If you must know, I shot a librarian. But I did not shoot a deputy librarian.

Here are the three books I've been reading at the library this week, as research for something I'm writing. But the librarians at the issue desk don't know that. And somehow, they always manage to hand them to me with the red one on the top of the pile...

... and then give a look that says 'My God... what did you do?'

Or so it seems to me. Maybe it's just my guilty conscience.

Obviously, you have to read it in the voice.

The British Library sells postcards (that's not the main thing they do, but they do do it), and some of them are of unlikely book-covers, such as this one:

However, another thing the British Library do is allow you to order almost any book ever printed in Britain (that is the main thing they do). So anyone sufficiently intrigued by the material of nineteenth century Scotland's premier aristocratic comic can nip up to the reading rooms, and order it up. Which reminds you, have you heard this one?

"A young man had occasion to move from where he had hitherto lived, to another district. He had been associated with Presbyterians in his former abode, but it transpired that his views in Church matters were not of any rigid sort. It occurred, therefore, to the clergyman of the Episcopal church in the neighbourhood that the young man might suitably be invited to become a member of that Church. This was accomplished; but not long afterwards it transpired that he was about to join the Roman Catholics. On hearing this a friend of the Rector, who, like himself, was a keen curler, remarked, “Man, you’ve souppit him through the Hoose.”

*tap* *tap* Is this thing on? Oh, come on! He'd souppit him! Through the Hoose! Because, he had been associated with Presbyterians in his former abode, but now.... oh, never mind. Tough crowd.

More thrilling adventures of spending too much time in a library.

The franchise of the cafe in the British Library has changed hands, which has left me flustered, indignant and disturbed , despite the fact that the staff and prices remain the same, and the food looks, if anything, nicer. Is this a sign I have become institutionalised?

Meanwhile, find this mournful chain of comments written, in various hands, on one of the paper 'How to read a book, you idiot' signs on every desk.

- PHD-takes forever!
- Agreed
- Would never put myself through that.
- You don't have to.
- It's worth it in the end. DR.
- I didn't get funding, so...

Not sure whether the penultimate Smuggins signed with their initials, which is bad - are we supposed to know who s/he is? Daniel Radcliffe? Diana Ross? - or signed as 'Doctor', which is worse, and probably best treated with a smack in the mouth.

Job done.

Sign at till at the British Library cafe:

"Due to a new credit card terminal installation, we are not able to process any payment by cards."

Right. Frankly, I'd have been tempted to stick with the old terminal.

And doubtless someone, somewhere, was once given it for Christmas... and was overjoyed.

You remember how I paranoidly take out books to have on my desk at the British Library, so it looks like I have a right to be there; but cannily choose ones that look really dull so I won't be distracted into reading them? No? Well I do.

Such as the excellent 'Early United States Barbed Wire Patents', by Jesse S James. Presumably he added the 'S' to avoid being confused with notorious outlaw and train robber Jesse James. Though I can't help thinking he did this job far more efficiently just by writing a book about barbed wire patents. Here is the first sentence:

'I started to realize the dire need of a book of this kind soon after I started to collect old types of barbed wire in 1957.' Hats off to Jesse the use of the word 'dire'.

Here are my other three favourite sentences:

'I believe it would be a safe bet, if anyone could ever get a caller, that there has been more of this ‘Hodge’s ten-point spur rowel’ wire found by barbed wire collectors than all the other ‘rotating’ type barbs combined.'

Look out for some terrific exclamation mark work in this next one:

'I believe this patent takes the cake for the largest number of barb types shown that can be used on its fence-wire. Seven!'

And the peerless:

'If you happen to be a barbed-wire collector who has been trying to locate the patent data on your ‘saw-toothed ribbed ribbon wire’, you need look no further!'


See, now it looks as if I'm sneering at someone for being enthusiastic about their hobby, and God knows I've bored on about comedy for too long to too many people to be allowed to do that, even if I wanted to. But, Jesse, I don't know... barbed wire? Really?

I sneak cooks.

On the back of a cubicle door in the gents at the British Library, someone, possibly under the impression that a survey is being taken, has written ‘I suck cocks’. And underneath, someone else has written ‘I cock snooks’. Excellent.

But try the one in Jail Road, Lahore.

Book I’m pretending to read at the British Library today:

‘A List of Post Offices In Pakistan (corrected up to 31-5-74)’

So, if you happen to be reading this in Dhari Sayyadan, Jhelum, in 1974, (possibly after a ‘Life on Mars’ style accident), and are hoping to send a telegram, I can exclusively advise you not to get your hopes up. Telegrams are not accepted. Sorry about that.

For Sveriges Finska Pingstmission, see Uusi Yhteys. Or, if you prefer, don’t.

