For 55 years or more, my reading and life has been construction, drawing, learning the art of using pencil on tracing paper, the use of ink, printing, layout of a drawing, details, materials the list goes on, my little blue book was and still is, even though it’s now a collection of digital files, a major part of my learning, but, oh its that word again, but, I have now entered retirement. My partner Wendy, keeps saying stop working, but I can’t, its so drilled into my head, keep up, read widely, look through all the tech journals, but after 3 years of mostly being retired, I have started to write differently, I now talk about a subject, not lecture, and I have picked up books not generally associated with the industry.

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I love SciFi, and read as much as I can. Asimov is excellent, and I now also include films, rewatching older Star Trek issues, the Back to the Future films, and a heap of others. Paramount is loaded, so a lot to catch up on.

One book though is holding my attention, “Sketches By Boz”, written by Charles Dicken, before fame as a reporter, his look on society is needle sharp, leaving no point alone, drilling into the sole of the poor people that catch his attention.

However, I decided to ask NotebookLM to take a look at my articles on Substack and loaded the URL up, no other links just my writing. It took time but the result was , well, interesting, picking up on my transition to learning away from the needs of academic life and the rules of professional Associations, to a more general acquisition of knowledge.

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It’s a remarkable transition, I still read widely about construction, but it is a different way, making notes and comments, sketching ideas and concepts, linking documents and ideas together. Reading outside my normal sphere.

One such book, is Sketches By Boz, it’s so different to any SciFi book, construction book and any story line, its life at the end of a Pen, and I have started to see a social view, that brought back memories of my Grandmother,

Both my Grandmothers lived in the older parts of Birmingham, and I see so many comparisons, obviously Dickens was writing about 1836 my gran was born 1892, but I distinctly remember the people who lived in the terraced houses around her, the characters, the small shop, the two outdoors, and for those who do not know what an Outdoor is, it was the offlicence to sell not wine, mostly beer, bring your own jug,! There was even the baker at the far end of the road. I loved Pugh Road, Aston, it was life, the front houses, and the back houses, the wash house, my gran used to say she had a WC, it was actually a small lean-to at the end of the kitchen, and only accessed by going outside.

Sketches by Boz is such an interesting opening, a complete difference to the normal construction books I read, this time its a lead in, and opening an abstract, so to speak, by the editor as a personal note to you, the reader, explaining the writer, the court journalist, for one of the morning papers, writing a little something, certainly the critics of the day liked what they read, The collection of “Trifling Pieces” as the editor calls them, I’m hooked already.

Then I open the book proper, and I am greeted by an exquisite engraving by the illustrator George Cruikshank, even the engraving demands attention, the scene is set, two people Bung and Smuggins, both wanting the vote from a small crowd for the post of Beadle. A sort of mayor looking after the parish, but in the background an ornate arch, with Ionic columns and triangular pediment over, the more you look the more you see, and suddenly I want to see more of George Cruikshank’s work.

Then we start with a short Preface, an introduction by Dickens, not of the story line, or characters, but of the many mistakes he made as he started out writing, my copy was printed by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, London, a nice little edition, printed , I think between c. 1930–1935. Nearly 100 years after Dickens published Sketches by Boz in 1836, his pen name taken from a family Joke, Dickens’s younger brother, Augustus, was nicknamed “Moses” (after a character in The Vicar of Wakefield).3 When pronounced through the nose—as if someone had a heavy head cold—”Moses” became “Boses,” which was eventually shortened to “Boz. (Gemini ) So into the book I go, Chapter 1 Our Parish.

Provenance

I have no idea where I purchased the book, but on the inside of the cover there is £2 so if I paid that, well its so worth it. But interestingly I have a book Mark a card Bookmark, from the Hilton Sorrento Palace, now I stayed there some 20 years ago or more, so did I purchase it local and add the card intending to read it, I have no idea, but 20 years later, now retired, I pick up the book and start my read.

But back to the transition, It’s nice to sit down, with a coffee, a small bowl of crisps and turn a page, no hassle, no urgency, no boss wanting a set of slides, a site wanting drawings, just a dog wanting more attention, and a book that’s going to take that attention.

I must admit to a long conversation with Gemini on this book, so some if not all the digging was by Gemini I am writing this in Google Docs, I have a keep page open in the side bar, with notes, I and Gemini made during our conversation, I do so like the google way of writing, does this mean more here, we will see!

So here we go, my journey with Boz, a name he seems to have kept for a long time well after he became famous only did he later use his full name.

Conclusion

I have indeed, moved on spreading my interests, construction still holds 60% of my reading and writing, but other areas of interest are gaining more attention, and it’s growing.

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