Two-and-a-half-day weekend!

I took Friday afternoon off. It would have felt like skiving off except that I had already, earlier this week, put in more than enough overtime to cover it. A friend and I spent the day at ... an antiquarian book show!

I know, you can't believe how cool I am. I think we were the youngest people there by at least 30 years, but I was clearly among my kin. All the vendors were doing crossword puzzles, for starters. I saw lots of spectacles on cords, cardigans and elbow patches, corduroy and tweed. Quite a number had come from the pub, if the tang of alcohol was any indication. There was loads of ephemera as well as books - old maps, travel guides, magazines, souvenir booklets, postcards, etc. etc. I would have bought Baedeker's Guide to Canada from 1900 except it was 75 pounds, and I longingly gazed at old ordnance survey maps and the collected British Vogues of 1960, which at 60 pounds and about 80 pounds in weight, was a patently impractical purchase for one living overseas. There was a lot of money about, antiquarian books being rather big business here. I was charmed by a 5800-pound (price, not weight) leather-bound book of hand-written recipes for food, wine and medicine that a family had kept in the early 1700s, and shocked to see a series of Rudyard Kipling books with swastikas on the spines (I realised they predated WWII and, being about India, were instead referencing the Hindu/Sanskrit symbol). A surprising number of vendors had elegantly-bound copies of Darwin's 'Earthworms and Vegetable Moulds', which must have been a best-seller at one point. Several old books had letters or photos tucked inside (sometimes related to the author, sometimes to the book's past owners) and this was considered to add to the value. For hours we wandered and work was completely left behind and why am I not an antiquarian bookseller? I have missed my calling.

While I didn't invest much in books at the show (I knew I would just get taken for a ride as I don't know enough about what things are worth), I bought a print of one of Howard Phipps' etchings. He is a new discovery for me, but I adore his little etchings of book shops, staircases and sitting rooms. They have a mysterious, empty feel as though someone has just left or something has just happened or is about to happen. (The web link is not to anything I bought, just to an example of his work. I spent far far less than that!)

After a brief foray into gadgetry, I have managed to lose my first and probably last mobile phone. I hadn't used it for ages, because I had forgotten my online password to put more money on and couldn't be bothered to sort it out. I probably shouldn't admit to things like this lest I overwhelm people with my togetherness. Anyway, it really could have gone missing any time in the last few months, which means I am highly unlikely to find it. I looked about the flat, and suddenly became aware of the myriad ways that something so small - for it was small - could be lost forever. It could have gotten swept into a wastepaper basket and thrown out. It could have fallen out of my backpack pocket when I was getting something else out (I do carry around a lot of junk). I could have thrown it into a plastic bag with a bunch of other stuff when repacking my carry-on for the return flight, and then forgotten it was there and thrown out the bag. The possibilities are endless. If I ever do get another mobile phone it will have to be a 1980s toaster-sized one so I can keep track of it.

Because it's Friday and Fridays warrant silliness, may I direct you to my favourite video of the day?
Finnish disco lesson.
What's that catchy song, you ask? Why it's that old chestnut, Moskau.
Here's the video.