Serendipity

Library roulette

Serendipity, I think it's called. A happy accident. With Internet access, there's real and virtual serendipity.

I only went into the library to keep BLISS and DLL company. I've plenty on the go at the moment, book-wise. There, on the main stand, facing the doors, in pride of place, was Hallo Sausages – The Lyrics of Ian Dury. Edited by Jemima Dury. Brand new. Very first loan. Flicking through, I saw the photo of Dury's battered old Rotring pen and ink bottle. Sold.

Then on the way out, again right in the you-can't-miss-seeing-this slot of the display stand, there was a copy of Ablutions. The cover caught my eye and the artwork looked vaguely familiar. By Patrick DeWitt. The name rang some bells, too. He wrote The Sisters Brothers, one of the best books I'd read last year. It had been on the 2011 Booker shortlist. Terse, sparse, fast-paced Cormac McCarthy type narrative, with a huge added dollop of very black humour and irony. Main characters are brothers differentiated by one being just little bit meaner, more ruthless and more psychopathic than the other. Superbly jet black, bleak and unremittingly hilarious. Another unexpected lucky find.

Great when it happens like that. Small but satisfying. Like finding that pound coin the return slot of the pay and display ticket machine.

Same happens electronically. Search the library or other repositories on line and there's plenty of tangents and off-piste stuff to find, plenty of gems among the rubbish.

On the beach...

...with the dog in the dark this morning.

Inconvenient tides, out at 06:30, before sunrise.

Came away with some odd, spooky and shaky photos, as the wind was a bit fierce, too.