Events at Wolverton Park this year

Cladding and the Waking Watch

All residents of the two new(ish) blocks at WP received a four-page letter in July 2019 headed ‘Change to the Fire Evacuation Procedure’. This announced that a recent survey had found that:

‘certain elements of the cladding system and parts of the building structure are not as per the original architect drawings. Based on these findings and advice from the fire engineers the cladding system requires modifications to ensure that it is fully compliant with building regulations.’

The letter announced a change from the then-current ‘stay put’ policy to a new building evacuation policy of fleeing the building as soon as you hear the fire alarm. It then proceeded to announce the imminent installation of a fire alarm. I decided to stay calm in the light of this revelation that until now there had been no fire alarm in the building. Alarms were duly installed in each of the rooms in each of our flats over the next week or so.

Until the cladding system is ‘modified’, 24/7 fire wardens have been installed on the site to carry out patrols (and presumably, look out for smoke, flames leaping from windows, etc). The ‘Waking Watch’, as they are known, are still on site over a year later; God knows what they’re costing. A few months back a resident posted an update from the management company RMG assuring us that the cladding itself is industry-compliant, and stating that the required modifications should be completed by March 2021:

We had a demonstration of the new communal fire alarm in mid-November when it went off after a first floor resident of my block set fire to something in her kitchen. We all trooped outside to the car park and stood around for a dull (and chilly) half hour while the fire brigade turned up and investigated, and eventually turned the alarm off. The blocks have supposedly been designed such that fire is contained within the flats, as did appear to happen on this occasion (and, I believe, after this more major arson incident a few years ago). I suppose though the view is that after the Grenfell incident no chances can be taken.

Flood

Back in August, I was woken in the early hours of a Wednesday morning by someone knocking on the door of my flat. It turned out to be the resident of the flat below mine, asking if I had a water leak in my boiler cupboard. Before going to bed, I had been aware of the boiler making a bit of a gurgling and swishing noise, but not knowing what to attribute it to, I had decided to ignore it. On investigating, I discovered that there was indeed a leak, quite a large one that had flooded the cupboard and soaked the surrounding carpet. I hauled everything out of the cupboard and after several attempts managed to phone the emergency line for Places for People, the owners of the block (this after initially phoning both Touchstone, the letting agent, and RMG, the management company for the building, both of whom had tried to fob me off onto other people). I was a bit alarmed by this point as water had additionally started to come through one of the kitchen ceiling spotlights.

Thankfully, it turned out that PfP were already on the case with an emergency plumber, and it had been established that the leak was coming from the flat above mine. I went upstairs, where the resident, a mother of three young children including a baby, was looking rather at her wits end and had a hallway much wetter than mine. The plumber arrived and took a look in her boiler cupboard, and after a minute or so managed to do something that stopped the flow of water. He reckoned, I think, that some sort of flap had been opened on the underside of her boiler that shouldn’t have been. Relieved, I left them to it and returned to my flat, where the flow of water had thankfully stopped. After half an hour or so’s TV watching with a herbal tea, I had calmed down enough to go back to bed.

In the morning, I telephoned Touchstone and spoke to the helpful Shonah, who impressively arranged for three contractors to call round at my flat: an electrician to inspect the light fitting; a gas engineer to check my boiler and someone to clean the hallway carpet – particularly pleased at the last as I’d half-expected to have to fight over that one. A lad duly turned up mid-morning with an industrial-sized carpet cleaner called the ‘Enforcer’ – he assured me that he wasn’t over-compensating and blamed his boss for buying it. The results were brilliant, and no residual smell of damp. Thankfully (fingers crossed) it hasn’t recurred.

The Enforcer

My Ugg boots were too soaked to bother trying to dry, so I chucked them. I don’t hugely like Ugg boots on women of my age, but as they were given to me free, I’d worn them intermittently as something quick and comfortable. Ruth hated them and was pleased at their passing.

Soaked Uggs

Noticeboard argy-bargy

Earlier this year, Wolverton Park's Facebook group was supposedly 'hacked', leading to some members setting up a breakaway group which was supposed to replace the original group, except that many residents didn’t want the original group closed, which has led to certain people just posting twice in both groups. Which seems a bit silly to me.

