(no subject)
I took Friday off to go to the Lifeline Bookfair, turning up a good hour before the doors opened in order to get a good place in the queue. (And yet the queue had already extended down one side of the carpark before I got there!)
Though I picked up a lot of books for a very good price, I must admit... I didn't find it as much fun as previous years. I think the problem is that the Bookfair is now getting too large to make it a relaxing day out - you trudge for what appears to be miles over a huge concrete exhibition hall, lugging bags of books. The old venue, in the Albert Hall in Canberra was certainly overcrowded, but on the plus side, the scale wasn't quite so inhuman. Secondly, far too many dealers are now muscling in on the Bookfair. They swarm down on the tables like a plague of hungry locusts, picking out the best of everything going, and leaving much less for the browsing amateur to discover.
The Lifeline Bookfair - victim of its own success!
On Saturday I worked overtime, to make the extra money I'd spent on Friday. *G* If the Bookfair left me with sore feet, the overtime left me with a sore headache. Still, from the point of productivity, both days were equally successful.
And so to today, where ... I've done nothing much, except read the books bought on Friday and recovered from the previous two days.
In intervals, I've been watching Doctor Who's "The Horror of Fang Rock". Tom Baker in the most Victorian gothic phase of the show, with Leela as his companion. Thinking about it, the Fourth Doctor got most of the best companions, didn't he - Sarah Jane, Leela, the two Romanas. Though I must admit to enjoying Jo Grant and the Third Doctor, something (*ssshhh!*) I'm told I'm not supposed to do.
Still trying to analyse my disappointment with the finale of Life on Mars, and without giving away spoilers, I've come to the conclusion it's because I found it intellectually unsatisfying. It's a bit like I expected to bite into a good, nourishing intellectual meal, and came away with a mouthful of sugary emotional fairy-floss instead. Oh dear. Oh dear indeed.
Though I picked up a lot of books for a very good price, I must admit... I didn't find it as much fun as previous years. I think the problem is that the Bookfair is now getting too large to make it a relaxing day out - you trudge for what appears to be miles over a huge concrete exhibition hall, lugging bags of books. The old venue, in the Albert Hall in Canberra was certainly overcrowded, but on the plus side, the scale wasn't quite so inhuman. Secondly, far too many dealers are now muscling in on the Bookfair. They swarm down on the tables like a plague of hungry locusts, picking out the best of everything going, and leaving much less for the browsing amateur to discover.
The Lifeline Bookfair - victim of its own success!
On Saturday I worked overtime, to make the extra money I'd spent on Friday. *G* If the Bookfair left me with sore feet, the overtime left me with a sore headache. Still, from the point of productivity, both days were equally successful.
And so to today, where ... I've done nothing much, except read the books bought on Friday and recovered from the previous two days.
In intervals, I've been watching Doctor Who's "The Horror of Fang Rock". Tom Baker in the most Victorian gothic phase of the show, with Leela as his companion. Thinking about it, the Fourth Doctor got most of the best companions, didn't he - Sarah Jane, Leela, the two Romanas. Though I must admit to enjoying Jo Grant and the Third Doctor, something (*ssshhh!*) I'm told I'm not supposed to do.
Still trying to analyse my disappointment with the finale of Life on Mars, and without giving away spoilers, I've come to the conclusion it's because I found it intellectually unsatisfying. It's a bit like I expected to bite into a good, nourishing intellectual meal, and came away with a mouthful of sugary emotional fairy-floss instead. Oh dear. Oh dear indeed.