Nothing to write home about

Another direly dull day at the office.

The effect of this is magnified by the fact I am feeling in a bad mood in any event. No particular reason, I could feel it rising yesterday and now it is soaring high.

Just been out and bought Blindness by Jose Saramango and The Cleft by Doris Lessing. Finished Fatherland by Robert Harris on the train this morning. Prior to that read THE WONDERFUL, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera which I heartily, heartily recommend to ALL. Oh, I lie, prior to that was the Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers which was also great. Very similar relationship-types featured in the two books, the protagonist male in both being almost mirror-images of each other. This was completely coincidental but reading them side by side I think enhanced my reading experience.

Next on my to read list are:

Walden Two – BF Skinner

The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman

Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller

The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse

Artists I want to know more about are:

Alfonse Mucha

Frederic Leighton

Aubrey Beardsley

This week's Quoteboard humorous quotes are:

‘Whom are you?’ said he, for he had been to night school.

You should never touch your eye but with your elbow (Proverb)

Never rub bottoms with a porcupine (Ghanaian Proverb)

I’ve given up reading books; I find it takes time off myself.

I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.

Joyful, joyful

I have just received news into my inbox of perhaps the most exciting theatre event that in my opinion could ever be devised.

Well, I suppose, that might be overstating it JUST a little… but I do want to you understand just how UTTERLY COMPELLING I find this event. And how utterly coincidental too.

I was only bemoaning to my brother-in-law LAST WEEKEND how devastatingly charmed I was by a certain gentleman and how I held out hope that a party I will be attending should be visited by said gentleman. I was informed that alas, due to the Object Of My Affection’s schedule, it was inconceivable he would be attending the party.

It has been a hard week. I have had sleepless nights and have eaten little. My pallor is wan, my spirits low and my hair, limp and lifeless as my heart. I have found neither joy in the star-strewn night skies nor delight in the sun-filled days. You could even say -

this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours

If you wanted to. And that would be great, because, well, it’s Mr Hamlet’s wonderfully bleak speech which, on especially Goya-esque days, I resonate in the delicious melodrama of.

But people… imagine how much greater it would be…. how, absurdly splendiferous it would be, if the very object of my affection, were to lament the majestical roofs with me???

Why, it would be a dream come true for you, Natalie, I hear you reply.

And, I say, but it IS a dream come true….for it is happening and will happen this very December! For, oh yes, the delightful Mr David Tennant is to appear as the title-role in the RSC’s production of Hamlet!!!!

Could you GET any better than that!!!!!

Hamlet is my undisputed favourite play and Mr Tennant, well, he sits on Johnny Depp’s geeky right hand and would be responsible for me staying in every Saturday night were I not Sky Plus enabled.

And all this, hot on the heels of ANOTHER fantasy realised (and I think the writer, Stephen Moffat must have tapped into my brain as I slept for this one) – a Dr Who episode (featuring DT of course) set – in a library! And not just any library – but an entire PLANET that is library.... A Victorian libraryI And the fact that the majority of the action was carried out in the circular domed section of the library – well, it’s almost utopian.

I have since researched on the library featured in the two recent episodes and have discovered that the domed section scenes were shot on location on Swansea Central Library. And for an added element of attraction, if sufficient didn’t already exist, I discover that that great liberal heavyweight, Mr William Gladstone, opened it…

"O day and night, but this is wondrous!"