The supposed hacker of the original group was someone who was either having a bit of a laugh or has a tenuous grasp on reality. Word on the ground seems to favour the latter, but as I don’t know the woman concerned I’ll reserve judgement. Certain people tried to maintain that nothing untoward had happened with the group, at which point I couldn’t resist wading in and pointing out that the group’s new admin appeared to be based in Pyongyang. It turned out it was a fake account set up by the aforementioned woman.

A seemingly normal and quite sensible guy has now taken over as admin of the original group. The new group is still up, for no apparent reason other than that the residents who set it up evidently want to be in charge of a group.

Watergate

I have the impression from other residents at WP that both the blocks have been affected by water issues of various kinds since their construction. God knows why. Since I’ve lived here, there have been a number of water leaks in the ground floor corridor of my block, plus a sound of gurgling water in the ceiling at the same spot. When new carpet was fitted throughout the building a couple of years ago, the section in this particular cursed stretch of ground floor corridor was immediately ruined by another water leak.

The other week, I noticed water again dripping from one of the ceiling tiles in this area and emailed RMG to report it to them. I’ve no idea if anyone actually came out – I didn’t get any response – but late on the Friday evening a portion of the ceiling collapsed due to weight of water, flooding this stretch of corridor and, I suspect, also the unfortunate flat whose door is right next to that part. This resulted in the loss of water supply to the entire building.

RMG posted updates on their ‘RMG Living’ portal which, thankfully, they’d recently allowed tenants access to – it was previously leaseholders only. The first was issued at around 11:20pm on the Friday night:

A further update a couple of hours later said that they couldn’t tell us when the water would be reinstated, but were working on it. They arranged for pallets of bottled water to be delivered to the site, so I went down early Saturday morning and nabbed myself one. I was reluctant to use this for flushing the toilet, though I gather some residents were using it for this, but it did come in handy for filling the kettle, though I went to Tesco later in the day and topped it up with some larger bottles.

We were updated later on the Saturday that a communal pipe had burst and that this would require a commercial plumber to fix it, who would not be able to complete the work until the Monday (because, presumably, the Sabbath is still strictly observed by both commercial plumbers and suppliers of parts). This caused a considerable amount of unrest among residents, and the upshot was that all residents of the block were offered alternative accommodation in local hotels until the water was turned back on. I declined to take advantage of this, mainly because my car had developed a problem and was booked in to a garage in Wolverton first thing on the Monday, and I wasn't that keen to drive it anywhere (the reason I hadn't just fled to Caversham on discovering the lack of water). Also, as I live alone in my flat, the lack of running water was inconvenient but bearable, whereas for the young families in the block I don't think it would have been. Some others did evidently stick it out in the block as well, and agents from Touchstone called round a couple of times to check we were OK and had been made aware of the alternative accommodation offer. A kind woman in the block opposite let me fill a bucket of water from her taps on the Saturday evening, which was useful.

A number of standing water tanks were delivered on the Sunday morning, looking rather like a cute little alien invasion.

Water tanks

The plumber did duly turn up on the Monday to carry out the repair work - a new section of pipe apparently. Unfortunately the sealant then had to be allowed 12 hours' drying time, with the result that the water was finally switched back on early on Tuesday morning. Probably in common with the rest of the block, I immediately loaded up my washing machine and dishwasher and had an extremely long shower. It certainly served as a reminder, if one was needed, that running water is a really good thing and being without it is extremely inconvenient.

Another walk near Kintbury, 4.1 miles

Sunday 20 December

Went over to Kintbury again a week ago for another Tier-whatever-compliant walk with Ray. This time we set out along the canal towpath towards Newbury. This is a pretty stretch.

At Shepherd's Bridge we turned off the towpath onto a path going southeast up Irish Hill and eventually coming out onto a minor road.

Shepherd's Bridge

Heading up Irish Hill

Looking back towards the canal

We took the lane opposite us (Old Lane) and followed this to where it joins the Newbury-Kintbury back road near Mason's Farm. 

We followed this road a short way before taking a footpath off to the right and further on turned right at a crossroads of paths to return to the minor road we'd come out onto earlier. We followed this road back into Kintbury.

Gorgeous morning and lovely countryside. Our route in red below. The line at the top is the section of canal towpath.

