Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Tales, pincer grip and work experience.

1. For my birthday Nick gave me the second Tales of the Ketty Jay book -- The Black Lung Captain. I know that he enjoyed the first of Chris Wooding's swashbuckling diesel airship pirate caper, so I'm looking forward to discussing this new instalment with him. I've watched Firefly since reading the first book, and these books are more of the same but with enough differences to make it interesting. The crew of the Ketty Jay are less wholesome and more haunted than the Fireflies; but their internal battles are handled with as much skill as the external battles -- which are frequent, splattery, and often funny.

2. Alec spots a fragment of last night's cabbage on the table beside him. He picks it up, examines it and then drops it on the floor. He --sometimes -- picks things up between his thumb and finger, rather than trying to use his entire hand.

3. I settle down to work on my listings and discover that the work experience girl has done a better job than I realised, and got further along than I realised, too. I wish I'd thanked her more and better.

Book treasure, worn and speaker.

1. Finding treasure in the Oxfam bookshop. I only popped in to look for a card. 2. Bettany doesn't wear makeup out and about, but noneth...