We bought a whole load of used books from the Cathedral’s annual Michaelmas Fair back in November, one of which a particularly tattered copy of Mark Haddon’s “A Spot of Bother”. I quite liked his other one, the one about the autistic boy sleuth, called The Incident of the dog in the Nighttime. But this one, however, Is Very Seriously Dreary. How much contemporary fiction out there right now is about mid life crisis, family, life, death and all that, which includes a wedding as the centerpiece and features one gay sibling? The writing is okay but it’s the thought of having to go through another two hundred pages with nothing much happening that makes me say well at least it only cost me ten bucks! If I want to read the inconsequential and idiosyncratic thoughts of middle aged folk on life, sex and death, I already have my own endless supply of the stuff. And from the 500 or so other paperbacks I need to donate to the Michaelmas Fair next year. I hate having to read through a book just in case something exciting happens right at the end. But that never bloody happens, does it. I “discovered” this writer called Louise Welsh last year, really liked one of her books and then proceeded to read another one and half way through I realize this is shite and nothing is going to happen so what should I do? Chuck it or hang in there? I guess, if it starts to feel like work, then why should I be reading this instead of Durkheim or Bataille?

That’s why I like writers like Palaniuk, Bukowski or even Murakami, who writes about stuff that is quite unlikely to happen to me anytime ever.

So, books. Yeah. They can certainly be worse than TV. Speaking of books. You know the OUP does this “A Very short Introduction to …” series? I quite like some of them, I think I bought the ones on Theology, Augustine, Sexuality, and my husband bought the one on Modern Linguistics. It's quite well done and if I have unlimited funds I'd quite like to get the whole series.

So, today I was in the Shen of Zhen, with a couple of me lady friends, and I have to admit this was only my second time ever to this glorious city (on which the feet of the Deng Xiao of Ping set some thirty or so moumnetal years ago)! Last time I was there, I did not even see daylight (yes, was in the LuoWu shopping center the whole four hours). So this time it was interesting, we took the train, got to one of the larger bookstores (book cities, they are called), as I wanted to get some Putonghua/Pinyin flashcards for my children. And there they were, these OUP “A Very Short Introduction to….” Series, BILINGUAL, for 18 RMB each. EIGHTEEN!!!!! That would be about HK$20 or less, which is just not right. There was no mention of OUP anywhere on these books, so, hmmm does that mean these are completely legit? Probably not. And so I bought every one they have on the shelves – Renaissance Art, Feminism, 18th Century Britain, History of Time….

And then, country bumpkin that we were, we went to Dongmen and bought a whole bunch of DVDs – they were 6 RMB each. Slighty more than a skewer of curried fishballs. I bought Futurama the Movie: Bender’s Game, Tropic Thunder, Burn after Reading, Shrek the Halls, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Spongebob Squarepants the movie, and a couple of sets for my kids to give to their dad for X’mas. Speaking of which, Spongebob is one kids’ show I approve of. It’s got me stamp on it. Yesssireee. So these were all 6 RMB each. And I bought three CDs, a Best of Johnny Cash double CD (10 RMB), a Guerrero’s Late Night Tales (9 RMB) and one of Land Lang (note – he is most definitely a National Treasure but NOT a giant panda, contrary to what the name may suggest) playing some Chopin concerto (9 RMB).

I know every Hongkonger in Hong Kong KNOWS and HAVE KNOWN for the past ten years that things over the border are cheap but still, I still can’t get over it. Of course it’s all wrong, but then hey I did pay $99 for a Singhbad DVD in HMV and it stopped working half the way through. And the 1st season of Scrubs, that we paid $499 for – which doesn’t work with the component lines. Who’s getting screwed here?

And then we had lunch at Little Fat Sheep. It’s about half the price of what you’d pay in HK and we absolutely stuffed our faces. But man did I feel dopey afterwards. I had to lie down and nap for two hours after I got home. I’m convinced it’s the MSG or whatever it is that they put in the soup there. My body was telling me, man, that was NOT RIGHT! Whatever you put in me, it’s gonna take some work flushing out. If you would excuse me. Me got work to do. Kinda thang.

So I had a two hour nap, after which I still felt doped out.

Then I had half a dozen slices of brownies and a half litre of diet coke and I felt a bit better. Then I did a bit of Wii Fit (yes I bought one, last week), ate more brownies and drank half a bottle of wine. And I am feeling a bit better.