Friday 21 September 2012

Friday Five: P52

As part of international book week, a diversion has been doing the rounds of Facebook, which goes like this: take the book next to you. Go to page 52, fifth sentence and post. Don't mention the title of the book.

Being as I write in my office, I am surrounded by dictionaries, encyclopaedia, and various other reference books, so I picked the top five books from the stack beside my bed instead.

5 Random Sentences:
  1. "The remarkable similarity between this course of proceeding and that adopted by their Great Ancestor beneath the vaults of Parliament House at Westminster, is too obvious and too full of interest, to stand in need of comment."
  2. "I turned from the contemplation of it to another photograph - one of my father - in a silver frame on the dressing-table."
  3. "Even its origin has been granted literary associations."
  4. "Ten neighbours were listed, who were also disturbed by his habit of 'deliberately exposing himself naked in a most indecent posture situation and practice to divers liege subjects both male and female'."
  5. "She and I weren't all that close, and, to be honest, when she arrived I felt as if I knew Helene Baltru better than my own flesh and blood."
My father says he reads a sentence at random to see if he thinks the book will inspire him. I'm not sure that any of those sound particularly inspirational on their own. And that is the danger of taking something out of context.

Thursday 20 September 2012

Quote for Today: Healthy Living

"If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer." - Clement Freud: broadcaster, writer, politician, chef