Rabbits ahoy

Following Harley’s death in June, we made the decision to return Catherine Howard to Reading Rabbit Rescue for re-bonding with a new companion and re-homing. Ruth was undecided what she wanted to do in terms of keeping rabbits, and we didn’t think it was fair on CH to keep her alone for an extended period while a decision was arrived at. The nice people at RRR made positive noises about having a number of potential matches for CH, so we took her in to them in mid-September when they advised they had room to take her. We still don’t know whether she’s been successfully bonded, though we gather one attempted bonding was unsuccessful.

Not at all to my surprise, Ruth did subsequently decide to carry on keeping house rabbits and had some discussion with Sandra at RRR about possibly fostering a bunny through the winter while waiting for a suitable bonded pair to come in, but we didn’t hear anything further about this. The upshot was that we have adopted a trio of rabbits from the Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary at Stadhampton: Aragorn, a chunky black male with a gorgeous glossy coat; Arya, a slightly less chunky lionhead, mainly black but with some white; and Taylor, a slighter bunny with traditional English markings.

Just arrived at their new home

Bunny unboxing:

Aragorn

Taylor

Arya

They’re all around five years old and have all come from the same home. Aragorn and Arya are lively curious rabbits who have already explored the garden and living room; Aragorn shows some keenness for jumping up onto chairs and AV units, plus an alarming propensity to run enthusiastically towards the front door. Taylor is more cautious; she barely emerged from the understairs cupboard for the first week or so but is now spending more time out in the dining room, though she hasn’t ventured further as yet. There were concerns about her showing some aggression towards Arya, but this seems to have settled so we’re keeping fingers crossed.

Arya and Aragorn (on the chair) in the living room with us

Taylor, Aragorn and Arya

Walk with Ray from Kidlington, 5.5 miles

Wednesday 2 December 2020

On the day we were released from the November lockdown into the dizzying freedom of Tier 2, Ray and I both took a midweek day off to meet up for a walk. We agreed to meet at Kidlington as Ray had identified this on the map as a rough halfway point between Wolverton and Kintbury (about an hour's drive for each of us). We met up at the Watts Way car park, which is nicely placed in the centre of the town and has a handy public toilet, an important consideration for our middle-aged bladders.

We set off from the car park along Lyne Road and across the railway to join the Oxford Canal, which runs roughly north-south to the west of Kidlington. We turned northwards to follow the towpath initially through nondescript industrial areas but later reaching the village of Thrupp.

Oxford Canal heading north from Kidlington

Canal Road at Thrupp

At Thrupp, the canal turns left in a 90° turn to roughly follow the path of the River Cherwell.

Ray on the lift bridge over the canal at Thrupp

Boats at Thrupp

We carried on walking north as far as the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell. At the bridge at Shipton, we turned away from the canal to follow a path across a somewhat flooded field to a footbridge over the Cherwell.

Looking back towards Shipton and Holy Cross Church

Footbridge over the Cherwell

Further on, we passed under the railway and followed the footpath leading to Hampton Gay. This had a couple of points of interest: a church that seems to be marooned in the middle of a field, and the ruins of a sixteenth-century manor house. From internet research, there was formerly a more substantial village at Hampton Gay than there is now; this has a bit about the former village.

St Giles, Hampton Gay

The ruined manor house at Hampton Gay

We followed paths and bits of road south-east to Hampton Poyle and then back into Kidlington, where we had a snack lunch in the back of Ray's VW camper van - not strictly within Tier 2 rules, but it was too cold to eat outside.

Ray crossing one of many fields

This was a grey day but a very interesting walk. Part of it followed the Oxford Green Belt Way, apparently set up by the CPRE to highlight the importance of the green belt around Oxford.

Our route in red below, showing start and end points in Kidlington at the bottom.

Walk near Kintbury with Ray, 6.4 miles

Ray left the Thames & Kennet Marina at the beginning of October and is now berthed at a very nice mooring at Kintbury. He has been bumbling about up near Froxfield for the past few weeks but returned to his mooring at the weekend, so I went over on Sunday morning to meet up for a walk. It was a lovely sunny autumn day after a week of mainly depressing dank weather.

We walked through Kintbury and turned along Wallingtons Road. The road eventually becomes a private driveway to St Cassian's Centre, but there's also a footpath leading straight ahead towards woodland, which we took.

Wallingtons Road looking back towards Kintbury

The woodland - Catmore and Winterly Copses - is private but there are a couple of footpaths through it. We turned onto one leading right towards what apparently used to be Wallingtons Manor, but since the 1970s has been a Catholic youth retreat centre called St Cassian's Centre. It's an attractive house though I couldn't get a picture of it in a very good light.

