Books

Am now reading England, England by Julian Barnes. This is worthy of note as it has been sitting on my bookshelf for about 4 years, surviving the return to the UK and numerous 'what shall I read now, I haven't got any new books' episodes, unread. But now I have decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. This leaves Jonny got his gun by Dalton Trumbo as the only book on the shelf I haven't at least started - but that looks really depressing, and is, according to Grandfather-in-Waiting - so I think I will wait until Christmas before giving that one a go.

As for recent reads, the Jostein Gaarder wa quite good again, he likes his philosphy theme, but all three of his books that I have read seem to follow the same lines, though different scenarios, but still, gets a bit monotonous after a while. The John Simpson autobiography was interesting. He says people have described him a bit of a pompous git in the past, and they would be spot on, but he has been in (and kicked out of) a lot of the most interesting places of the last 30 years - Berlin 1989, Baghdad 1991, Tiananmen Square, Iran, Kosovo etc - so has some stories to tell.

Glorious sunny day today, beautiful view of Mount Fuji through the kitchen windows, crisp, clean air. Just the sort of day to sit inside and study human resource management in schools and colleges. *sigh*. But am going out to get irresponsibly drunk tomorrow on a christmas party excuse of a leo sayer.