Lawrence

 I watched Lawrence of Arabia. This took up much of the middle of the day. The evening before I'd started reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence's "self-regardant" account of the desert revolt he got caught up in. "Self-regardant" is his own word so let's not accuse him of naïveté. I've always found him interesting, but why I should want to deepen that interest at this particular moment in time is beyond me. I had a favourite Balzac lined up but, having just finished La Chartreuse de Parme, I felt I'd spent long enough in the atmosphere of early 19th century France and it would be nice to go some place else....