I'd try telling you how appalling my weekends are but fear you will find the tale wearisome and its tone infected with a lack of proportion that does me no credit. Instead, I will make a few short notes drawing what energy I can from this startlingly sunny and temperate autumn day.

There is a girl, post-pubescent and quite womanly in her figure reading a book by Kurt Vonnegut. This fills me with a certain joy, for if someone for whom life is quite capable of being filled with all manner of distractions is able to spend an afternoon in such a manner, then perhaps, by my strange logic, there is something akin to hope left for the world. Or the world as I wish to see it. There is also, in this park, another young female, less nubile perhaps, reading Orwell. I worry about this for Orwell is not to be read too young and out of context. He has been co-opted by all sorts, most despicably by the young socialists, but also by those bloodless liberals who know not how the freedoms they wallow in were arrived at; but I digress.

Over the course of the weekend, having spied the approaching blackness descending on me, I indulged in what may best be termed as comfort shopping. This yielded some momentary distractions from an otherwise grim few days. Of my purchases I bring the following to your attention, a quintet of books that is most worthy of comment. Two of these being of the Easy Rawlings series. Fine works of detective fiction, laced with powerful political and racial commentary. I also purchased two books in the Flashman tales. As with all of the series, they manage to be ribald and extremely informative historically. The author has a knack of capturing the many flavours of the British Imperial ethos and also that of the men it produced; indeed of men who wielded profound influence in all eras. I offer this quote, which I particularly liked:

I hadn't seen it before, although I've seen it more times that I care to since - one man, mad as a hatter and drunk with pride, sweeping sane heads away against their better judgement...They and Brooke could have formed a club. I can see him still; erect head thrown back, eyes blazing, like the worst kind of actor mouthing the Agincourt speech to a crowd of yokels in a tent theatre in the backwoods.

Given the way certainty is often regarded as proof of correctness in this day and age, I thought that was worthy of bringing to your attention. The more things change...eh?

The final book I bought was this,a rash purchase driven more from its low price at the second-hand bookshop and less from any great desire to read it.

mail : bigreg at budweiser dot com