When You Finish Reading A Book Should You Dispose of It?

It's just a thought I've had as books usually take a long time to read and often you are never going to reread the them. I'm currently reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" which is a grammatically odd title and at 800 pages I don't think I will reread it. The experience of reading it is enjoyable (for me) but would not be to everyone's taste, but it is a book I will never forget although I cannot remember everything about it because it does not have a storyline as such, things just happen. Also because it's such a big book it will make way for other books.

It can go to a friend or acquaintance who may want to try it or to a charity shop, it's irrelevant to me as long as someone else gets the chance to experience and enjoy it.

Certain books like "Imajica" by Clive Barker (my favourite ever book read two or three times and about a thousand pages)  and "Lord of The Rings" will certainly never go but others always might.

Some books stay because you can dip in and out of them and find enjoyment that way, and others are reference books and great for researching things, but some have, by their nature, to have a limited home shelf life.

Actually the shorter the book is, the less likely it is to go because a 200 page book is a lot easier to reread that an 800 page book, also stories are usually better to revisit than biographies and factual books.

Music wise CDs are is some ways dead in the water for me unless they are in a special package and I have a few of those, but this weekend I have sold four on Discogs for a combined amount of £50 so some people are still interested in the format.

So what should I leave you with. I couldn't think of a song but here's a short video of some amazing libraries. Remember not everyone can afford books, but libraries give everyone the opportunity to enjoy books.

One Book To Another

Well last night's visibility experiment was inconclusive, but I am doing another evening post. This time it's about  the books I'm reading. I've just finished the excellent "How To Be Right" by James O'Brien and I am following that up with "Mythos" by Stephen Fry.

"How To Be Right" was easy to read with decent sized type over 220 pages, but "Mythos" sort of gives me the horrors because it's over 400 pages of small type.

"How To Be Right" helps to prepare you for dealing with with, shall we say, the difficult people and situations of the modern world and has been great to read, if more than a tad worrying , but a lot of people I know fall into that category, who refuse to examine what causes their beliefs that certain situations are true and cannot be challenged. Their paper of choice is The Metro (published by The Daily Mail) because it's free. I really shouldn't say any more.

"Mythos" is a completely different ball game tapping into my love of all  mythology , though this one is hitting the Greek strand. As a kid I loved reading Norse, Celtic, Roman , Greek and further mythology, so despite the small print I am looking forward to it.

So I will not go with another Pete Wylie song, but this time I will go for "Jason and the Argonauts" by XTC from their album "English Settlement" as it does fit in with the Greek Mythology connection.

5AM Sunday Morning

This is ridiculous. I should be asleep. My body is tired, my brain is tired but my mind is wide awake. So I wasn't sure what to do, so like always when I am not sure what to do, I thought I would come an blog about it. It is could that I can do this and know that I am compos mentis enough to string a few words together, but it is a bit of a pain when I just want to sleep.

I had been dreaming and was in a queue at Boots for some tissues in possibly Leeds, and the serving person was chatting with other servers and trying to serve others before me so I decided to go elsewhere and vaguely remember some huge indoor area like a market or mall  before waking again and deciding to maybe read a bit. I've finished "The White Wolf's Son" by Michael Moorcock and enjoyed the all over the the place swirl of the writing, making for a thoroughly enjoyable read with lots of flashbacks to earlier themes as well as referencing the a area of North Yorkshire where I enjoy going for a relaxing holiday.

I has a slideshow of my last two holidays in Settle and am using the photographs as my computer wallpaper and every one gives me a lift, it is a wonderfully relaxing place. You can see most of the photographs here if you are logged into Facebook.

I'm now starting "How To Be Right: … in a world gone wrong" by James O'Brien which addresses the situation in post brexit-vote / Trump UK via encounters with callers on his radio show. Some of the people he interviews are polarised by the media and unfortunately I hear these sort of things every day, but it is a great read to provide an insight into what is happening in society today. That reminds me of this excellent TED talk by Carol Cadwalladr about Facebook's involvement in allowing untruths about the EU to be spread to push the Brexit agenda.

The music I've chosen for this is the excellent piece of social commentary from the latest Specials album "Embarrassed By You" and I was surprised to see the "Stereotypical" collection which is sitting not two feet from where I am typing going for £225 on Amazon, but as I always say, it's only worth that if you have a buyer.

