Tuesday

Busy again today. Some entertainment yesterday, thanks to the pope resigning, lots of pope jokes, and horse jokes, and papal horse jokes. Over it now.

Been having a lot of bad dreams - not just oddities - such as the dream I had recently about getting into a fight with dawn French - but recurring dreams I've had all my life - the one I've had since I was a kid where all the grown ups go mad and start killing each other - and another one about missing trains and getting lost in train and tube stations, wandering around platforms and tunnels.

By coincidence - that's exactly hat I did yesterday. Went to collect a computer monitor from a house in an unfamiliar part of town - and then managed to get lost - wandering around in the sleet, carrying a heavy piece of equipment, for over an hour - eventually ending up back where I started - I'd gone in a huge loop - until I found a road sign that said 'London, Brighton, StLeonards' - I seemed to be half way to Battle. I usually have an exceptional sense of direction - but not last night. Must have looks very odd, surprised I didn't get picked up by the police - very disorientated. I'll put it down to my occasional bouts of pseudo-senility.

Watched a bit of that 'Wonders of Life' last night - very well done, but has Brian Cox had work done?

Have a lot of small, annoying, awkward things to do - that get in the way of work, people keep emailing me - and in their mind, once it's emailed - it's done - they expect the work by return. Have stopped opening my emails after 7pm at night.

The monitor I bought requires an adaptor that I accidentally gave away last year, that's the story of my life.

I've been following the drama about the most recent cover for 'The Bell Jar' - there is an article in today's Guardian with a history of covers - frankly, I don't really like any of them. The latest isn't bad because of it's content - which most commentators seem to think had 'dumbed down' the book or trivialised it - but because it's so poorly executed and badly laid out - have particular issue with the weak typography - the authors name is badly spaced in a flimsy, wimpy font style that looks dated and prissy. Not good work at all. I bought a copy of 'Thinking in Numbers' - by Daniel Tammet last week - about numbers and cognition of number systems - it too has a fucking horrible cover. I've always quite liked the idea of working in book design, but it's not an industry I was able to get into - none of the agencies I worked for did them - and publishing, whilst not exactly a closed shop - is very different socially and professionally to the way I work. I'll just have to do y own - in my head.