Catmore Copse

St Cassian's Centre

We crossed a field with some cattle in it and passed the handsome Inglewood Farmhouse, then followed the path around the back of the former Inglewood Health Hydro, now a retirement village.

Field

The retirement village at Inglewood

We crossed a minor road and walked down a lane leading through parkland and coming out onto Hungerford Road. Turning left here you pass the gates and lodge of Hungerford Park. The house was demolished in 1960; this piece has some history and photos.

Lane

Gates and lodge to Hungerford Park

We followed the road over the cattle grid onto Hungerford Common. Ray had been hoping we might be able to take a path off to the right and get down to the canal via a tunnel under the railway, but if there is one such, it's not public access as we couldn't find anything and ended up having to walk to the road bridge that crosses the railway and canal near Dun Mill Lock. We joined the towpath there and made our way back to Kintbury. A couple of miles more than we'd intended but a lovely day for a walk.

Walking over Hungerford Common towards the bridge

Returning along the canal towpath

Approaching Kintbury

Our route below showing start and end point in Kintbury. Hungerford top left.

More books I have read recently

'The Madness of Crowds' by Douglas Murray

A couple of issues in particular over the last year or so seem to have tipped me into a bit of re-evaluating what I had thought were my personal politics. As a Guardian reader and (mostly) Lib Dem voter for most of my adult life, my newly-minted subscription to The Spectator comes as something of a surprise to myself - and to the people I’ve mentioned it to, seemingly. My friend Steve suggested The New Statesman as a more palatable alternative, but I won’t be swayed and frankly am enjoying feeling a bit naughty. And it's a good magazine (which obviously isn't to say that I agree with everything in it, nor will I be taking advantage of the Christmas subscriber offer of a set of Countryside Alliance Christmas cards).

(Actually I’m a former member of the LDs, not just a voter, but I won’t be rejoining unless they pick less idiotic hills to try and die on.)

My recent foray into Douglas Murray’s writings and commentary comes sort of as a result of the above. This book is a lively and readable discussion/demolition of ‘identity politics’ (the idea, say, that the fact that one is black, or gay, or a woman, is somehow an indicator of one’s political and other beliefs), of ‘intersectionality’ (a term that baffles me but one I’d come across on Twitter) and of ‘cancel culture’. Murray divides the book into four main chapters: ‘Gay’, ‘Women’, ‘Race’ and ‘Trans’, interspersed with shorter discussions of (what he argues are) the Marxist foundations of social justice campaigning, the impact of technology (social media in particular) and a well-placed discussion headed ‘On forgiveness’, which discusses a few examples where people’s careers have been severely impacted, if not ruined, by one or more ill-advised tweets they may have put out some years earlier and asks, given that the internet will never forget, ‘how, if ever, is our age able to forgive?’.

Murray’s thesis is that the legitimate human rights campaigns behind his four main chapters had more or less reached the point of victory, but then – using a train metaphor – careered off the tracks and through the crash barrier. He seems to identify the financial crash of 2008 as a spur for speeding up the appearance in the mainstream of previously fringe ideas (when the economy goes bad, we become vulnerable to bad ideas). These include identity politics, where a particular characteristic is assumed to be the only relevant attribute of its holder. Also intersectionality, which seems to refer to the existence of interlocking oppressions, which Murray argues convincingly leads to a bizarre sort of oppression Olympics. And there’s much (and timely) discussion of the set of tripwires now laid across the culture that can explode someone’s career seemingly in an instant:

‘[we are] waging a constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question which may itself have just been reframed and the answer to which has only just been altered’

‘The Madness of Crowds’ was first published last year; this is a re-issue with a new afterword dated July 2020. It’s an extremely articulate and engaging book. That’s not to say that there weren’t a few bits where I either didn’t follow or didn’t see the connection; a couple of examples: I’m not sure about the idea that a focus on intersex conditions should be the starting point of the trans debate; the extensive quotes at the end of the ‘Gay’ chapter from Daniel Mendelsohn’s ‘The Elusive Embrace’ are interesting, but I felt they sat slightly oddly against the rest of the chapter – or possibly I just didn’t get what Murray was trying to say through them. And the Marxist stuff was a bit lost on me, most likely because I know little about Marxism. But the book as a whole is an elegant and head-on treatment of some concerning contemporary trends, and highly recommended.