So enjoy your Bank Holiday Sunday everybody.

Sunshine Smiles and the Lost Welsh Martial Art of Llap Goch

Llap Goch - Fear No Man

Well I am very hot and sweaty, I bet you really wanted to know that. This morning I have cut down a leafy bust to fit in te brown bin (I actually cut it last week) , mowed the lawn , put up a shelf that fell off a wall months ago, well I think I have, those rawlplugs weren't working so I hope the no more nails strips will hold, they say up to3Kg each strip but we all know the phrase "up to" includes the number zero. I got that from the Llap Goch Advertisement in Monty Python's Big Red Bok. Click on the image to read the text a lot more easily.

I've also been and bought a rucksack for of shopping and walked about 3 miles, so I have had a fairly productive morning.

I still didn't want to get up though, but the fact I have doe all this and am writing this blog post is a good sign.



The weather is excellent and there have been a lot of greeting and smiles when I was out, the sun and good weather can bring out the best in people.


The football season has started although for some it will feel as if it never ended, teams complain of too many games and once there is space they organise a tour on the other side of the world or some new made up cup competition. Newcastle lost their opening Championship encounter with Fulham leaving the bottom of the division much to the delight of Sunderland fans. I'm obviously more concerned with how Preston fare against Jaap Staam's Reading.

I thought the Smashing Pumpkin's Today was a sort of appropriate song for today.

But whatever you are doing have a wonderful day today , enjoy the sun and I hope everything goes perfectly for you.

Still Dark

..but leaving home in the dark means I can seen dawn rise on the East coast. And it's not raining or snowing (yet). Don't have anything to report today apart from just feeling in a good mood. Maybe it's because I'm listening to Radio 6 which is always good.

I've also got my application in for 2014 World Book Night with a suggestion for a book that I will give away, although that's nearly six months OK. I'm just wondering if they have one in Australia or the USA, if not they should , it's very good to read. This is also probably the first time I've mentioned 2014 in this blog.

Well there's one song that comes to mind by the wonderful Julian Cope and the Teardrop Explodes. Have a brilliant day everyone, though I am having very minor surgery later on so may be in some pain so I've been told, but all will be fine.

Seven Days In The Premiership

Being a Preston North End supporter, I don't have much to do with the Premiership, though living in Newcastle it's unavoidable. There's been a couple of incidents that have struck over the past week.

The first is Arsene Wengers rant against Stoke City's so called physical approach. He managed to fool even me. Failing to mention Adebayor's high challenge on DeLap and Robin Van Persie's sending off he went off on one about Stoke trying to injure his players. Everyone was focussed on Wenger's rant, NO ONE was thinking about the Arsenal team (with a bad injury list), and their current bad run. What do they do against a rampant Manchester United? The win and put their Premiership challenge back on course. Again Wenger shows his genius , taking all the flak while the team sorts itself out and returns to winning ways. The guy is a veritable god!!

Secondly the Referee's Ruling body want to get their Respect Campaign back on track following run ins with Joe Kinnear of Newcastle and Alex Ferguson , to name but two. They seem to conveniently sidestep the fact that respect must be earned , and regard any form of criticism as an attack on them. When they screw up there seems to be no comeback and and anyone who dares say anything is pilloried.

Take the goal that never was in the Watford vs Reading match. No action against the officials but Adrian Boothroyd , the Watford manager was censured for his criticism of the officials.

The latest is the situation with Barnsley's Iain Hume being hospitalised in the match against Sheffield United, the referee refusing to take action against some very physical action.

In and Everton v Liverpool derby Jamie Carragher wrestled Jolean Lescott to the ground on three occcasions and the referee di nothing, but was quick to red card Tim Hibbert after he'd touched Steven Gerrard in the area (after a word for Stevie G).

Until referees get it right and stop acting as though they're infallible they are not going to get respect , unless their name is Pierluigi Collina.

And now we have the Maradonna "Hand of God" thing raising it's head again. Maradonna got away with it , the referees / officials should have taken action at the time . They didnt because FIFA / UEFA encourage cheating, simulation is rewarded with free kicks and cards for the opposing team.