Camus L'Etranger

Alan Davey put me on to the fact that Albert Camus' novel sometimes known in English as The Stranger and sometimes as The Outsider was being commended to Christians by Leland Ryken. See here. It is a book I have long been aware of and so I got hold of a copy (a Penguin paperback) and found it an easy enough read as the book is short, well written and quite gripping. I guess you are supposed to sympathise with the protagonist, which I did not but that did not spoil it. It is quite an old book now (from 1954) and lacks the impact it might have had because such existential thinking has become more common. It is still a though provoking and interesting book and worth a read. I enjoyed it so much I got straight on to The Plague but that's a longer book and I am taking it at a more leisurely pace.

Unusual Words 03 Dicrotic

Dicrotic is used in connection with a double pulse for each heartbeat.

I came across this in Camus The Plague where early on he says

In conclusion, some words came back to the doctor's mind; aptly enough, the concluding sentence of the description of the symptoms given in his medical handbook: "The pulse becomes fluttering, dicrotic, and intermittent, and death ensues as the result of the slightest movement."

Being a medical term, I don't think it appears anywhere else in literature.

10 Famous goalkeepers

As someone who played in goals as a boy myself this list is of interest as a fine bit of trivia. (We are talking about soccer, of course).

1. Algerian born writer and philosopher Albert Camus played for Racing Universitaire Algerios (RUA) junior team (“All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.”)

2. Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias played for Los Blancos Juniors

3. Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) played for Krakow University

4. Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti played in goal for Modena Juniors before moving to the wing position

5. Writer Arthur Conan Doyle played for a team called Portsmouth F C (but unconnected to the present day team)

6. Writer Vladimir Nabokov played during his time at Cambridge

7. Scientist Niels Bohr played for Akademisk Boldklub (his lesser known brother Harrald played for the national side when Denmark took silver at the 1908 Olympics)

8. Revolutionary Che Guevara (in goals and not on the left wing due to asthma)

9. Religious oddity David Icke played for Coventry City

10. Boyband Westlife singer Nicky Byrne played for Leeds United youth who won the FA Youth Cup in 1997