I don't read books.
I don't really know why this is.
It's not like I don't enjoy reading, I consume magazines & I always have. I clearly remember my first copy of Smash hits. Actually all I recall is that it featured a then unknown to me Toyah on the cover & contained in it's glossy bright pages the "songwords" to Spandau Ballet's "To cut a long story short" (Which incidentally was the first song I really, really loved). I didn't miss another issue then until maybe 87 or 88, when Record Mirror seemed much more suitable. Never liked the NME back then, I thought the journalists were vindictive, pompous twats who used big & strange words just because they could & not to actually convey anything. Years later when the NME became my bible I still despaired of the writers.
Also, like most of us from what I can gather, I sit here gobbling up word after word, night after night on this very chair from this very screen. I spend an enormous amount of time reading.
In the training part of my job I have found, to my amazement, that there are more illiterate people around than I'd ever thought possible. I always wonder not just of how they get by in life but how they feed their minds & their souls without reading.
Anyway, I digress.
So, it's not that I don't like reading. Nor is it that I haven't previously enjoyed reading books. Though as I type I can only recall doing so 2 or 3 times since I was a child. Strange, reminiscent of the 2 or 3 times I've took acid in my life: I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but just don't seek doing again.
I've always felt some sort of inferiority complex (shocker!) when it comes to books. Feared that those people who do read books would look down upon me. Conversations with new people or folks from outside my regular social circles fill me with dread when the topic finds it's way to books. They'd be all like:
Oh, I just finished
Soandso's new novel, it was really great
Yeah, I'm about half way through
Blahblahblah. I wasn't sure at first but I'm really getting into it now, I'm starting to think It may be as good as
wordsonpaper.
Oh I LOVE that, what about you Flash?
Erm, well, I... erm... I don't really read books, sorry.
And then they look at me with the same expression of suspicion & pity that I would wear if you replaced the
soandsos &
blahs with Snow Patrols & British Sea Powers & someone told me "I don't really listen to music"
Then I sit there thinking
to them, "Don't you dare think I'm intellectually lesser than you now just because I choose not to read books. You would be so wrong to think that, go on ask me a question- I bet I can answer it! I'm bloody clever, me! I am, I AM!"
I always tell myself that I don't have time to read a book, no just too much to do in my oh so busy little world. To illustrate the folly of this statement I shall talk you through how I have spent this day, Sunday the 8th day of May 2005:
Got up at around 8, made
The Boy some breakfast, had a fag* & a coffee, watched
The Boy playing Star Wars Battlefront (which is ace!), had another fag, swapped dressing gown for clothes, another fag & then we went out at 9.45.
*Just so as you know, when
The Boy is here I sit with my upper body out of the living room window to smoke. Always.
We then drove the 12 miles to Rugby where we went to a couple of car boot sales & returned here just after midday. I then cooked his lunch (which took 2 minutes as his Mum had sent a pre-cooked meal for me to microwave for him) & played on battlefront myself while he ate. At 1 o'clock I watched the event's of the last day in the championship unfold on score interactive with a ham & cheese sandwich & a coffee. I checked a blog or two at half time.
The Boy managed to amuse himself in his room with his toys until it had nearly finished. The last few minutes were permeated with several "How much longer is this on?"s & the odd "Sorry Dad" after accidentally clobbering me with his lightsaber.
Then for another hour or so we played Battlefront together, which was excellent. We were on opposing sides & when we'd run into each other we would endeavour to blow the living shit out of each other. The character's name appears over them when you see them , which is quite handy as there are bloody loads of clone troopers & battle droids running about & they all look the same. His is called Anakin & mine is called Flash, no really. I was told I couldn't call it Dad because he's still deeply pissed off that our character in Knights of the old republic would utter things like "I am Dad, Jedi Knight". So he was much happier with Flash.
Digressing again, my apologies.
At half 5 I took him home to his mum, picked up some milk & returned home. Since then I have made 2 coffees, put a load of washing on, browsed on I-tunes to see if I wanted to buy anything (I didn't), plugged Humbert into my bedroom stereo so I could record some new tunes onto a minidisc for Reckless, opened up Reason & listened to to the newly constructed intro & first verse of "White celebration" (which is all a bit techno! I know!), thought about starting on the chorus, closed Reason, checked soundclick to see if anyone listened to my tunes yesterday (they didn't), spent about 40 minutes in the bath & then started writing this post.
Point being; I reckon today, I could have spent roughly 4 hours book reading without my life suffering any effects of neglect.
So I don't have time for reading books, eh?
The last novel I read was called "The best a man can get". I forget the author but it was a great read. I totally enjoyed it & related to a lot of it. I only did read it though because I kind of had to. It had been Reckless' "prison" book, given to him by a kindly policewoman to make his 16 hour stint in chokey a bit more bearable. He was only in the cells at the local cop shot but to hear him tell it, he did porridge!
When he came out blinking back into freedom the next day, he insisted that both Dream Girl & I devour it as soon as possible because it was brilliant.
Dream Girl went first & I followed a week or so later.
I remember thinking as I closed it for the last time that I should do it more often. That was 2 and a half years ago.
Over the last few weeks I've been feeling a gentle but nagging itch. I like to soak in the bath for ages & while I bathe I like to read. I have tired of reading old issues of Q. So I figured the time was right to get a book.
What bloody book though?
I don't have a type or a favourite author. I also don't have any particular genre.
I was going to ask you guys for recommendations & I may still in time, but today at the second car boot sale I paid 50p for a book, a novel.
Nick Hornby's Hi fidelity.
Something I'd always thought would appeal to me.
So I started it at bathtime. I'm only four chapters in & I totally love it so far.
I hope that it may just becoming the "to cut a long story short" of my book reading years.
I suspect that it could become my favourite book ever!
But then, I don't read books.
