British sportsmanship: Hats off!
I just have to mention this, since my last long post could have been understood as anti-British. I emailed to get Lords of the North, and got a handwritten answer today that the order was being shipped. What was sweet about it was that apparently because the item was being shipped to Germany, the writer (the gentle “Peter”) assumed I was German and said “well done on the football.” This is real sportsmanship, and I was in awe. Seriously, Peter, The Audiobook Collection — and England — and Brits in general — I am impressed at your sportsmanship. I know “fair play” was a British value first, and I bow my head in acknowledgment.
Me + Richard Armitage 
Peter sounds like the definition of a real gentleman, being able to acccept defeat graciously. What a charming gesture!
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How nice of him :).
OML 🙂
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Thank you for sharing the wonderful gesture of Peter with us. How very British and “fair play”.
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I’m glad you ordered Lords of the North. I personally found it helpful to buy a copy of the book too, not to read first, as such, but so that I could find out how all the Saxon names and especially place-names are spelled. Because they are not very obvious and I wanted to know what the modern equivalents were so that I could place them geographically. Of course if you are already a Saxon scholar then you will be fine!!!! I wouldn’t put it past you, servetus!
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Of course there are also a
lot of Danish names used too.
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Took a course in Old and Middle English lit in college, but no specialty in Saxon, sorry to disappoint. 🙂 I do have a hobby of reading dissident political blogs from Cuba, though, if you’re interested I can give you a few excellent tips. 🙂 [Oh, and I have a professional interest in early new high German.]
I bought the book Mr. Armitage is narrating and brought it with me, so I can at least do that, but I think it’s actually the third in a series. Oh well, as a historian I can deal with it, I hope.
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LOTN works as a stand alone piece, but if you are minded to read some of the other books afterwards (I am working my way through) then you need to start at the beginning again so that you can find out how Uhtred killed Ubba Lothbrokson and Svein of the White Horse.
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These names sound so much like the characters in Kristin Lavransdottir (sp?), which I loved. I already can’t wait!!
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I also ordered LOTN a while back, and have enjoyed it immensly. It was a treat to listen to the story read by Mr. Armitage every day to and from work. In my case Peter was really nice about the book; he said: ”This complete and unabridged title is brilliantly read by Richard Armitage”. I could not agree more, and I have written back that if they ever have anything else in collection read by Mr. Armitage, I most certainly would contact him again 🙂 Enjoy the story!
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I hope he is keeping a tally next to his keyboard of how many people say that, as I said something similar, Elisabet … hopefully they can recruit him again. Of course, his fee is probably somewhat higher now than it was when he made the recording originally. 🙂
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Consensus seems to be: we love Peter!
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Servetus just wondering how did you pay for the LOTN audiobook? From what I understand you have to call the UK to order and then will they accept a US credit card? How much was it and do they change a conversion fee or something? Never done that and haven’t ordered from Amazon UK either so not sure how that works. If anyone could let me know I would really appreciate it.
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Hi, Sandra, and welcome. I paid with my US Visa debit. I thought you had to call, but someone on this blog (iz4spunk? OML? kaprekar?) told me they would accept an email request. They suggested I could call them and tell them the card number, or just spread the card number through several mails, which is what I did. This is the price they quoted me for delivery to the U.S.: “If ordering the title to be sent to the USA, then the (ex-VAT) price is GBP 19.57, with Airmail P&P an additional GBP 9.99.” (ex-VAT means without the UK value added tax, like a sales tax, which you don’t pay unless you are in the UK or EU.) Most U.S. credit cards work internationally. My charge went right through but I travel a lot in Europe and am a regular amazon.co.uk customer. If you have never used your card internationally before you might want to call your issuer and tell them that you will be. In terms of conversion fees, there is often a small conversion fee charged by the card issuer, in the case of my debit it is less than 1%, but you should check with your card issuer first in case there is a separate foreign transaction fee. There wasn’t in my case.
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Just checked the conversion rates and that comes out to about $45 USD before any credit card fees. And so being the cheapskate that I am I think I am going to have to hold off and hope that it eventually becomes available on iTunes for less. Thank you for all the credit card info though because I do see myself eventually giving in 🙂
BTW just wanted to say that I really enjoy your blog. You catch so many things that I’ve missed and bring so many things up that I’ve never thought about its quite amazing. My favorites posts have to be about the fit of his suit!
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I think that is about right. I haven’t checked the pound to dollar conversion rates recently, but do keep in mind that the dollar’s the strongest it’s been against European currencies in several years at the moment. So maybe time for an early xmas present? (No, I don’t get a cut of the proceeds! 🙂 )
Thanks for your kind words about the blog. Appreciative, attentive commentators definitely keep me going.
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Sandra, for an audiobook of a book that size I thought the prize reasonable. Once converted and backed up I’m probably not interested hanging on to the hardcopy.
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It’s great you will finally listen to the LOTN. In my opinion it’s the best of all Richard’s audio books. Hope you will enjoy it too. I’m looking forward to read your review and comments on Richard’s work here. Love reading your blog all the time.
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Thanks, olietta. I can hardly wait!
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I mentioned how responsive they are to email and wonder if Pete made the connection that after I finally placed my order Servetus emailed him the next day. My inquiry was from a few months back. Also wondering if Pete is making the connection with SB, Mr.A’s profile has gone up. Funny how he said the exact same thing in my email about it being brilliantly read, one wonders if he has a standard email to respond to inquiries from fans! 🙂
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Probably he does, but probably he got asked a few too many times whether he thought the product was worth the price, which puts it in the category for me at least of things you think about before buying. I figure we have to take anything like this with a grain of salt (he’s not going to write “it was read by Richard Armitage on one of his off days” or “we really regret having had Armitage read it but there’s nothing we can do about it now”) but I am sure he also know that fans appreciate a few positive strokes for their hero, too. Frankly, though: if you click on the link on the page, which says you can buy their complete collection via bbcshop.com, you can’t buy this item, and I wondered why not. That stopped me a couple of times, because I figured if you couldn’t get it from their recommended website it must be sold out. Why don’t they sell it online with their other items?
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I can’t figure that out either, but it might be for a very mundane reason. They seem to be taking a very long time to build the new audiobooks website too.
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I made out from his email that the shop: the Audiobookcollection is based in Bath,UK but what is confusing is that he signs his email with BBC audiobooks. I had hunted around the BBC store for months and kept watching that website’s status as well. In my email I inquired about a download version because I’ll end up converted the CD’s anyway into mp3’s. I’m presuming there is some copyright issue since the same book has been read by someone else. Still I count my lucky stars that we can still get it.
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[…] Ordered Lords of the North from the Audiobook Collection. Patiently awaiting delivery sometime next week. […]
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Obsession update (twelve days) « Me + Richard Armitage said this on July 2, 2010 at 6:19 am |