I like to work at the British Library, because it has large, serious reading rooms full of large, serious desks, at which large, serious people work seriously, which, on a good day, has the effect of shaming me into working seriously too. Not to mention largely. Whereas in my room, I am surrounded by my bed, my dvd player, and shelves full of some of my favourite books. None of which are large or serious, and all ofwhich are more fun than working. So, I go to the BL. But the reason everyone else goes to the BL is that it is a copyright library, where you can order up practically any book ever written. So the large, serious people aforementioned tend to be surrounded by piles of large, serious books. Looking to my right for instance, someone is poring over ‘The Origins of Marxism’. (I have a feeling that Marx wrote Das Kapital in the British Library, so he doesn't have far to look), whilst to my left we have ‘Figured in Marble’, ‘The World as Sculpture’ and a fierce lady with an expression that says ‘Stop Looking At My Books, Beardie’.

The effect of this is that when I first started coming here, I felt a bit of a fraud for writing away with no books beside me, as if it was clear to everyone that I might as well be writing in a Starbucks, and they all resented me for taking up a large, serious desk for my thin, facetious work. So I started ordering books myself, for camouflage. Unfortunately, this meant that instead of being distracted by some books, I was now distracted by my pick of every book ever written. Suddenly, my work-rate dropped sharply, and my reading-old-James-Thurber-collections-rate shot up. So I instigated plan B - picking a random dry text book from the shelves, rather than ordering up something I might be tempted to read. But when your only alternatives are working or reading a text book, it’s amazing how fascinating the geology of the Scottish oil-fields can suddenly become. Go on, ask me anything about the Scapa Flow. So now I’m on plan C. The book lying open in front of me as I type is the Svensk Tidskriftsforteckning 1990-91 (a vintage year for tidskrifts, as I’m sure you know) and I don’t understand a work of it. Perfect. Except that now, I’m paranoid that as a Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque punishment for my folly, a Swede is going to pass by, notice what I’m reading , utter a glad cry of… whatever one Swede cries when he meets a fellow Swede- and I’m going to be forced either to explain my shameful ruse to the whole reading room, or trust to my ability to improvise Swedish. But until that happens, it seems to be working. Even I can’t spend more than ten minutes reading what appears to be a bibliography in a foreign language, and for the last twenty minutes, I have been diligently writing away.

On this blog entry, though. Not on, you know, any of the four things I absolutely have to complete in the next six weeks. But still, it’s a start.

Volumes of a set of encyclopedias in the British Library which I think would make rather good book titles in their own right.

Airports Ancient
The companion work to the rather larger volume 'Airports Modern', this intriguing coffee-table book includes details of the Ithaca Aerodrome, the great landing plains of the Nile Delta, and Ninevah International Transport Hub.

Interjection Jesus
We know from the gospel of Luke that even as a boy of twelve Jesus was found in the temple, debating with the elders. But the author of this theological study has found more details in the apocryphal gospel of Leslie, revealing that the young messiah was in fact a right little know-all, given the nick-name 'Interjection' Jesus by his rabbis from his habit of piping up during talmudic debate with comments such as 'Yes, obviously'; 'Doesn't sound like Dad to me' or 'Tell you what -shall I just ask him?'

Overseas Patella
The inspirational story of little Chrissie Brown of Newfoundland, who in 1983 was involved in a serious dogsled accident, and urgently required a knee transplant. But so uniquely knobbly was her kneebone that the only suitable donor that could be found was an old man in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands. And so began a thrilling dash across the Atlantic to track down the donor, forcibly remove his knee, and return it to Chrissie before it went all green and manky. Heart-warming.

Quran Ropework
Islamic boyscouts! Impress your troop leader and the Almighty in equal measure with this guide to rendering the 99 names of Allah in knotted twine! Instructive, but potentially blasphemous if you're hamfisted.

Surveillance Tea
Suspicious of how much work the builders are doing while you're out of the house? Worried about what the au pair or babysitter gets up to? Surveillance Tea is the answer, according to this brochure from Janus Security Devices Ltd. Brew them a pot before you leave, flick the in-handle camera and the up-spout microphone to 'on', and prepare to learn the worst.

Es is nicht groB und es is nicht gescheit.

Look, I'm really not the sort of person who looks for things like this. Honest. But I spent yesterday in a library, working opposite a floor to ceiling bookshelf containing a thirty volume German Encyclopedia. And I couldn't help but notice that right at the start, four consecutive volumes were labelled:

ASS - BAP
BAP - BER
BER - BRA
BRA - BUM

Which raises two questions. Firstly, why did the editors of this German encyclopedia leave the task of deciding the volume divisions to an English 10 year old boy? And secondly... what's rude about 'BER'?

(P.S. The child contained himself for the rest of the volumes, none of which are naughty at all. Until the end, when he broke out with an exuberent valedictory 'WEE')