poliphilo

In Sarah Waters' tremendous novel The Little Stranger- a story about change and decay and damped down hatred- there's a scene in which a young woman (not exactly the heroine because this is a book without such things) is discovered rubbing lanolin into the leather binding of an old book. That's how you keep them in good fettle apparently- your leather-bound books. I scan my own little library- I've got one or two leather-bound ones but mostly they're cloth and paper- and note the change and decay. I try to read books gently, not hurting their spines or folding or loosening their pages but every time one takes one off the shelf one does some damage. My copy of The Little Stranger has a creased spine. It didn't before and now it does - and you can't use lanolin on a paperback.

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Since I became a clerk people have been emailing me and ringing me up who didn't do these things before. I like it and I don't like it- but that's the price you pay for going up in the world. Prominence leads to botheration.

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Sovereign Harbour is where people who are wealthy by Eastbourne's unexacting standards live and keep their boats. I had time to kill yesterday and walked round the western part of it where I hadn't been before. It was very quiet, all but deserted, and very pretty- so I took pictures. At one point I knowingly entered a section marked "PRIVATE", thinking it would be a short cut- which it wasn't- and got mildly told off for it. I replied with equal mildness- but didn't apologise....