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Sunday, July 24, 2011

The day before action


The question of the books has now become part of a psychosis.  I had a strategy worked out: attack Shakespeare first.  Multiple copies of the plays with some of them only kept because their introductions might be useful if I was ever to teach etc etc.  Well, I think that my teaching of Shakespeare days are over and even I can contemplate getting rid of some of the nastier paperback versions without too may qualms.

The texts are so scattered throughout my library that their exclusion will not create the mass of space that I was hoping to use to Begin the Great Sort.

In my experience you need one empty bookcase for every five that you are trying to sort out.  Anything less and you will be heading for frustration, anger and murder.  But one has to work with what one has so I will have to go through the shelves painstakingly and rip chunks of my own flesh off the shelves and get rid of books.

I think that I can keep up the prevention of action by writing technique until the end of the month and then Something Will Have To Be Done.  Or not.

The weather seems to be settling down to a reasonably miserable morning and a glorious afternoon: I can live with that.

Today has been a Festival of Sound.  The morning started off with the moronic monotony of the cursed cur next door.  Its mournful threnody usually brings in the professional wailers of the decaying spaniels at the end of our row and then it is open season with the rest of the rat dogs incarcerated around us.

The day proper begins when the pine needle blowers start up and the kids crawl out of their restraints to start their daylong shout.

To add to the general cacophony there were three or more distinct parties happening around us.  The block of flats opposite seems to have a business of hosting children’s Parties and from what we have heard had complaints about the noise.  They have responded by swapping the party actual to the back of the flats but the kids still scream their way around the front.

Mr Shouty (the Argentinian who lives a few doors away) put up balloons and then yelled himself through the barbecue while unleashing his screaming horde of kids into the pool.

Someone in the flats adjacent to us had a birthday and music and raucous singing added to the general air of sonic chaos.

And all of this without factoring in the added dimension of the deep-throated roar of passing aircraft as they skim the rooftops.

In spite of all this I still managed a comfortable snooze on the Third Floor after lunch.

Determination is one of my qualities.

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