Vendange is the French word for harvesting wine - these short stories are 'grape-pickers stories. Very few people are fortunate enough to be mentored in fine wine. I was lucky and the instruction I received over many French lunches and dinners opened my eyes to the complexities of fine wine and how the choice of the right wine for a particular dish elevates the experience from mere grazing to hedonistic delights. I wanted to learn more about wine and decided to go and make the vendange in what is arguably one of the finest areas of wine in the world - the Haut Medoc - north of Bordeaux. What started as a 'one off' visit turned into an annual pilgrimage covering seven years during which I found out everything I wanted to about the subject. Vendange isn't a dry book about the wine making process, though - more a collection of amusing and informative anecdotes gathered in my pannier along the way. It started in the autumn of 1979 and finished in 1986 and during that time, the wine industry changed forever. I was lucky enough to witness the changes. 4.0 out of 5 stars Rattling Good Read 10 Dec 2013 By Artful Dodger Format: Kindle EditionAmazon Verified Purchase "Ian has put together a fine collection of anecdotes and memoirs from his working life and more specifically from his time spent working on a French vinery where he brings alive his new found love and rapidly growing knowledge of French wine and the industry behind it. During a previous French business venture, Ian finds a willing Frenchman to pass on his knowledge and he soon finds himself getting to grips with the subtleties of wine and how to select the correct wine to go with almost any gastronomic experience, determining that some wines will compliment say meat or fish dish whereas others actually detract from it; quite an art form From there on he determines to expand his knowledge further with a working holiday at a vineyard helping to make a vintage or vendange'. I should add that all of this is recounted in a most amusing fashion and even if you are not at all interested in wines or vineyards you will still find this book hard to put down as Ian keeps the flow and interest going throughout. My only slight annoyance was that I came across a few typos early on in the book but this is a very minor complaint. All in all this is a highly recommended read and I look forward to more tales from Ian's interesting and varied working life." 4.0 out of 5 stars Raise your glasses, please 7 Dec 2013 By Karen Guttridge Format: Kindle EditionAmazon Verified Purchase "It never ceases to amaze me how the humble grape can be the source of such a glorious drink This selection of related short stories and anecdotes describe the personal experiences of the author whilst taking part in the grape harvests or les vendanges in France. The book does not attempt to broadly cover life in France but instead focuses fully on the daily life of the workers, most of whom live on site during the harvest period where meals are also provided. We learn of the general camaraderie amongst the grape pickers as they endure the back-breaking work of toiling in the vines for hours each day. The book contains many humorous moments and I also very much enjoyed the interesting wine-related facts sprinkled throughout the book which were mostly unknown to me."

Ian Campbell is a retired Math teacher, journalist, author and photographer. At school he was the founder of the school's photomicrographical society and made money from the school by copying the biology slides on to 35mm film ransparencies so that the whole class could see the slides at the same time without having to queue for the microscope. Years later, when teaching math, he realised that different people learn in different ways. Some learn by rote; others visually. Many people are scared by the words used in the subject... long words like 'common denominator'... scary eh? This book will teach you how to do fractions, without the jargon using a simple visual method. It doesn't matter how you learn. It only matters that you learn

Canterbury, UK, mid 1980's Tom Pascoe, nearly 40 years old has made mistakes throughout his life and like most of us has got away with them. The one he didn't get away with was his wife. His mistake was letting himself get talked into a loveless marriage with his wife spending their money faster than he could earn it, but that in itself is not so extraordinary these days. Neither is the husband or wife having an affair on the side. However, people usually don't do it under the nose of their significant 'other'. Theresa Pascoe, Tom's 30 something wife had pestered him for ages about having a party for her friends, because she wanted to show-off their period piece of real estate located a few miles outside the Cathedral city of Canterbury in Kent, UK. So, a few months earlier, Pascoe thrown the party one summer weekend. All had gone fine with Pascoe playing the part of genial host up to the moment that he realised Theresa was nowhere to be seen and being a upset by her absence, he went looking for her. He searched everywhere but eventually discovered her in their bedroom, being shagged silly by one of his work colleagues and this is where his problems began. Pascoe was of mixed British and American parentage and the calm rational side of his personality would normally be in control, but finding your wife being screwed by a colleague in your own home with friends in attendance doesn't quite fit into 'normal' and that's where the more rumbustious American side of his psyche took over. This side didn't think so much as act and Pascoe just went ape and bundled the pair of them semi-naked out into the road and threw their clothes out after them. I guess most of the guys reading this will think he did the right thing and that he was more than justified in his actions. WRONG Pascoe had forgotten the fury of a wronged woman. His wife didn't take the humiliation lying down... at least not with her husband. She had retaliated by obtaining a new credit card, running up debts of more than 18,000 or more than $30,000 at the time and because her initials were exactly the same as her husband's, Pascoe got saddled with the huge debt which he had no possibility of meeting. Of course, he distanced himself from her; started divorce proceedings (more money) and made announcements in the local press that he would no longer be responsible for his wife's debts but when he checked with a lawyer friend from his schooldays, it was explained to him that he was responsible for them and that he either had to pay up or file for bankruptcy. He couldn't pay and he couldn't afford to go bankrupt. Pascoe needed another way out and as chance would have it, the alternative also came from his lawyer friend although somewhat unintentionally when he mentioned a practical joke that Pascoe had played on his school friends during his last week of the final term when, using the facilities of the school's printing club, he had invented his own exam paper and had had 130 boys kept in school on a Saturday afternoon to sit it. They were not amused when they found out that he had wasted their free time but he just saw it as his revenge for all the bullying he had withstood during his years at the school. The day after meeting his lawyer, Pascoe had visited London to re-charge his batteries. Again chance had taken a hand and brought his meanderings to the very shop where his school had purchased its printing equipment. Later, on his way back to Victoria station he had stopped off at The Cheshire Cheese pub in Fleet Street where he bumped into an 'old boy' from his school; someone who used the old school tie routine to effect. Surprisingly, during their conversation, Pascoe's practical joke was also mentioned. Pascoe remembered an adage from James Bond... "once happenstance; twice, coincidence; three times, enemy action' and he knew at once how he would climb his way out of the hole he found himself in. He would invent his own bank

Tom Pascoe, his partner Sam and an ex detective inspector and his wife stumble across a brutal ritual murder near to their holiday center in the south of France. Intrigued by the fact that the victim was a young British student and unconvinced by the description of the act as 'suicide' by the local police, the unlikely quartet investigate for themselves. What they discover as they retrace the victim's footsteps leads them inexorably into ancient customs and civilizations unknown to Man and to incredible riches. It also makes them targets for government agencies who don't want the truth to be known. Pentagon Five is an adventure story with esoteric roots. The characters are fictional; the plot is semi-fictional but many of the events and references are all too real. As to the denouement, that is still to come.