After weeks of sailing and suspense, ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ explodes into action on October 25. At last we discover what the ‘Riddle’ is. Sadly, as you will hear, Lloyd notDavies and Tim notCarruthers fall out quite badly – and loudly – about the basic credibility of Erskine Childers’s premise in describing the imminentContinue reading “The 25th Adventure Club Podcast: Dornum, Disguises, Ditches & Duck Soup”
Category Archives: Series 1
‘Sending goods by the tief
M’learned colleague notCarruthers has thrown down the gauntlet in his post on the Benser Tief. He argues for the navigability of the East Frisian ‘tiefs’ – the stretches of water which are in fact drainage channels, not designed for navigation at all, though Tim does point out in his post on the subject that someContinue reading “‘Sending goods by the tief”
‘A submarine engineer I knew him to be before’
Calling Böhme a German submarine engineer in 1903 is a bit like calling him a North Korean nuclear scientist or a Premiership football club owner today. Immediately, he has the whiff of corruption and danger. Club member Adrian sums it up nicely in a recent comment: “It might not be clear to us now, butContinue reading “‘A submarine engineer I knew him to be before’”
‘the quiet cobbled streets of Esens’
The book tells us to look for the ‘very humblest Gasthaus’ in Esens on October 24, where we can partake of beer, bread and wurst. But we’re not allowed to stay the night. Instead, we have to go walking with Carruthers along the Bensertief in the dark, and then snuggle down for the night in aContinue reading “‘the quiet cobbled streets of Esens’”
‘the ‘Tief’; which was, in fact, a small canal’
It’s taken ’til October 24 in the book for Lloyd notDavies and I to fall out. We’ve done well to get this far. But how strange to find that the cause of our rift is, of all things,… canals! Canals – or ‘tiefs’ – are important in this book. Without canals there are no barges,Continue reading “‘the ‘Tief’; which was, in fact, a small canal’”
The 24th Adventure Club Podcast: Esens, Canals & Submarines
Finally, on October 24, with only two days to go in the book, we get to discuss the actual riddle of ‘The Riddle of the Sands’. Lloyd notDavies uses his train timetables to get us to Esens. Minus a moustache, Tim notCarruthers points out the cultural highlights of this ancient Frisian town. And then bothContinue reading “The 24th Adventure Club Podcast: Esens, Canals & Submarines”
‘a perfect bed in a perfect hostelry’
I’m starting to think that October 23 might be my favourite day in the book. Why? Because I, as notCarruthers, get to abandon notDavies, the tiny boat and the foggy Frisians for a day, and, instead, travel to Amsterdam for one glorious night in a luxury hotel. The book stipulates that the hotel needs toContinue reading “‘a perfect bed in a perfect hostelry’”
‘The train crept like a snail from station to station’
And so we come back – at last! – to the matter of train timetables. It is a subject, as notCarruthers well knows, of which I am inordinately fond. So, it seems, was Erskine Childers, judging by the detailed thinking behind the journeys of October 23rd (and the 24th, of which more at another time).Continue reading “‘The train crept like a snail from station to station’”
‘where does Böhme come in?’
Some time ago notDavies & I made an attempt to track down real-life von Brünings and Dollmanns – or rather we speculated wildly on who Childers might have been thinking of when he invented these characters. We did the same with Clara Dollmann too. But it isn’t ’til now – on October 23 – whenContinue reading “‘where does Böhme come in?’”
Your free sample of the ‘ROTS Adventure Club Handbook’
We’ve always said that our ultimate ambition with the ROTS Adventure Club is to get out into the field in September & October, replay the whole book, using the original text as our guide – and then produce our own book. At the moment we’re about halfway towards raising the money we need to produce this book forContinue reading “Your free sample of the ‘ROTS Adventure Club Handbook’”
The Curiously Specific Book Club 