listening to this story more than once, too.

"The kingdom of Cornucopia was once the happiest in the world. It had plenty of gold, a king with the finest moustache you could possibly imagine, and butchers, bakers, and cheesemongers whose exquisite foods made a person dance with delight when they ate them.

Everything was perfect—except for the misty Marshlands to the north, which, according to legend, were home to the monstrous Ickabog. Anyone sensible knew that the Ickabog was just a myth to scare children into behaving. But the funny thing about myths is that sometimes they take on a life of their own..."

 

Bye bye 2020, Hello 2021

 

View from window at New Year around midnight.

While I've had a number of years by now to get used to Christmas on my own, I can hardly remember any New Year's Eves spent alone. (Maybe once, as I do seem to recall one time when I tried going to sleep before midnight, but it proved hopeless because of all the noise.) In later years it's become a tradition to spend that evening with the same small group of friends, always at my place. This year, that traditional get-together had to be cancelled though, with the corona situation getting increasingly worse again during the autumn.

So even though I'm otherwise used to spending most evenings in my own company (and even more so this year), New Year's Eve this year felt a bit weird. I decided to still follow our tradition of watching a film, though; and my choice (for Me, Myself and I) this year was an old classic in the feelgood genre: The Sound of Music. It's been I-forget-how-long since I last watched it, but somewhat to my surprise I found it still captivated me. And it's a long one, so lasted most of the evening until the midnight fireworks outside broke loose.

Even during the week before (since Christmas) there were too many random occasional explosions for my liking in the evenings. After a couple of more serious incidents in the neighbourhood last year, every abnormal 'bang' still makes me jump now. This time of year, most of them are probably 'just kids playing around' (which can be dangerous enough). But there have also been reports in the news of criminal gangs in the cities intentionally using fireworks to cause both chaos and physical damage (and never mind that it's of course forbidden). So really not easy these days to decide when to ignore vs call the police.

The fireworks set off in the hour just around midnight on New Year's Eve are usually  less scary as one is mentally expecting those. From my window I had quite a good view of some that were probably fairly safely launched from the park in the middle of the estate where I live. If the video works you'll be able to see about half a minute of what went on for more or less an hour or so. (If you hear a bit of music in the background that's from TV, though.)

Whether you enjoy fireworks or prefer quiet time - Happy New Year to us all!

And There Was Christmas

Living alone and keeping to the recommendations of only celebrating Christmas with members of one's own household... One might think that would mean lots of time for a blogger to to blog. Somehow, it seems I still managed to fill my time mostly with other things, though!

What you see above is a closeup of one of the decorations on a bridge over the river in the city. Picking up where my 4th Advent post left off, here are some more photos from my sunny walk last Saturday. (Blogger/the internet seems to to be cooperating better today.)

There is an ice skating-rink in the park - frozen by artificial means, though, as it hasn't really been that cold here yet (mild December, and temperatures still hovering hesitantly just around freezing point for Christmas).

Actually, the Christmas days themselves offered quite nice weather for walks as well. A bit chilly, but nonetheless I manged to get out twice on Christmas Eve, and one walk per day the next two days. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were mostly sunny. Boxing day was grey but with a few snowflakes in the air. (Not enough to cover the ground, though. And today is windy and rainy, and I think I'll be staying in...)

Christmas Eve: Sun still very low, and a bit reluctant to get out of bed at all... (Photo from around midday.) Went for walk across the cemetery and down to the river to say hello to some ducks.

In the afternoon I had a Skype meeting with my brother; and there were also phone calls and messaging with a few other friends. And enjoying my decorations, and all the cards that had been dropping in during December. As this has pretty much been my "new normal" for a number of years now, I can't really say that this Christmas will stand out for me (personally) as very different. (New Year's Eve will be, though, as that will be the first time in two decades that I won't be having my usual party with a handful of friends.)

 (Well, I guess that one thing that might stand out as different in retrospect would be my haircut. Or rather, lack of. Haven't been to see my hairdresser for months...)

The dawn of Christmas Day, from my balcony (around 10 am)

 A bit of frost on the ground that day, and ice on the puddles!

 

And the ducks in the river obviously don't care about any rules about keeping distance.

The Good News this last weekend of 2020 is that the first dosages of vaccine have started arriving. The first corona vaccinations in Sweden have been given today to elderly people living in care homes. Hopefully we'll see the situation gradually improving during 2021.