The Voynich Manuscript

It's not very often I write anything about the shop these days. I volunteer on Sundays and it's mostly uneventful. However, a few weeks back I spotted a book on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript.

The manuscript purports to be an illustrated book written in medieval times in an encrypted or invented language that no one can decipher. The book details the history of the Manuscipt to date and describes how codes and cyphers work, as they apply to the Manuscript. It looks a good book and it had been priced at £15, which I thought was a little steep.

Last week, the i newspaper (the cut-down version of the Independent) had an article on the Manuscript saying that a Spanish publisher had been given access to the original document with a view to making folio copies for sale at £6K a pop. Nice work if you can get it. I showed it to Mark and had a quick look at the book, which was still on the shelf. Someone had reduced the price to £10, which I think was reasonable, so I snapped it up.

Mark commented that he'd discussed it with Howard, who I've had odd dealings with in the past, but no conversations as such. Mark said that the conversation descended to the point where Howard claimed that he'd been abducted by aliens "near Norwich". Obviously, that's because it's a lot flatter country around there for them to land.

Oxfam Sunday - Wombats and Dodgy £20's

I went up onto the top deck today to take over from Lautaro (it's a Spanish name, but he's a Scotsman), and he'd left on the CD player a reasonably decent compilation, in which was this catchy number from those lovable scousers, The Wombats:

It was a fairly uneventful shift: people seem to be concentrating on getting presents for Christmas and leaving us except for cards and wrapping paper.
I'd run out of £10's at one point and asked Mark to bring any up. He examined one of the £20's in the till and started holding it up to the light. He explained that he had a conversation with one of the tellers at the bank and he got a few tips on how to spot a fake. I compared the one he was looking at with another and they were almost identical, but there is a watermarked £20 which was slightly off in the "fake" note:

If it is a fake, it's a good one! It passed the marking test with our security pen.

I also got a Penguin Special from John, The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard:

It's about advertising, S185, published in 1960.

Oxfam Sunday - Fun Lovin' Criminals & B.R.M.C

Today I did an afternoon shift at the shop, up on the top deck. We did a reasonable trade, but I didn't bring any CD's with me, so I had a scout around and spotted an old album by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club:

Not bad, but it tended to lag towards the end. Next up was the Fun Lovin' Criminals:

Again, a few hits, but falling off afterwards.

It's Been a While

I haven't written much in a good while, so something of an update is in order. I've been a bit snowed under with the amount of paperwork we're doing at the college this year, which has irritated me somewhat. How it all relates to the learning process I've yet to figure out.

We are doing Java, though, if slowly. We were at a bit of a slack point the other day, so I asked the other students if they fancied a code puzzle. I mostly got blank looks, but Ricardo, Dipendra and Richard were game. Basically, the code has to output a pattern of "#"'s, like this:

#####
####
###
##
#

but the limitations are that you can only use two print statements, one for the "#" and one for the CRLF. You can use any other code you like. Richard got it within about ten minutes or so, while the others eventually gave up. To up the ante, I asked Richard to produce this:

###
####
#####
####
###

He went very quiet for a long while!

I have done quite a few shifts at the shop, notably today, where I listened to the Morcheeba album Big Calm:

Oxfam Sunday - Kylie!

As a break from the usual, I've been playing lots of Kylie in the shop today, Aphrodite and Fever:

Yes, I know it's a bit plastic, but she is really good at it and you can get a bit too serious. To illustrate the point, I played Nevermind by Nirvana:

I'm suprised how dated this sounds to me now.

Lewis on the downstairs till commented that he liked the Nirvana, but wasn't so keen on Kylie. "I'll play some just for you next time", I promised.

Oxfam Sunday - Penguin Special Blowout!

I've started college this week, so I've been rather busy and therefore been unable to make many blog postings, but I have been to the shop. Today, John had a "few" Penguin Specials. Amongst them was a Pelican Special, which counts as a Penguin Special, and this one is Modern German Art (S6) and the earliest special I have so far:

It's in good nick with an intact dust jacket. The rest are a mixed bag, some with and some without dust jackets, ranging from the thick Penguin Political Dictionary shown to the slight Miners' Day (S149). All-in-all, it's almost doubled my collection.

Oxfam Sunday, Monday & Tuesday

I did a marathon at the shop over the last few days, doing a shift on Sunday, a double "Sunday" shift on Monday and another this afternoon, about 11 hours, all told. I must admit, I am a bit jaded. If you're tired of Chelmsford, go home!

I did find a CD of some Cajun music today which lightened the mood a little:

Cajun, despite seeming to be a dance music, has a lot of blues elements, understandable given the proximity to the Mississipi, so there's a lot of songs about levee breaking.

While upstairs today, I got talking to our Classical Music expert, also called Dave. I asked him what the score was, and he said that although the bulk of it was £5 or thereabouts, he'd found one or two LP's which were worth about £800! People must still collect this stuff.