'Blue Sky July' by Nia Wyn

Welsh writer Nia Wyn’s reflections on living with her son Joe’s cerebral palsy. The book is based on her diary entries during the first seven years of Joe’s life. Seemingly Joe was born healthy but suffered a catastrophic brain injury shortly after birth – Wyn relates the change in her child’s cry before and after – and a subsequent brain scan reveals extensive damage. Wyn and her partner are told that Joe is blind, will never walk or talk and in fact won’t even know them. Wyn is, understandably, less than keen to accept this verdict and throws herself into an exhausting round of daily therapies, visits to ‘healers’, etc.

I had some sympathy for Nia’s (by the end of the book, ex) partner Alex, as he feels increasingly frustrated and excluded as Nia retreats into a world comprising entirely of her son and the exhausting series of therapies – Wyn does note at one point ‘the therapies are ridiculous, out of control’. However, it’s in their specially adapted ‘light room’ that Wyn first observes Joe moving his fist towards the light, and she suspects that he might not be blind after all – she sees a different eye specialist who thinks that Joe is not blind but that he does need some cataracts removed. (That bloody eye doctor at the first clinic! If Wyn’s account is accurate, her behaviour seems appalling.)

I assume part of the medical staff’s aim was not to build up false hopes in Joe’s parents, but from Wyn’s retelling it does sound as though they perhaps went too far the other way – the child would have been completely written off had it not been for Nia’s determination that he wouldn’t be. By his seventh year, Joe can see OK (though he wears glasses), can get about with a walker and can talk after a fashion. Wyn herself has had some therapy and effectively conveys how she reached a greater acceptance of her son’s disability, albeit not an acceptance of the original damning verdict – sort of a meeting in the middle, I guess. She eventually abandons following up every rumoured miracle cure and her overwhelming desire to heal Joe gives way to a focus on enjoying spending time with him and doing those activities he enjoys.

‘Blue Sky July’ was published in 2007.

'The Lazarus Strategy' by Norman Lazarus

Newly-published book by an 80-something retired doctor. South African-born Lazarus retired in his fifties, though returned to academia aged 70 to carry out research at King’s College London into healthy ageing, which by all accounts he is still doing. This book is aimed at anyone over 50, though primarily at people in their fifties as Lazarus has it that it’s then that you’ve really got to start focusing on your health if you want a healthy old age (he comments acidly on middle-aged people giving out advice to oldies, when many of the problems we associate with old age would, he has it, be avoided if fifty-somethings followed their own advice earlier).

Lazarus argues that ageing is not in itself a disease and doesn’t have to be accompanied by ill-health – it’s all the stuff we do to ourselves that does that. Even though we may be living longer these days, he argues that that’s not enough in itself if we spend the last ten years of our lives taking a shedload of medication and generally being a burden on the state and our families – he presents the notion of ‘healthspan’, as opposed to ‘lifespan’. A key tenet of the book is that many diseases are not due to the inherent ageing process but are largely the result of our behaviour and lifestyle choices (‘Our lifestyles determine the state of our bodies’).

Lazarus presents his healthy ageing ‘trinity’: consisting of Exercise, Food and The Mind, three fundamentals of behaviour all of which, he argues, need to be kept in sync. Every fifty-something needs to take up a form of exercise which they enjoy and can therefore do long-term – evidently long-distance cycling in his case, but thankfully he reckons that walking’s also fine if you do enough of it. He stresses the need to maintain basic physical capabilities at a level that allows us to live independently and healthily, which includes from middle-age onwards fitting in resistance exercises. Somewhat disappointingly, he debunks any connection between exercise and weight loss, sternly noting that to lose weight you’ll have to eat less, and your calorie needs will decline with increasing age, so get used to feeling hungry. His personal story was that he realized in his mid-fifties that he was looking porky around the waist, dieted off the weight and has pretty much eaten like a bird ever since.

By all accounts Lazarus and his wife are as fit as they can be for people in their eighties. He does, however, emphasise that however fit you are, the inherent ageing process will lead to a decline, and that this is natural (he started to notice a bit of a twinge in his knee while mowing his HECTARE-sized lawn, apparently). It’s all fairly uncompromising stuff but food for thought, and probably from my point of view a timely read.

