bhikku: archives

10th january 2006

January: it promotes the sluggard, takes everything and gives nothing. Action and progress are at a discount. It doesn't even snow.
Time then to plan for the year ahead, time to get out the charts, the notebooks, the well-thumbed copy of My Side of the Mountain. Sharpen the knife, find a ball of string and empty the rucksack of last year's leaves.
Look at the map. Look at Berkshire, think late March when the frosts are not so fierce. Long meditative evenings at the bivouac in the Bracknell forest; a rabbit liberated from the Sunningdale bourgeois, firepit-roasted; a furtive excursion to a newsagent on the skirts of Wokingham for chocolate bars; flaming sunsets over the Great Park.
You could even lose yourself for a whole summer in the infamous Winnersh Triangle.

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12th january 2006

bury my heart at 920 HUL

He [Van Hulthem, librarian to the Royal Library of Brussels] allowed no fire in the house and in cold weather kept himself warm in bed by putting folios on his feet, his favourite for this purpose being Barlaeus' account of Maurice of Nassau's expedition to Brazil . . . Carried away by a sudden apoplectic fit, he died on a pile of books like a warrior on the battlefield.

- Anthony Hobson, Great Libraries

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16th january 2006

sirens

Embleton surpasses himself once again.

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