Softly Shouting

 No, no, no! This can't be happening (here)!  This only happens in books, such as Fahrenheit 451. Or in 1984. Or in countries ruled by dictators, such as Afghanistan, North Korea, or (gulp) Hungary. Or (bigger gulp) in the United States of America. But not in Britain! Wrong. According to the Guardian today, instances where UK librarians are asked to remove a book are increasing. ( https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/librarians-in-uk-increasingly-asked-to-remove-books-as-influence-of-us-pressure-groups-spreads?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ) ' Although “the situation here is nowhere [near] as bad, censorship does happen and there are some deeply worrying examples of library professionals losing their jobs and being trolled online for standing up for intellectual freedom on behalf of their users”, said Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip).' (Guardian, 14/04/25) And it not only the asking, sometimes librarian ...

  ‘Fuck. Fuckety fuck!’ Aggie shoved the hardback over the table, hitting Poirot who was curled up on a dining chair. The cat startled, hissed and went back to sleep. Why was the mobile library intent on sending her these bloody crappy cozy crimes? She was fed up reading about old dears solving crimes practically from their chairs. Real life wasn’t like that. Of all people she would know. She was in what was called the sunroom, an architectural monstrosity built as an extension to the Victorian mansion.  In summer it was sweltering and in winter, it was Baltic.  But it had a good view and as Aggie didn’t feel the cold or the heat it had become a somewhat private space for her. Any resident shuffling in by mistake did not get a friendly welcome. ‘You have a visitor, Ms. McKenna. Your nephew. Shall I show him in?’ On cue, the cat jumped on the table, adamant to be the centre of attention.  Poirot was huge and jet-black. He became even larger if he caught sight of...

With reassuring regularity my nearly-30-year-old son phones me with a domestic query. He, in the age of googling anything and everything, still prefers me as the prime domestic search engine. These questions vary from gardens to stain-removal, from cooking to mending. He is also wont to dropping his mending in my lap from time to time. ‘Can you fix this, mum?’  Part of me is glad that he asks me and not his girlfriend. It is a mother-thing, not a woman-thing. Part of me is glad that I am still relevant in his life. The first of these calls was when he was just living in the student halls. ‘Mam, how do you defrost meat balls?’  He had a little, handwritten cookbook with him, with tried and tested recipes written down in his own hand. Meatballs, spaghetti cannelloni (for years pronounced by him as candeloni) and brownies.  Student fare: things we had practised. However, we never practised defrosting. Another goo...