You know, I’m a book addict. Since I was very little books have been all around me. I grew up in a land without TV with parents who read. My Dad read technical books and books on sailing .. and that’s really all I remember about his books .. my Mum, I think she read everything; at least she read everything to me and my little sister. Bedtime stories, Hobbits, Boland light railways under the table in storms. Little golden books and nursery rhymes and Spike Milligan and Enid and all.

My grandparents and uncles and aunts used to send books by sea … so that’s a long time ago. We didn’t do the Bible but lots of Mythology and History and Looking and Learning and Beano’s and Eagle Annuals .. I remember the Funk and Wagnals which I’d read way before I’d gone to high school and the dictionaries … Big books and little books.

But you know, one thing I really hate is bookshelves divided into Big Books & Little Books. Who on earth came up with such a system as this? Surely not a volunteer.

Another thing I hate is books that disappear. Books that I give to Charity Shops as a donation that never make it onto the shelves. Where do these books go? How can I, in my vagrant state, donate to help less fortunate people than I .. if these books, be they little or small, are purloined before they can be exchanged for Tough Tony’s gold? Who eats them? Surely not someone who would divide them into Big Books and Little Books … Surely not.
I’m talking about Charity Shops here and not Op Shops. Op Shops I can understand, after all they’re all about opportunity and opportunity doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with charity .. especially in this Brave New World where even an ex-Prime Minister of the Lucky Country can make such a statement as; Charity will need to do the job that government was designed to do … How else can we expect to be able to afford a future. Mmmn, how else?

‘This is indeed a mystery,’ I remarked. ‘What do you imagine that it means?’
‘I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’ – Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, Power and Influence. – Arthur Conan-Doyle.