a late lunch and an old friend

Back on the road this week, although on Sunday we were on the way to a Jamie Oliver late lunch via an unexpected cushion shop.

The latter gave me the opportunity to slip away to an adjacent bookstore. I

t was only a few minutes before my disappearance was registered, but enough time for me to spot the little George Orwell title which I've had with me this week.

It was quite a surprise, because I thought I'd read all the readily available Orwell titles, so this was similar at a personal level to those discoveries that we read about where a new Ted Hughes manuscript or Vaughan Williams choral work is discovered.

To me, the essays in this Orwell selection come across a bit like a letter or conversation with a comfortable friend after quite a long gap. You don't have to agree with everything, but its great to hear from a strong point of view.

Actually, as I was handing over the cash, the shop assistant was equally animated about it - "Ooh - you've found that - I just read it a few days ago - its really fascinating..." etc. I'm also sure it wasn't mere salescraft but that she had already found it to be an interesting extension.

So I'm rationing my reads of it, in amongst the commercial stuff that I'm working on this week.