That is Life.

Last night I was quite dreamy as we were getting ready to sleep, two things did not aid sleep one was talking to Richie.

And the other much more disturbing thing was the parties with their dull droning bass beat, which is sadly all the neighbours hear.

The dull droning bass beat and lots of excited screaming and screeching of happy party goers were not exactly good to go to sleep with.

The dull drone really had control of the airwaves for what seemed like eons but was only for several hours, I think that I must have lain awake for three hours.

Realised at a certain point that I needed to do something to resolve the situation; a pill and a bag of THC, the THC to relax me while waiting for the pill to work.

Guess the pill worked as I slept until 11.30 which is not bad at all rather disappointed that I had to use a pill to sleep last night.

Really want to get back to the happy days of inhaling 3 bags of thc and this would let me sleep until 9 to 9.30, sometimes even to 10.30 and to 11.00.

Found myself thinking about books both when I was drifting off as well as when I woke this morning.

In 1974 I went for an interview for a job as an offset litho printer with Metal Box in Baker Street, London.

I was interviewed by the head of the Personnel Department, a stern looking woman, called Vera Wood.

She asked me about the books I was reading and seemed quite surprised when I enthusiastically told her all about the author I was reading at that moment called Laurens van de Post.

Laurens van de Post is an Afrikaner, who wrote amongst other books The Lost World of The Kalahari; he did not agree with Apartheid, his books were about the life of the Kalahari Desert and the lives of the African people.

Laurens had been fortunate to get to know Africans as a child and with a child’s lack of prejudice.

I got Vera Wood so interested in his books, that I lent her a couple there and then that I had finished already.

I also got the job which started with a six week offset litho printing course in Acton, West London before starting work at the Metal Box Head Office in Baker Street, Central London.

The train journey was excellent for my passion for reading and I read quite a few books before the end of the course.

And once the course was finished I was travelling daily to Paddington Station and then because the short tube journey was so crowded and claustrophic.

And there was always the chance of being taken a stop further, just like I was the first day when I got taken to the next stop, which was Madame Tussards.

I decided to walk the twenty minutes to and from Paddington Station everyday, this was a good decision as one of my colleagues and her husband did the same journey everyday.

We ended up getting 40 minutes exercise every morning and every evening.

Some of the other authors that I read in 1974 and 1975 were:

Black Boy and The Outsider by Richard Wright.

The Little Foxes and Pentimento by Lillian Hellman.

Hear The Grass Singing and The Golden Notebook and The Four Gated City and The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing.

Living my Life and Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman.

Jane Eyre and Emma by Jane Austin.

Vida and Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy.

Sexual Politics and Flying and the Prostitution Papers by Kate Millett.

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.

Beyond A Boundary and Letters From London and Minty Alley by CLR James.

A Bend in the River and A House For Mr Biswas by V.S Naipaul.

The Tin Drum and Dog Years by Gunther Gras.

The Buddenbrooks and Tonio Kruger by Thomas Mann,

Washington Square and Portrait of a Lady by Henry James,

Patterson and Collected Poems by Carlos William Carlos.

War and Peace and Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan IIyich b y Tolstoy.

Metamorphous and The Trial and The Castle and The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka.

A year later Metal Box moved to a brand new office in Reading town centre a mere twenty minute walk from where I lived.

Although it was excellent not having t o catch the train at 7 am every morning I really missed the train journey and especially the reading time.

There are always swings and roundabouts and ups and downs.

That is life I guess