Ups and downs...

Well the secret mission looks like it was an enjoyable failure. But at least managed to read A Whack on the Side of the Head : How You Can Be More Creative by Roger Von Oech. Depressing really, because it was made clear that I am not using my creativity. Before Leonard Cohen tracks play in my head and starting to feel like a cold, grey Autumn rainy day, I went off in search of books. Being at the Angel, Islington, the charity shops are not full of Mills and Boons wannabees. The lighter reads are mostly written by jaw cracking, spit inducing writers from some ex-communist corner. Or we are ruining the planet globetrotting account of the last unspoilt south American rain Forrest tribe's daily grind.

Looking at the books at Oxfam, I got distracted by an argument by a Steve Fry lookalike arguing in an upper class Dublin accent about the 4 framed prints being £35 or £45 pounds each with a stylish, African woman.(not a stylish, African woman per print but a stylish, African woman was selling the prints, sigh) The prints being 18th century satirical cartoons. I told you its Angel, Islington. A older woman later brought 4 others for £50: joking she could afford it because she would shop at Tesco's rather than Marks and Spencers this week.

In the midst of all this I then spied the 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. Doorstep of a book but fall in love with it instantly. I have now read his growing up with the minipirates, being the crying show for the Hobgoblins and in escaping his adventures with the Bubbling Billows(talking waves) And its not a Kids Book!

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916 - ) Literary critic and Novelist

"The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination."