The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 1101971924 Global Overview for this book
Registered by over-the-moon of Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on 3/15/2019
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6 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Friday, March 15, 2019
One of the 44 Scotland St series that doesn't look familiar. Bought at the second-hand bookshop near the wooden steps to the cathedral.

Journal Entry 2 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Wednesday, March 20, 2019
How lovely to see Bertie finding some happiness and freedom with his mother out of the way, stuck in a harem in Dubai. Some gentle moral problems throughout with Pat's father falling for a Czech, Matthew finding some paintings, and the dilemma of the Scottish Association of Nudists/Association of Scottish Nudists which made me remember the problems that arose for our Association of Swiss Travel Writers, Asset, which became presstourism and then tourismpress when the German-speakers complained that presstourism was grammatically wrong, all of which happened while I was secretary and had to deal with the changes, and not only on letterheads but also with the bank and other organisations.

Journal Entry 3 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Thursday, July 4, 2019

Released 4 yrs ago (7/5/2019 UTC) at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland

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a surprise

Journal Entry 4 by wingIcilawing at Nantes, Pays de la Loire France on Saturday, July 13, 2019
Another surprise ! Thank you again over-the-moon.
For the card and the labels too.

Edit : To be sent to Florence71 after reading. (European tag).

Journal Entry 5 by wingIcilawing at Nantes, Pays de la Loire France on Thursday, August 8, 2019

Released 4 yrs ago (8/8/2019 UTC) at Nantes, Pays de la Loire France

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Your turn to enjoy, Florence !

Journal Entry 6 by wingFlorence71wing at Fontenay-sous-Bois, Ile-de-France France on Monday, August 12, 2019
Ah I'm going to read this one before "Bertie's project" I have in my TBR since a few months. Reserved for Kirjakko (EWLTG).

Journal Entry 7 by wingFlorence71wing at Fontenay-sous-Bois, Ile-de-France France on Sunday, January 12, 2020
Really enjoy this one and I was happy to see Bertie free from this another !
Can't wait to read the following of the series.

Journal Entry 8 by wingFlorence71wing at Fontenay-sous-Bois, Ile-de-France France on Sunday, January 12, 2020

Released 4 yrs ago (1/13/2020 UTC) at Fontenay-sous-Bois, Ile-de-France France

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Hope you enjoy as I do Kirjakko !

Journal Entry 9 by wingkirjakkowing at Sipoo, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Thursday, January 16, 2020
Arrived safe and sound. Has to be a good book if Bertie's mom is away. She is a person I'd like to shoot.

Journal Entry 10 by wingkirjakkowing at Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Tuesday, March 31, 2020
This is on a few people's wishlist, so I'd better get started. The world has turned upside down since this book arrived, due to a tiny virus which shows us humans that we aren't that mighty after all. Finland has had it relatively easy so far, eleven dead, comparing to Italy and Spain where people are dying left, right and centre. Our county has had the most positive results which is a negative thing and thus we aren't allowed to travel elsewhere in Finland. This ghetto is big enough for me and the 1,7 million others who are here with me. I am still working as pets still get sick, but this will hit many small companies hard as people are adviced to stay inside and avoid close contact with other people. Restaurants and cafes can sell only take-away food. Staying indoors can be pretty stressful for those who don't particularly like their partners. The temporary flat where I am living due to plumbing renovations in our house has walls of paper and I can hear neighbours shouting "Satan's idiot" to each other. It's great to be single!
Your card dropped from between the pages, Florence71, and it reminds me of those river cruises I've done along the Seine. Travelling on a river boat is easy and slow and you don't get seasick.
Back to the book which made me comment it right from the first sentence. Mathew had read somewhere that moving house was one of the most stressful of life's experiences. I totally agree! Moving even temporarily and against your own free will after 29 years of hoarding almost killed me. I must have had a maid in my previous life as sorting out everything and deciding what to keep and what to put forward or throw away took ages. I kept finding things I had forgotten I had and read letters and even books when I should have just packed them up.... And soon I'll have to pack up and move back again, oh bother.

Journal Entry 11 by wingkirjakkowing at Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Monday, April 27, 2020
I've managed to stay healthy and I'm still working. 190 dead of Corona so far. There was a funny incidence a while back, we were told 28 dead and the next day they said it was a mis-calculation, 27 was the correct number. Is it really that hard to count to 28 or did somebody knock inside a freezer?
Back to the book: It mentioned Whisky, Galore which I tried to read some years ago. It was a fat book with too small a font and the plot about hidden whisky found on the beach up in the Hebrides during WW2 and a government inspector coming over to investigate should not take 400 pages, give or take a few. I think I didn't watch the film to the end either, but saw a museum exhibition about it in Stornoway in 2017.
Oh, the locked private gardens of Edinburgh, I do remember them. I stayed at a flat on Royal Circus and the inhabitants had a key to the private garden circled by the Royal Circus (which is a street, nothing to do with Charles, Camilla, Harry or Meghan). I had to test if it felt different to sit in a private garden and of course it did, privileged. Even birds in that park sang in a different key.

Pic: "Our" private park on Royal Circus, Edinburgh.

Journal Entry 12 by wingkirjakkowing at Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Wednesday, April 29, 2020
I'm so glad I didn't read this in January, when the book arrived. I would not have paid much attention to the chapter Hand Sanitizer Issues. "You mustn't get caught up in all that. Those people who carry these little bottles of gel and keep rubbing it on their hands. Really!"
In corona-times this is the norm:
"He had developed the habit of taking hand sanitizer with him to work, and he used it several times a day; certainly after handling the door in the small staff washroom that led to his office at the gallery.Recently he had also resorted to opening and closing that door with a handkerchief - a precaution that he also used when he went for coffee at Big Lou's café, where the handle of the main room must be, he thought, a major vector of transmission of every sore throat and chest infection in the New Town."
What might McCall-Smith think of this today:
"It was not as he had taken to wearing those face-masks that you see people in Japan wearing as a matter of course. Indeed, he had seen a group of young Japanese tourists in Edinburgh recently and several of them had been wearing face-masks. Not only was that absurd, it was, he thought, insulting."
We had our own face-mask -gate in Finland, when a state-owned company made an order or Chinese face-masks worth of 5 million € and paid it to the middle-man who was an ill-reputed Finnish business man who was in dept here, there and everywhere. A simple phone call would have told them that, but no, the blue-eyed buyer paid 5 million of tax-payers´money and what we got was total rubbish, not protective enough masks and those who tried to use them got allergic reactions...

Journal Entry 13 by wingkirjakkowing at Sipoo, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Friday, July 3, 2020
I've made it to page 166 as I keep reading 6-8 other books at the same time. I never used to do that before corona, perhaps this is a latent version of the virus? However, I found another copy of this book sitting in a library exchange shelf and a parcel of books leaving to Chania today, so I am letting this one travel and finish the other book...

Journal Entry 14 by wingkirjakkowing at Kokkola, Keski-Pohjanmaa / Mellersta Österbotten Finland on Friday, July 3, 2020

Released 3 yrs ago (7/3/2020 UTC) at Kokkola, Keski-Pohjanmaa / Mellersta Österbotten Finland

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Oh gosh, it was already two months ago that I tagged you with this, but now the parcel is full and good to go!

Journal Entry 15 by Chania at Kokkola, Keski-Pohjanmaa / Mellersta Österbotten Finland on Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Thank you so much - for this book and 12 others! :D I will read this one soon, before the end of summer, I think!

Journal Entry 16 by Chania at Kokkola, Keski-Pohjanmaa / Mellersta Österbotten Finland on Monday, July 20, 2020
Thank you, another warm and witty, thought-provoking book from Mr McCall Smith. I think the best parts were about Bertie enjoying his life finally! I am going to start the next part now....

Journal Entry 17 by Chania at Joensuu, Pohjois-Karjala / Norra Karelen Finland on Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Released 3 yrs ago (7/21/2020 UTC) at Joensuu, Pohjois-Karjala / Norra Karelen Finland

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To Soozreader in Finnish tag-game!

Journal Entry 18 by wingSoozreaderwing at Joensuu, Pohjois-Karjala / Norra Karelen Finland on Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Thank you very much for this wishlist book!

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