Did anything good happen today? July 2018

I cycled to work and back - a 20-mile round trip - and did the morning leg in a record time for me of 34 minutes.  I then had a great day with the two service users I was assigned to.  I spent the morning with one of them painting some pictures, and the afternoon with the other one doing some jigsaws.

When I got home, I went down to the beach for a refreshing swim before tea.

Lots of exercise and creative endeavour today!  Now I'm going to do some reading before bed. 

Hi Tom, what are you reading?

I'm going through a phase of re-reading some tried and trusted favourites.  Recently finished Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' and Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness.'  I'm now on Philip Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint', which is one of the funniest books I ever read.  A college teacher once told me that the only true reading is re-reading.  I don't see much new stuff that takes my fancy, so the oldies it is!

I'm sure plenty of good new stuff is getting published.  But with the cut-throat way things are now in publishing, I think many are only prepared to put their money into stuff that is guaranteed to sell.  So it's often the lowest common denominators: celebs, cooks, sex, dragons, etc.  Also, a lot of 'new' writers seem to be the products of university creative writing degrees, and the novels read like they've been workshopped.

I'm sure plenty of good new stuff is getting published.  But with the cut-throat way things are now in publishing, I think many are only prepared to put their money into stuff that is guaranteed to sell.  So it's often the lowest common denominators: celebs, cooks, sex, dragons, etc.  Also, a lot of 'new' writers seem to be the products of university creative writing degrees, and the novels read like they've been workshopped.