Oxfam Monday & Tuesday - Till Trouble

Pulling two shifts at the shop, I had a problem with the credit card machine. It kept beeping at me and when I looked it said that it couldn't connect to the PIN pad. I wiggled the connection (this was upstairs on the Tuesday afternoon, so it was quiet), but it then asked me for a function code (??). I had a few words with Mark and he came up and looked through the little manual that came with it. He fiddled for a while, shrugged, and went underneath the till to find the plug to do the hard re-boot. I told him it reminded me of the running joke in the IT Crowd:

While on the top deck, I found a Luaka Bop sampler with this rather groovy sound:

Rock on!!

Oxfam Sunday & Monday - St Germain & Bentley Rhythm Ace

As well as pulling a Sunday shift, I got to Monday afternoon upstairs. It was a bit arduous as I worked my way through a book bank delivery of loads of CD's that were very sub-standard. I did find the Tourist album from St. Germain, though, which I've heard good things about, just not listened to it myself:

I also found (in the Jazz section!!) an old BRA classic:

It's one of these rare albums that starts off a bit mediocre and gets better later on. Financially, we did better on Sunday than Monday. Being the first weekend after the end of the month, people will have money in their pockets, I suppose.

Sunday Oxfam and a Penguin Special

I've started doing Sunday morning shifts at the shop at Mark's request. They've had a bit falling out with one of the volunteers, which is very rare. Apparently, he's suspected of dipping into the till, a definite no-no, so was asked to leave (Mark reckoned he had a gambling habit, centred on slot-machines).

John was there as well, part of his "tortoise" strategy to Michelle's "hare", I'd imagine. He'd put aside another special and knocked the price down as it was damaged:

S14!! from 1938. Mowerer was an American foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News (his brother was the editor at the time) and was in Germany at the last pre-war election, in 1933, writing dispatches criticising Hitler and the Nazi's. Naturally, they threw him out, so he didn't end up becomming as famous as Shirer, but he did get around a bit, as this book shows. The damage is on the cover: the inner front leaf has come loose and has been either cut or carefully torn, but is included with the book, pretty much intact otherwise.

Oxfam Tuesday - Hot Day in a Hot Shop

Yes, folks, I did shift in the sweltering heat of the shop yesterday afternoon, especially so on the top deck where, for once, I was glad when it was over.

Dave has put out some collectable vinyl and one of them is The Byrds classic, Sweetheart of the Rodeo:

£30 to the discerning punter.

I also got to listen to the latest Uncut CD which has tunes by Field Report and this by Valerie June, which I quite liked:

Oxfam Friday - Penguin Special

I thought I'd pull a last shift at the shop before I left for my holiday in the North. John had a wartime Penguin Special for me, which was most welcome:

S54, Unser Kampf, by Sir Richard Acland, who was a founder member of CND.

Oxfam Thursday - Blagging, Nails and a Bit of Naughtiness!

I'm doing quite a few shifts in the shop at the moment, at least twice a week, and mostly downstairs, so hardly worth a mention. Yesterday, however, we had a chap come in with a donation, but there was a twist:

Customer (Geezer): "If I give you these books, can you let me have one in exchange?"
Me: "'Fraid not, mate. That's not how it works."
Geezer: "You sure?"
Me: "Positive. Take my word for it."

He was a bit disgruntled, but donated the books anyway.

John and Michelle were in. Michelle had some new nails, with little butterflies printed on them, which I commented on. John showed me some books which were quite rare and one of these was from The Olympia Press:

Formerly, certain books were banned from being published in the U.K., the Marquis de Sade's, Henry Miller's, etc. To get them, you had to go to France and The Olympia Press published them in English. The dust jackets were reversable and were white on the other side with no markings, so you could get them through customs without them being noticed.

I finished early and went to a seminar in London, at Skills Matter, called The Rise and Fall of Mutable State, given by Malcom Sparks. It was a short talk about one of the features of functional programming languages and a little on the history of programming (everyone's heard of Turing by now, but who's heard of Alonzo Church?). There was a lengthy Q&A afterwards, with lots of talk about Clojure and an extension for Java called Guava. I'm surprised no-one mentioned Java 8, which is purported to have more functional support.

Oxfam Monday - Paintballing in Black and White

Yesterday, I did a morning shift on the bottom deck as June was having a long weekend. Uneventful, although I met Hugh, our arts expert, who I hadn't seen in a while.

I did get some new Lego from W.H. Smiths:

Reminds me of this:

It seemed to be permanently on the jukebox at Liverpool Uni. Student Union during the 1980's.

