Yesterday's shopping included the usual staff of life - or "bread" to you - and half a dozen jam-filled doughnuts (or donuts, now that we're all Americanised), but I forgot to also grab a bottle of milk on the way out, and so I was on the way in again today to have something to pour onto my Weet-Bix tomorrow.
"A couple of lamb chops would be a nice change from all the recent Chinese take-aways", I thought to myself as I made a quick detour through the supermarket's meat section, but the price tags reminded me of this old Paul Hogan sketch. Lamb chops used to be standard fare in every cheap boarding-house I ever lived in, but now they want a king's ransom for what is just one mouthful a meat before being left with a huge bone, which would be all right if there was a dog to give it to. Maybe I come back a little later wearing a balaclava.
When I am shopping, I follow Erasmus of Rotterdam's example who is supposed to have said, “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food". Just one lamb chop buys me a lot of books!
And I'm in the market for "Bookish" which, according to Booktopia, will only be released in Australia on 29 July. It first caught my attention because its title bears my middle name, but then I was completely hooked after I had read in the preview this exchange between the recently-released-from-prison Jack and Gabriel Book, the erudite and unconventional proprietor of an antiquarian bookshop in London:
|
The name of the shop seemed to contain a grammatical error of the kind that, while common among bakers and fruiterers, seemed an offence against a business that dealt in the printed word. Book's. ... ... 'There's a mistake,' said Jack. 'A mistake?' repeated the man. 'On the door,' said Jack. 'The sign.' The man narrowed his eyes. 'What about it?' he asked. 'Well, it's wrong, isn't it?' said Jack. 'There's no apostrophe in "books".' 'There is', said the man. 'There isn't', said Jack. ... ... 'There is', said the man, looking strangely satisfied by this exchange, 'if your name is Book and you happen to own the shop. Which it is and I do.' [click here for the audiobook]
|
As a card-carrying member of the Apostrophe Protection Society, I was hooked, and I'm now waiting for the book and, sometime in the not-to-distant future, for the DVD of the movie which debuted on 16 July:
With my Weet-Bix drenched in the newly acquired milk before me, I listened to the more-than-hour-long audiobook preview one more time:
