The debonair Basil Marigold's

It's really annoying. They are supposed to be the trained specialists. The keepers of the sacred reading grail. In fact Librarians have been known to resist the natural american inclination to censor books that don't 'fit'. As professions go, I probably wouldn't place any other profession above them, not Doctors, not Teachers because Librarians, control and monitor the accumulated knowledge that the worlds possesses and they have done this task since the dawn of the written word. Librarians have at times secretly saved and preserved knowledge for the future and risked their own lives in doing so; it even has its own laws  that's how important they are. But, at a lesser level, they can also be really annoying. Though, technically this really is the fault of the County Councils, who in the UK are legally responsible for Library provision through the secretary of state, empowered by the 1964 Public Libraries Act. All great, and wonderful stuff. Here's my moan. ...

I have been looking at Televisions. The reason for this is that at some point our main front room tele, all 14" of it and I have no idea how old it is, possibly older than me, perhaps, seems so my wife tells me, to have become a little temperamental and may well be due an respectful early grave. Probably where the telebugs went too. For those of an age who can remember! I can. This invariably led to the Amazon website. a Website I have used quite a lot, a fair few years ago now, for buying slightly obscure books, if needed for the masters course I began in 2003. Amazon, was, is a good book site, but it now does almost everything except high end military weapons and that is only because the postage costs may prove a little exorbitant from ex-soviet republics. But back to my point. I was buying some fairly esoteric works around 2003-2006, when I was a fairly heavy user of the website for this purpose of building a useful bibliography. Amazon, back then had a fairly nifty ...

I am rubbish with dates from the past, I struggle to remember my own historical reference points and often get chronologies incorrect. The reason for this is that, because they live in a time gone, they therefore become irrelevant to my mind and are cast adrift, like English Fireship's were at the Spanish Amarda. I am, you may not be, aware of the irony that I have spent 25% of my life on earth studying some form of history or another at a level above GCSE and, as part of this study, had to memorise many 'states and dates' as historians can label it. My personal history however is littered with dates I struggle to recall. But strangely over the last week I had a date appear on the calender that with what little spare thinking time I have at present, a memory and a date collided in my mind and pricked a memory that was so very clear and stopped me in my tracks. I shall now explain the significance which dawned on me at the moment I realised. The Date is the 23rd of August,...

I would take today as a treat, as such, but it had been a fair few years since I have visited, Waterstones, in Nottingham. It was a place I often used to frequent/haunt in my younger days when I arrived in Nottinghamshire. It was a store I kind of just loved being in, for the sake of being in a building that had 4 storeys packed full of books. Over time and in changing circumstances, I have not visited Waterstones, or been out and bought a brand new, fresh of the presses book, either. The odd, second hand classic here and there, but not even remotely close to my pre-marriage book obsession I have carried over a lifetime. I don't say this is a good or a bad thing, it's just a statement. I have over the last few months started using my ipad, both with the apple ibooks and the kindle app, to read the odd electronic book, here and there. A little like a child dipping their toe into the water. I am sure that it will grow on me the more I get used to it. Maybe a Kindle will help! ...

The more we camp, the more, my wife and I get to grips with the campsites largest tent. We must now be down to 30minutes or less putting it up and being able to shelter into it. Fortunately the weather so great that you weren't desperate to get it up before the rain and wind made it near impossible. We were then fortunate indeed that we were able to pack into the car a collection of clowns with which to furnish the tent, and example here;

Blimey I missed my bed, after just one night I felt so much better. The fact that my hips hurt so much that it woke me up in the middle of the night, was never a good sign to me, but last night was great and refreshing.

The one true surprise is that I forgot just how isolated and dark the lake district can be. The benefit of his is at 1am on the way for the obligatory night time wee. A brief glance sky wards revealed such a glorious host of stars. The firmament was indeed full of stars as Dave Bowman would say. Such an impressive, awe inspiring view putting the world and our individual insignificance into perspective. But it was such a wonderful site, nature truly provides the most amazing views. The sight of so many stars when in the middle of the town I live in makes me realise just how poor and corrupted by the light pollution my world is and perhaps just once laying in a desert, 1000's of miles from any city, how amazing must that be. Which, in a round about way ties in with my dream of visiting Mongolia and the Gobi desert, where star gazing must be great, hint, hint.....Travel fairy.