Oxdam Friday - The Outward Urge

Down on the bottom deck this morning, and fairly uneventful. I bought a book from one of John's stock that I had a long time ago, but has since disappeared. This isn't the original Penguin cover, nor the one I had from  1980, but from 1973:

1962	1970	1980

It's about the Troon family, space explorers in the 21^st and 22^nd centuries.

Oxfam Tuesday - Mobile Phones and Jimmy Cliff

I've finished my exams for the year yesterday, so I was more than glad when Mark asked me to do an afternoon shift at the shop.

It was upstairs, so I got to see Lee on my way out. He was serving a customer who I'd had some problems with a few weeks ago. One of the records he'd bought was scratched and he wanted to have it replaced. Fine. Normally I just either do a refund, find a replacement or have them pick out something of equivalent value. A happy customer is a returning customer. He was a bit funny with me, though, and wanted to listen to the record to see if it was scratched. I didn't know much about the hi-fi in the back and told him as much. He'd obviously told Lee the same story and got his way, playing some C&W stuff. Lee wasn't exactly happy with him either, but he was more philosophical than I.

Other than that, the shift was uneventful. I did get to play some old ska and reggae tunes on the player including this Jimmy Cliff classic:

When the shift ended, we were all setting off to leave when Cherie said that her mobile phone had just started ringing before she had taken her bag out of the locker. It was from someone who was telling her that they'd forgotten their sweater this morning. At one time, I said, people only used the phone when someone had died, or had accepted a proposal of marriage. Now it's whether they've got a headache. Or not, sometimes.

Oxfam Friday - "I thought this was the music shop?"

Another Friday morning at the shop, but this time on the bottom deck as June was in Linconshire, visiting.

Georgina was upstair playing a 1980's hits collection (she has a thing for Rick Astley). Most of it was trash, but there was the odd gem:

Weird hearing it IN German.

You do get the odd customer as well, and today was no exception. A chap came in, confused somewhat, and asked for "Dave or Ryan". Dave's our music expert, and Mark seemed to know who Ryan was, but this chap was after a guitar strap as his had broke the previous night at a gig. We couldn't help him, but "There's always the  the music shop next door (Allegro Music)". "I thought this was the music shop!!", he said. "No, mate. This is a book shop. It's the books on the walls that give it away", and he departed, perplexed. Seriously.

Being downstairs amongst the hoi polloi, I got to witness the low intensity conflict between Michelle and John "I don't look for trouble, it finds me" McCarthy. They were arguing over shelf space again when Mark waded in and sided, as much as he could, with John. After it had died down, John remarked to Michelle, "Look, there's a bit of space on this shelf.", to which I warned him that if he didn't watch himself he'd end up going through the front window, "lying sprawled on the pavement outside surrounded by broken glass and copies of Ulysses!"

Oxfam Friday - New Bands and Old

I did a morning shift today up on the top deck and, after a week of frentic college activity, it was a fine tonic. I played one of the freebee albums off Mojo magazine from August 2009 called New Harvest:

And a jolly fine selection it is. One of the best tracks is also the first, Fools from The Dodos:

There was also fine tracks by Ventiver, D.M. Stith (Thanksgiving Moon, which is delightful), Iron and Wine, and this one from Akron/Family:

They did Gone Beyond a while back which was was a joyously riotous.

Dave, our music expert, has put some collectable 7" vinyl in a box to one side and I was leafing through them when I spotted some old Smiths singles, including this classic:

And it's the original issue, with "Jeane" on the B-side. There's been a few covers over the years, but I rather like this one from The Skints.

Oxfam Tuesday - All Conquering Literature

I did a morning shift at the shop and Anne had left John in charge, so much giggling ensued. I'd no sooner took my coat off than he was pointing out to me that last week his section, Literature, pulled in more money that Michelle's Fiction! "You're in trouble already", I said. "It's only by £3.50", he pointed out, to which I rejoinered, "About the price of a Booker Prize winner!" (the agreement he had with Michelle was to give her some Booker Prize winners that were popular, noteably Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel).

He'd also sold me a couple of Penguin Specials:

Not wartime, but not bad.

Oxfam Monday - Socialism! (and Reindeer)

Open again on the Bank Holiday, I did a "full" double-shift (10:30AM - 3:30PM). I was upstairs to start with (yay!) and I hunted around for something different to play, or at least reliable. In doing so, I found one of those rare jewels of an album called "Son of Evil Reindeer", by The Reindeer Section, a kind of Scottish Indie supergroup formed from other bands around at the time as a kind of one-off. They did two albums, but this is the one I liked the best.

I also got to play some early Louis Armstrong. Obviously, I couldn't find film of any of the tracks, but I found this one which is rather good.

I ended the shift downstairs amongst the books and got engaged with two regulars who were talking about a debate one of them attended regarding socialism and the Labour Party. It was fascinating stuff, but the attendee said he felt that the debate had descended into a kind of "theological" discussion. He also told us of a debate he attended by C.L.R. James.