Blood will have blood they say

Forgive me if my typing is a little erratic, but I’ve just been stabbed by a rogue fork in the dishwasher. Talk about Life’s Rich Tapestry!

I’m reading a book by Melvyn Bragg called “12 books that changed the world”; it’s a long time since I’ve read a ‘popular’ book which has been so badly proof read. I bought it in Oxfam in the centre of Dublin not far from the Liffy. I reckon that it was a reviewer’s copy given to Oxfam to sell off. The price was eight euros, but I had only a 50 euro note and a 5. The guy sitting reading by the till said that it was unlikely it would have change and he was more than happy to take the 5 note and a few coins. You feel such a heel when you make a profit out of a charity organization, so I put a few more coins in the Oxfam jug in the kitchen: conscience placated.

The book itself, as Paul 1 remarked, “is perfect for you”. I like to think that he meant that it was full of intellectual stimulation to match my questing brain, but I think that he was implying that the ragbag of disparate knowledge appealed to my dilettante mind. Whatever!

Bragg takes twelve ‘books’ from Britain and devotes a chapter to each. So far they have ranged from Magna Carta to the first Rule Book for Association Football. It’s such a good idea and, with the authority of Lord Bragg, you have a series for television as well as the book tie-in. That’s the sort of mind I need for the non career in media!

I’m still reading it; I take a break from it from time to time so that I can be attacked by lurking white goods. I’ve just finished the Abolition section dealing with the speech of William Wilberforce and am now deep into Mary Shelley’s mum and the ‘Vindication.’ The increase in the popularity of this book reminds me of my time in University when the only volume by Dickens that any respectable politically correct student could admit to reading was ‘Hard Times’ revelling in the political background to the work and worrying about your ambivalent response to dear dead old Stephen Blackpool. And ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Conrad. These were the two key texts for timid neophytes in political reading to get their teeth into, with a novel (any novel) by D H Lawrence to make up the literary trinity. And not listening to the music of Tchaikovsky. I remember that as being important. How could you be radical if you were emoting to the symphonies (the early symphonies in my case) of Piotr.

I would look forward to reading the rest of it tomorrow, but I have other things to do. There are people turning up on Saturday to view the house! Hallelujah! So, super cleaning starts again. Tomorrow morning is the only time that I will have as Toni has to be picked up at 1.30 pm, then at 2.00 pm there is a concert in St. David’s Hall with a performance of Nielsen’s Second Symphony and, in the evening a performance of ‘La Boheme’ which I have not seen for a considerable time.

I am going to the opera with Alison who has just had her birthday (she is weeks older than I am!) and I have bought her two badges with messages: ‘I don’t discriminate. I hate everyone’ and ‘You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing!’ I think it says something about me that I like both of them, but thinking about it, they are not quite the things to give someone for their birthday. But, hey, let’s see how it goes.