Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Ow! Ow ow...
Whatever possessed me to think that having a meeting in one part of London which would involve me getting up early, then doing buying in another part of London, then finishing off with friends in a pub until chucking out time was a way of easing back in to working life?
Up at 6:30 a.m. yesterday, as I needed to get out early to make the trek to another library for a non-fiction book buying meeting. It's about the one thing in my life that makes me wish I drove and had a car, driving directly there is a piece of piss and would take about half an hour. Public transport involves several buses, which should not be attempted during the school year as it goes through several busy transit points for various schools, or a long journey on the tube. I tend to favour the tube only because I'm more likely to get leg room.
Anyway, I don't remember much about the meeting except that it was in a hot room with no air conditioning and the stock was so dull I nearly fell asleep. There wasn't even anything interesting coming through, not like a couple of weeks ago when there was the new edition of The SCUM Manifesto, crap but interesting crap.
Then down in to London where I walked around the British Museum looking at people looking at old dead things (often more rewarding than looking at the exhibits themselves) before heading to Gosh to do a stock pick. Last time I did this I went down with a long list that it turned out was about twice as expensive as the money I had to spend, so was lucky to have a second go. Managed to get a lot of good stuff, when we reopen we're going to have seperate sections for 'adult graphic novels' and 'teenage graphic novels', I have my doubts about whether that's going to be a good idea or not, and we're having to put Ultimate titles in 'adult' because the children's librarians had no idea, but it does have advantages in that we can put out more extreme stuff (like From Hell for example) without having to worry about members of the public complaining. Well, they will complain, but if we're not leaving these things near the teenage stands then we're covered.
After that to The Plough to meet up with other people who'd been mostly coming from work. We stayed until chucking out time at 11:00 pm, I stayed on the orange juice or lemonade all night as I was flagging at points and knew alcohol would be a bad idea. Paleface brought along Like a Splinter in Your Mind: The Philosophy Behind the "Matrix" Trilogy which he'd picked up from work. We were taking the piss out of it but when I read a chapter I saw it was doing pretty much what the first film was doing, introducing philosophical concepts to people who had never thought of them before. As it's about the 'trilogy', presumerably two-thirds of the way through the book it dumps all pretense of intellectualism and just shows lots of glossy pictures.
It was amusing to see one of our number downing pints as I don't think I've ever seen her drunk before. Most entertaining. I won't mention who though, my lips are sealed. Got home around midnight and didn't manage to get to sleep until about half one, but at least the advantage of being a morning person meant I was able to force myself to get up and go to work, though there were a few points where I was just monging out in front of a screen. As I tend to do this a lot anyway no-one noticed.
I got a copy of this when I was at Gosh yesterday, no good for the graphic novels stand at the library as it's the wrong shape but just perfect for the graphic novel shelf at chez Flowers. Enjoying it immensely, especially the strand with the woman plunged into depression by Bush stealing the election. Wonder if she'd be cheered up by Bush declaring "No really, I want to be the peace President". News about the possible child buggering done by US troops at Abu Ghraib is hard to come by, but does this report, if accurate, mean the public will or won't hear about it before the US elections?
Talking of buggering bastards, Nicholas van Hoogstraten has won the substantial part of his appeal over a £5m claim by the family of a man he was jailed for killing.
And the first Canadian lesbians to get married now want to be the first lesbian couple to get divorced. See? It proves we can be just like any breeder couple...
Whatever possessed me to think that having a meeting in one part of London which would involve me getting up early, then doing buying in another part of London, then finishing off with friends in a pub until chucking out time was a way of easing back in to working life?
Up at 6:30 a.m. yesterday, as I needed to get out early to make the trek to another library for a non-fiction book buying meeting. It's about the one thing in my life that makes me wish I drove and had a car, driving directly there is a piece of piss and would take about half an hour. Public transport involves several buses, which should not be attempted during the school year as it goes through several busy transit points for various schools, or a long journey on the tube. I tend to favour the tube only because I'm more likely to get leg room.
Anyway, I don't remember much about the meeting except that it was in a hot room with no air conditioning and the stock was so dull I nearly fell asleep. There wasn't even anything interesting coming through, not like a couple of weeks ago when there was the new edition of The SCUM Manifesto, crap but interesting crap.
Then down in to London where I walked around the British Museum looking at people looking at old dead things (often more rewarding than looking at the exhibits themselves) before heading to Gosh to do a stock pick. Last time I did this I went down with a long list that it turned out was about twice as expensive as the money I had to spend, so was lucky to have a second go. Managed to get a lot of good stuff, when we reopen we're going to have seperate sections for 'adult graphic novels' and 'teenage graphic novels', I have my doubts about whether that's going to be a good idea or not, and we're having to put Ultimate titles in 'adult' because the children's librarians had no idea, but it does have advantages in that we can put out more extreme stuff (like From Hell for example) without having to worry about members of the public complaining. Well, they will complain, but if we're not leaving these things near the teenage stands then we're covered.
After that to The Plough to meet up with other people who'd been mostly coming from work. We stayed until chucking out time at 11:00 pm, I stayed on the orange juice or lemonade all night as I was flagging at points and knew alcohol would be a bad idea. Paleface brought along Like a Splinter in Your Mind: The Philosophy Behind the "Matrix" Trilogy which he'd picked up from work. We were taking the piss out of it but when I read a chapter I saw it was doing pretty much what the first film was doing, introducing philosophical concepts to people who had never thought of them before. As it's about the 'trilogy', presumerably two-thirds of the way through the book it dumps all pretense of intellectualism and just shows lots of glossy pictures.
It was amusing to see one of our number downing pints as I don't think I've ever seen her drunk before. Most entertaining. I won't mention who though, my lips are sealed. Got home around midnight and didn't manage to get to sleep until about half one, but at least the advantage of being a morning person meant I was able to force myself to get up and go to work, though there were a few points where I was just monging out in front of a screen. As I tend to do this a lot anyway no-one noticed.
I got a copy of this when I was at Gosh yesterday, no good for the graphic novels stand at the library as it's the wrong shape but just perfect for the graphic novel shelf at chez Flowers. Enjoying it immensely, especially the strand with the woman plunged into depression by Bush stealing the election. Wonder if she'd be cheered up by Bush declaring "No really, I want to be the peace President". News about the possible child buggering done by US troops at Abu Ghraib is hard to come by, but does this report, if accurate, mean the public will or won't hear about it before the US elections?
Talking of buggering bastards, Nicholas van Hoogstraten has won the substantial part of his appeal over a £5m claim by the family of a man he was jailed for killing.
And the first Canadian lesbians to get married now want to be the first lesbian couple to get divorced. See? It proves we can be just like any breeder couple...