'Fifty Shades of Grey' by E L James

'I want you to behave in a particular way, and if you don’t, I shall punish you, and you will learn to behave the way I desire.'

Hmm, arousing stuff. Well, soon-to-be university graduate Anastasia (‘Ana’) Steele evidently thinks so. She meets local CEO and entrepreneur Christian Grey when she goes to interview him for the student newspaper. Ana is overawed by Christian’s good looks and general aura of wealth and power; Christian is equally taken with Ana and in due course flies her in his private helicopter for dinner at his luxury penthouse apartment in a Seattle skyscraper. Once there, Christian shows Ana his ‘playroom’, a fully fitted-out BDSM chamber full of whips, shackles and the like that Ana mentally labels the ‘Red Room of Pain’. Grey confesses that he is a ‘dominant’ (clearly preferring this term to ‘sadist’) and invites Ana to be his submissive. Grey informs her that he won’t touch her without her written consent and presents Ana with a contract, an extensive list of rules including, among other things, that she must obey his every request immediately and without question, only wear clothing that he has personally approved and keep herself nicely clean and waxed at all times.

Much of the rest of the book is taken up with reasonably tedious email exchanges between Ana and Christian where they, among other things, negotiate the terms of the contract. Despite having informed Ana that he doesn’t do ‘vanilla’ sex, on discovering that Ana’s a virgin he decides he’d better do some with her as his conscience doesn’t allow him to have a virgin as a submissive. Ana enjoys the deflowering and they proceed to have lots of subsequent sex (in between sending each other emails). The book only actually features a couple of BDSM scenes if you don’t include the ‘punishment spanking’ that Christian administers in Ana’s bedroom (for rolling her eyes at him). They’re not too bad, actually – the least pleasant scenes are the aforementioned spanking and the scene in Christian’s parents’ boathouse. It’s suggested that Grey’s psychological problems are because he had a hard start in life – he was adopted aged four after being birthed by a crack whore, and subsequently seduced into a sado-masochistic relationship with a friend of his mother’s when aged fifteen.

It’s tedious and poorly written – no better written really than the Silhouette Special Editions I consumed in my teens. Some of Grey's annoying qualities are common among romance novel heroes - e.g. getting irrationally angry if Ana even talks to a platonic male friend - but he takes them a step further, even taking issue with Ana for arranging to visit her mother without consulting him first. He criticises all her clothes and her car, and insists on buying her new ones - and threatens to check that she's obeying him (“Don’t drive your Beetle again. I will know.”). Ana is shown throughout as questioning herself as to whether she should be with Christian, but then keeps getting uncontrollably sexually aroused whenever she is with him. James has clearly made some effort to try to make Christian attractive to female readers – as well as being good-looking and wealthy, he is shown repeatedly as assuring Ana that he won’t do anything to her without her consent – the idea of being forced to experience pleasure, I suppose, though he quite clearly also enjoys inflicting pain.

I don’t have strong moral views on BDSM provided it’s between consenting adults, but did find Christian fairly unpleasant. I assume his tortured past is supposed to make the reader feel intrigued and sorry for him, though it didn’t work on me. The man needs psychological help before entering into any sort of relationship. I had the sense throughout that it wasn't the BDSM per se that was the distasteful aspect of Christian and Ana's relationship, and interestingly the current Wikipedia entry on the book has the following, and links to an article in the Journal of Women’s Health:

'Several critics and scientists have expressed concern that the nature of the main couple's relationship is not BDSM at all, but rather is characteristic of an abusive relationship. In 2013 ... [a study was published] ... wherein multiple professionals read and assessed the books for characteristics of intimate partner violence, or IPV, using the CDC's standards for emotional abuse and sexual violence. The study found that nearly every interaction between Ana and Christian was emotionally abusive in nature, including stalking, intimidation, and isolation. The study group also observed pervasive sexual violence within the CDC's definition, including Christian's use of alcohol to circumvent Ana's ability to consent, and that Ana exhibits classic signs of an abused woman, including constant perceived threat, stressful managing, and altered identity.'

'Fifty Shades of Grey' was initially self-published as an ebook in 2011, though it did subsequently acquire a publisher and has sold extremely well. There are two sequels, 'Fifty Shades Darker' and 'Fifty Shades Freed', neither of which I’ll be reading.