I Bought A Hardback Book

I have been negligent, tardy and downright rubbish at blogging in recent times, and for this I am excessively sorry. However, the impending school term (or, for those of you who are aware of the eccentricities of my old high school, the term that began today, on a Friday, for some reason) seems to have put me in an academic sort of mood that has provided me with some motivation to write. Or, more precisely, to transfer the meandering stream of whimsy from my brain into something understandable and interesting (though hopefully not particularly useful).

Yesterday I did something insanely geeky and somewhat ridiculous. After discovering through The Guardian a man on Twitter masquerading as Dr Samuel Johnson reincarnated into a modern world, I then followed this genius's tweets, which as well as putting a seventeenth-century vernacular spin on current affairs provides us with original Johnson-style definitions of decidedly 21st-century phenomena such as Facebook, Will Ferrell, Britain's Got Talent and my personal favourite, MySpace - "a barren electronick Tundra haunted by lost Souls in Search of whiter Teeth or unsign'd Minstrel-Acts". These are actually now part of a book, the publication of which was yesterday and a day waited for in anticipation by me. Then I went on to Amazon and bought it in hardback. Now, waiting with unbridled impatience to buy an inconsequential book IN HARDBACK on the day of release is an activity that I normally reserve for Harry Potter books alone. I am not entirely sure what persuaded me to give in to such frivolities, except that in my new-found freedom as a graduate without a compulsory reading list I have gone slightly overboard with excitement about reading whatever the hell I like; last week I involuntarily spent £36 in Waterstone's on American Psycho, Dara O'Briain's Tickling the English, a fabulous history book called The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval Britain, which is a lot more interesting and humorous than it sounds, and the entire works of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in one volume (prompted, no doubt, by Benedict Cumberbatch's excellent turn as Sherlock on the BBC recently, something that could clearly only be achieved by someone with such a bloody brilliant name). I didn't even know I had a particular yearning to read Sherlock Holmes - or, indeed, to learn more about the Middle Ages - but there's something about the 3-for-2 offers at Waterstone's that sends me into a sort of frenzy of literary focus as I search for that elusive third book that I get for free. I am now waiting for Dr Johnson's almanack of modern stuff (I cannot be arsed to look up its long-winded title at this time) to arrive, along with a Doctor Who boxset, safe in the knowledge that I am a massive geek, albeit a massive geek who's got a parcel full of enjoyment arriving on my doorstep any day now.  

And so back to the afore-mentioned new school term. I find it strange to be at the beginning of September with no excuse to go out and buy a new pencil-case, folders I won't bother to fill and an academic diary. So far I've managed to deal with this, but it's only September 3rd. There has been a small pang of longing and upset already, involving a Roehampton Freshers' Week event on Facebook on which I can't (and really shouldn't anyway) click ACCEPT. But dwelling on the past helps me in no way at all, except perhaps the bit of the past that taught me to appreciate literature in all it's glorious forms (something that will get me through the current habit of sluttily thowing money at people in return for books) so I'm going to pretend for the next few weeks that there is no way in hell I'd like to be back in halls, eating toast for living and ticking 'student' when asked for my occupation on forms and suchlike. I am, as Fayeski informed me recently, a Young Professional now. And if someone would like to tell me what I'm supposed to be a professional at I'd be hugely grateful... Thank you, and good night.


Also - the link to the Guardian article on the book I bought. It's entertaining, I promise! http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/14/guide-feature-twitter-book-johnson