Thursday, November 21, 2019


OK, not too bad. My trainer came, so exercise was done. It was, in fact, a rather wonderful day, bright and mercifully windless. The hard frost on Tuesday had brought a lot of leaves down in Drummond Place Gardens, lying in pools of colour around their respective trees. I could well employ myself by learning which tree is which.

I made some progress with my Italian essay, but it’s not ready for submission yet. I’ll have to devote tomorrow morning to it. I knit some more Dathan hap – I think the stitch count is now 453. I read some more Ferrante (still not gripped). I finished Trollope’s “The Bertrams”. A meagre portion of future happiness is dredged up for some of the characters, but it’s still pretty depressing. Then I bought “The Claverings” and found that I had already read it, in March. It cost £0.00, so little was lost, but it was embarrassing.

I am afraid I am still worrying about Prince Andrew. Of course he was weak and foolish and vain and not very clever, and has done the royal family a lot of harm. But our airwaves are full of sleek American lawyers telling him to testify to the FBI. Why him, particularly? Ghislane Maxwell is (apparently) somewhere in the US. Epstein entertained two presidents – the FBI could talk to one or both of them. (He also, incredibly, was host to Stephen Hawking.)

Prince Andrew never killed anybody. It isn’t even suggested that he violated a virgin. Seriously – what about Mrs Sakoolas?

My subject matter is drifting farther and farther from knitting. That’s the trouble with long rows of garter stitch.

7 comments:

  1. re buying a book twice. When I owned fewer than ten LPs I inadvertently bought a second copy of the 1812 Overture, my excuse being that there was a different image on the cover. now that was embarrassing.

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  2. =Tamar8:38 PM

    I have multiple copies of many books. Some are because I wanted to compare two editions, or because a newer edition had a much better cover. Some are because I wanted a hardback for frequent rereading and a paperback for travel or lending. Some are because I was impatient and didn't want to wait for the paperback, but then wanted one to reread easily in bed. Some are for lending more than one copy to different people, or even as potential gifts along the lines of "you must read this!" The only embarrassing ones are the ones I bought because I didn't want to dig through the boxes and piles to find the one I knew I already had.

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  3. This house had about 20,000 books (no, I do not exaggerate)and knowing whether we had a copy of something depended on, "Cat do you know if...?" The problem with that was I did not know what my parents had bought! We are now down to about half that number - much easier to handle!

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  4. At least, when I'm contemplating purchasing an e-book on Amazon they have a pop-up message that says "You purchased this book on April 15, 2015". That has saved me lots of money!

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  5. I once read a story about someone who knew Princess Anne socially, with the same comment about referring to her mother as 'her majesty' - must be some sort of royal protocol. I am indulging in some Swedish mysteries. I was given a gift of "An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good" and went on from there. Not Trollope, or even Tana French, but good fun.

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  6. I wouldn't waste my time worrying about Prince Andrew. I am sure he has the means to hire some sleek lawyers himself to get him out of the mess he put himself into in the first place!

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  7. Ah, Jean. I love to hear about all things; knitting and otherwise. You have a very different perspective on things that Americans do.

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