Friday's Waffle

I could tell it was windy last night. I sleep with the window open and above me hangs a bicycle. The strings that dangle from the bicycle wheel were slapping me in the face despite the fact that it hangs above the other side of the bed (occupied by someone other than Partner-who-drinks-tea last night but that's another story). Then there was a crash. Fortunately it wasn't the bike falling. It was something to do with me waking up. I'm catching GB's nightmares. I don't really sleep with a bicycle over the bed! No thanks bruv, you can keep your nightmares to yourself. (I've just seen that the title of his latest post is 'On being a legs man'. Since I am as well that is one post I mustn't miss.)

Isn't it great when you go shopping and see someone internationally famous in your local supermarket? Of course, it depends on your idea of internationally famous. I suspect many of my readers will not have heard of John Barnes but he was a famous Liverpool and England footballer and is now a TV pundit. He lives very near us. On Friday he passed us in the supermarket with a little girl in his arms – his fifteen moth old daughter? Now some of you may find that unremarkable but if it had been one of our other neighbours with his brother I'm sure all of you would have gone – Wow! Mike McGear of The Scaffold (real name Peter Michael McCartney), the brother of Paul, lives near us. What famous folk live near you?

I don't normally bother pinching things from other people's blogs because it seems to me that so many of my readers also read the blogs of my blogging friends. But I have to let asnyone who hasn't seen it have Adrian's comment on the snow at Heathrow airport. “A spokesman for Heathrow airport was interviewed and he proudly stated that as a precaution he had cancelled a third of all flights. This, to avoid any disruption to travel!………….Is it me? Or is he a complete lunatic?” Perhaps they are going to close the motorways to save any disruption to road traffic....

I keep commenting that there are so many books to read and so little time. I now have a TBR (To Be Read) list that stretches over four pages of closely written A4 and half the books on my shelves waiting my attention aren't even on it. One of the issues is that every book ever written has its admirer's and I can't help but be inspired to read them when I find someone eulogising about them.

Bibliophiliac has just blogged about the wonderful prose in The Great Gatsby. This is a book I've read twice. I didn't enjoy it the first time (aged 16) and so tried it again in my twenties thinking perhaps my view may have changed. It hadn't but now I feel inspired to read it a third time. Anyone who can write “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning---” deserves another try.

Another blogging friend has just brought my attention to postcrossing. It looks like fun so I am already enrolled and have a couple of postcards written and ready to go on their way. I suspect that the return rate is not particularly high but we shall see. To quote my fellow blogling “I truly am a geek, but apparently I am in good company since they have over 288,000 members in 201 countries.  I'll let you know when I get my first postcard!  Where will it come from I wonder?”