VOLUME 8: House of Spies by Daniel Silva • The Presidential Debate • Sport Snorts: Fandom In The Covid Era

I don’t know if it is the same for you, but for me, the time really seems to be flying by. Maybe it was because for 4 months I was in an environment where time seemed like it was trudging like a wounded soldier. And now that I have a good part of my old life back it’s been restored to its usual breakneck pace. I don’t know. Just hope I don’t run out too soon.

I’m making good progress with my rehab. Waked roughly 75 yards today on a spiffy walker with wheels and hand brakes. But it completely wore me out. My homework, as always, is just strengthen my legs, don’t over do it and realize that this is a long road you’re one.

The Spud Rating System

NO SPUD 4U - Crap

ONE SPUD - OK Time Waster

TWO SPUDS - Worth Watching/Reading/Listening To

House of Spies (Daniel Silva) 2 SPUDS

My sister, Sharon, brought me a copy of this book, and I immediately became hooked on Mr Silva. She told me it was close to the latest entry in a series that Mr Silva has been writign for many moons on the Israeli Intelligence community.

I have noticed Mr Sliva’s books for a number of years, but for some reason never got around to reading him. This was my loss, because as these things go, and by these things I mean highly detailed spy novels, House of Spies is one of the best I have read in quite some time and is right up there with the biggies like John LeCarre.

The main character in his books is an Israeli spy by the name of Garbriel Allon, whose international cover is as an art restorer. This means he gets tor travel in some heady circles, which of course, makes his spy work more effective.

In House of Spies, Gabriel has made it to head of Israeli intelligence, and he and his team, including some freelancers, are out to catch (or dispose of) a terrorist who goes by the name of Saladin, who is causing all kinds of trouble in Europe in the name of ISIS.

The story, though pretty detailed and complex, moves along at a decent clip, and the action, when it does happen is quite explosive.

All the time I was reading House of Spies, I kept asking myself where this guy gets all his information, because there is a ton of it provided. But instead of slowing the story down, which too much information can often do, all it really does is deepen your understanding of the people and places in the book.

Daniel Silva is finally on my radar. In the front of this book I counted about 20 other titles. If they are half as good as House of Spies, I will be very pleased because I will read them all.

The Presidential Debate  (NO SPUD 4U)

This so called event was more like a train wreck than anything remotely resembling a civilized exchange of political opinion. But like the old saying goes, ‘you know you should not stare at it, but you just can’t help yourself.’

Trump and Biden could not be greater polar opposites. Biden is and always has been a smart politician and a good Democrat. Efforts to smear him, especially intense since he won the nomination have all fallen on their face, except for in the circle that has surrounded Trump.

Trump, on the other hand, is a boorish pig who is totally unqualified to be president of anything.

Yep, all the makings of a train wreck and that’s exactly what it turned out to me. There were a lot of echoes of the 2015 debate with Hillary Clinton and Trump, where Trump just kept spewing a series of innuendo based statements, unproven facts, and outright lies, interrupting to the point where you got the distinct impression that he was the only one who was being allowed to speak.

So to sum it up, it was exactly the kind of shitshow you would expect. But the results of this shitshow were anything but. In the hour after the show aired, Biden set a record for donations and two hours after the show ended he was up to and unprecedented $10 million, and still counting.

This of course can lead any sane person to the conclusion that Biden was the clear winner here, mostly by not taking all the shitballs that were bing hurled at him, and tossing them back. He got in a few licks but spent the majority of his time directing his gaze and his responses directly to the audience. If you go by the numbers it was a tactic that worked very well for him.

As for Trump, he will indulge the delusion that he kicked the shit out of Sleepy Joe, never really acknowledging that his one trick pony act is now getting really, really old.

Sport Snorts: Fandom In The Covid Era

I’m not sure why, and maybe by the time I finish writing this I will know, but my interest in sports has fallen off dramatically since the stop and start that was imposed on pro sports all through the spring and early summer.

And while the networks who broadcast sports have done an admirable job of emulating the live crowd feel, there’s just seems to be something very empty about it all.

It may very well be that the old saying: ‘ If there ain’t no audience, there ain’t no show’ is something that creates that emptiness for me.

I did watch some basketball, until the Raptors were eliminated. They were playing in a ‘bubble’ at Disneyworld in Orlando and while the games were not too shabby as playoff games went, every once in a while you would catch a glimpse of the stands and see all those TV monitors with people in them and it made you feel like you were in some kind of strange sci-fi movie.

The sports talking heads will all tell you that the crowd is a very big part of the game, and I cannot help but believe that the game is diminished somehow by the crowd’s absence.

It even applies to pro football, where the live crowd is socailly distanced. In fact that’s even spookier than the TYV monitors.

But then again, that might just be me.

I suppose if I really set my mind of it, I would be able to get past that emptiness and start to become an enthusiastic fan again. But who knows how long that would take, and whether, at the end of the day, it’s really worth the effort.

J

im Murray is a writer, a reader, a sports fan and a TV watcher who has been writing about the sports & entertainment worlds since1998, when he created his first blog, The Couch Potato Chronicles, which he publishes regularly along with his political/marketing blog, Skinny Dipping In The Lava Flow, both of which are available on beBee.com Jim is also a former ad agency writer and art director and ran his own creative consultancy, Onwords & Upwords, from 1989 until just recently when he closed and opened a freelance enterprise called Murmarketing.

He lives with his wife, Heather, in the beautiful Niagara area of Ontario and works with a small cadre of companies that are trying to make a difference in the world.

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