I’ve come to the conclusion that if I’m going to be sitting around on my rump for the greater part of the passing days, then I might at least put the working parts of my body to good use and exercise my eyes and brain by learning some new stuff.
So in a spirit of adventure, I have embarked upon devouring the full 800-odd closely-typed pages of a biography of Churchill written by a man so famous that his name eludes me and shall continue to do until I clamber into bed this evening, seeing as I’m not inclined to rise myself from my typing post to go and check it now.
(The thought has just occurred to me that I could check the author’s name on Amazon, and even provide a link to said biography, save for the very important fact that it would interrupt my flow and my stream-of-consciousness would become merely a trickle.)
It’s heavy going, for sure, and I’m only managing about a chapter a day – any more and I don’t think I’d take any of it on board – but it’s fascinating stuff. He was quite an impressive bloke that Churchill, not just bowler hats and cigars, you know.
I’m also working my way through the Alastair Campbell Diaries, which are just as fascinating, albeit in a very different way. They’re much more easy to read and digest, too and being in daily-diary format (my personal preference for historical/biographic material) are much easier to pick up and put down.
I say easier to pick up, actually they’re mildly hard since they’re about the same numberr of pages, but in hardback not softcover, making Alastair Campbell more weighty than Churchill and I bet that’s not something oft said.
Given the political bent to my current reading, I have developed something of an obsession with it over the past few weeks and have additionally to my real-world reading, spent a lot of today online learning all about the parliamentary process and goings on in the Houses of Parliament.
They say you learn something new everyday, which is undoubtedly true, but by my judgement, I can after today go for the next eight and a half weeks without learning a thing and still hit my average for the quarter.
Other than that, I’ve not done much today. Harefield tomorrow – I’m going to lobby them with my new-found political powers to bump me up to the top of the list and get my butt-sittery days behind me.