Now I have downloaded it to a Kindle through a rather good site called Scribd. This is like Audible although much better. With Audible I could download one audio book a month but with Scribd I can download as many audio books and written books as I like along with sheet music, documents and essays (haven't tried these last three yet).
The only difference is that Scribd is more like a lending library as you don't own the books as you do with Audible. If you cancel an Audible membership you keep the books you have bought but with Scribd if you cancel you lose everything.
Anyway back to Vietnam by Max Hastings. I have read a couple of books by this historian, that's a couple amongst many that he has written. I can't say I find him an easy read - he tends to assume a prior knowledge of some of his subject matter. I like my history clear, easy to read and concise.
Nevertheless Vietnam is quite a shocking read about Indochina. Now so as not to fall into the same prior knowledge trap as Hastings I need to inform everyone that Indochina refers to the three countries Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia which were all formerly under French rule.
So far I've only got as far as where the Vietnamese independent seeking troops - The Vietminh - have been trying to drive the French out of the country at the wonderfully named Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
A few years ago we travelled to both Vietnam and Cambodia and to be honest I found the latter the more interesting. We did go down the tunnels in Vietnam but in Cambodia we learnt about Poll Pot and the Khmer Rouge and visited the killing fields. It was a harrowing experience. In one park they were still finding human remains and there was a huge structure just full of human skulls.
I must admit my ignorance by saying that for many many years I believed that Pol Pot was the name of a movement and not an indicidual man (or a mass murderer would be a better description).
Can't help but recall the punk song "Holiday in Cambodia" by The Dead Kennedys. Think punk and think a band with that name and you might consider that this was a glorification of genocide. That's not the case. The lyrics are critical of college students in the western world and their lifestyle and contrasting it with those under the Cambodian regime.
And it's a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll do what you're told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Today there are just a handful of our photographs from the Vietnam and Cambodia trip. I seem to have misplaced the Cambodian pictures but will post once I re-find them. It was an experience rather than a holiday.
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Are there any adult footballers out there keen to join a good standard Saturday team?
Was having a chat with chairman of Hethersett Athletic Neal Luther a couple of days ago and he made an appeal for more players to join the club's adult Saturday team.
The club runs teams for all ages from the very young to the not so young.
Commitment to clubs is not what it once was and so the team under manager Michael Lemmon has a few gaps that need filling. The team play in the Barnes Print Central and South Norfolk League top division but this year are struggling at times.
This is an excellent opportunity, however, to join one of the best run sides in the county. I am proud to be an honorary life member of the club after spending many years as chairman before taking a back seat a few years ago.
It is vital for the club to have a Saturday side and over many years this has been hugely successful, winning a number of trophies under the management of firstly Paul Stone (sadly no longer with us) and latterly Michael Lemmon.
The village is currently working towards having a brand new pavilion which will provide top class sport and community facilities on the Memorial Playing Field where the team plays its home games. The team trains on Wednesday evenings from 7.30 pm on the Memorial and Michael can be contacted on 07484 895176 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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My piece about the march of technology produced a number of comments and of course I forgot to mention how mobile phones have changed.
I remember being one of the first to have a so called mobile phone when I worked for the Police - the idea being that I would then be contactable. This so called phone had a battery pack the size of the UK. You had to jam the phone down on it and the charge lasted about two hours. You certainly couldn't get this in your pocket.
Then I got a slimmed down version which was the size of a house brick and weighed almost as much. I remember being in Norwich one day during my lunch break. I was in Virgin Records (that's where the Tiger store is now at the entrance to the Castle Mall) and the damn thing went off. I felt embarrassed that there was a ring tone coming from my pocket and I dashed out of the shop and into a side alley to answer it.
Then of course phones got smaller and smaller until somebody decided that in order to play games on them they should get a bit bigger. Now we just take them for granted. I remember speaking to various local groups and always asking how many people owned a mobile phone as part of my talk on communications. At first it would be just one or two, then it would be 50% of those present and of course now that would probably almost be 100%. I said at the time that once 50% of the population owned and carried a mobile phone they would cease becoming an embarrassment and be fully accepted and that's what happened.
I used to gauge their acceptance by the number of more senior (as in older) people who had them. Today of course they are a complete entertainment centre. It never ceases to amaze me that I can use mine to listen to books, to read books, to watch television, to listen to radio stations, to play games, to listen to music, to check how far I've walked on my Steward Strolls, to access the Internet and many many more things from writing and publishing to making calculations.