cover to cover

Just the merest shiver of spring and we're back into winter here in Chichester; the view out of my window is relentlessly monochrome all of a sudden, which is a depressing sight - I had an almost spring-in-my-step this morning (a concept which will doubtless amuse Vic, who is rightly tired of my month-long bad mood at the moment) as the sun pulsed on the back of my neck waiting for my connection at Barnham. I've started getting an even earlier train in the morning, even though it gets me in at the same time, such is my colleague-phobia and desire to be able to read the paper cover to cover, read a chapter of my book and get in a fifteen minute nap.

At the moment I'm reading a book for my work book-group - Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs - which is irritating me. It's a quick read, a half-time orange, but I want to get back to Cloud Atlas.

The Land of Laughs is from the Stephen King school of writing. Naive, good-hearted characters roll into idealistic US towns to warm applause from mystifyingly friendly strangers. They walk into shops and interrupt frantic conversations consisting of phrases like "For god's sake, Anna, that's the seventh boy gone missing this month! And have you seen the horses?". They suspect nothing. Before long, strange things start happening. Who'd have thought it?

On reflection, I decide to stretch my sleep outwards to twenty five, or read the education supplement.

Please stop raining.