How is value measured ...

28 April

Some time ago I read something along the lines of, ‘The advent of the e-book has brought the end of the paper version of books.’ But has it really happened? For me, it hasn’t. I use both forms; a paperback in bed and an e-reader when I’m sat in the living room. Jan finds it hard at times as to understand how I can keep the story-lines clear. Well, I do keep them clear, along with the mags I read too. What has brought this up is that I read a comment on Facebook last night which made me wonder about the value of books in any form.

The comment was, ‘979 books in my TBR pile’ but I’m forcing myself to read an old book before a new one.’ Oh, really: but is there any value in that pile? This came up years ago in a chat I had with my brother years ago after I bought a tatty paperback from a charity shop. Dave saw it exclaimed that he wouldn’t have bought a book in such a state, but would get a brand new hardback copy. ‘And when would you read it Dave?’ I asked; he didn’t reply. ‘ This one was 50p and will be read by the end of the week; if you go out and buy a book for £20 and it doesn’t get read, who got the better buy?’ His arm folded and his eyes went up to the top right hand corner of the room and refused to answer or even look at me. That’s another win for me! Anyway … returning to the unread pile … I would suggest that if someone has that many books that need reading, then they should perhaps think about not buying any new ones until that pile has been read.

It won’t be long before Springwatch is back on our telly shows. One of the many locations for it was Pensthorpe Natural Park, and that is where we were yesterday, and it was a so-so day. We arrived OK and set off round the site and to start with it all seemed fine. What we didn’t know was that it’s along the lines of the Wetland Trust sites like Slimbridge, but nowhere near as good. It looks like all the fences are electrified, even the tall ones; their ‘collection’ of birds was poor; but what really made it attractive to Jan was the mention of red squirrels. Yes, they do have then, but they are part of a breeding program and they’re not freely running around.

Next came the pathways. Most were fine for us in our scooter, but around 20% were not suitable for us, even though we were assured that we could get round the whole site. Other paths were hardly visible, let alone usable for us. In places we had to get off the scooters and push/walk them forward. The wild birds there wasn’t all that high in number, but that’s birding all over really and it can’t be blamed on the centre. We took a packed lunch with us so we can’t say what the café was like, but the shop is quite large and from what we saw is of reasonable value. As I said, a so-so day.

On Monday I mentioned that I had got 28 shots of a mistle thrush on our bird table. Well, yesterday I just carried on the with the same SD card and out of the 100 shots I got, only eight are worthwhile. At least one of them is of the thrush …

And today’s funny …

The best legal advice ever … …was spotted on a billboard ad for the law office of Larry L. Archie: “Just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re guilty.”