Saturday, 7 August 2010
Mentioned in dispatches
The war against chaos and for the reordering of books and furniture downstairs is being fought with patience, vigour and resolve. There is progress on all fronts. Our victorious battalions of damp rags, vacuum cleaners, bookcase movers, book transporters and rubbish disposers have penetrated enemy lines and there is light at the end of the window. The effect is generally pacific and while pockets of resistance undoubtedly remain they will be mopped up within a few days.
The troops have even had time to attend a wedding tonight, alcohol consumption strictly limited. A smart turnout is promised for the morning when we will take London by surprise.
The reign of clear surfaces will last a thousand years.
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4 comments:
Heh. Good luck with that. 1000 years, or until the grandchildren become regular visitors, whichever comes first!
"..the reordering of books.." The words echo down through history. There's a reason why almost every library I have worked in has had at least one instance of ghost librarians turning up in broad daylight to do just this.
But now that cataloguing departments have been hollowed out, it's changed, and it's these colleagues who haunt. In 1990, a (my London borough library) cataloguer passed away through cancer. It didn't stop him turning up, apparently.
He can't have meant to cause the kerfuffle he did in the stacks that morning, or to so scare the poor woman who sprinted upstairs, white and shaking, having bid her old friend "good morning" before remembering -
Well spotted, dana. My grandchildren have their very own methodology of taking over my home. That includes posters on doors (this office I'm in now has this message: Katie's Room - NO ENTRY - Trespassers will be eaten alive!) to boxes containing momentos of our walks in the countryside (unusual pebbles or sticks)down to their vast collection of videos, which outnumber my own by a ratio of 50 to 1.
I daren't even start a war, because my enemy are too numerous. Hah! And they know all my weak spots. So, unlike George, I shall just continue to wade through the battlefield of life, wandering aimlessly through the carnage. I am too shell-shocked to call for victorious battalions of damp rags, vacuum cleaners, bookcase movers, book transporters and rubbish disposers.
A little vaingloriousness encourages the troops, Dana.
Ghost librarians, James, nudge me uncomfortably towards the early scene in Ghostbusters - soft toys turned into ectoplasm. My own ghost librarians are likely to be standing behind counters and saying things like 'That will be £2.40 in overdue charges.
Thanks also for the notification demonstrating how More Than Mind Games and the Jabulani ball are coupled in at least one small sector of society's mind with my own web presence.
The granddaughter is a thing of beauty indeed.
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