Gently Spinning In The Wind

It's no fun to be sick, especially when it's a mystery lurgy that strikes during vacations and lingers for weeks afterward, leaving your family doctor mystified. Could it be air conditioning, the stress of travelling, the sheer dissonance of stepping onto a vehicle at one place and off at another? What does it all mean? And why are there always bubble machines?

Oh, bubble machines... Is it possible that outside the universe all of our little dimensions are literally bubbles being blown by some vast and incomprehensible bubble machine, being operated by a one-eyed pirate with a scandalous space parrot? The space parrot is scandalous because he doesn't like crackers, therefore breaking union rules out in the great extra-dimensional void. (If you've tried to eat an extra-dimensional space cracker, you would quite readily agree with the poor bird!)

Moving on, reading a mammoth novel can be very daunting at times, as the sheer length of time required sits upon your mind, physically represented by the weight of the volume. The current example is Wilkie Collins's 'Armadale', which weighs in at a hefty six hundred and eighty pages in my copy, and was exceedingly slow going for a long while. Then, as the pages tinkle on, and enjoyment continues, you get to the last hundred and fifty and everything begins to zoom by. Oh, 'Armadale', you've turned out to be much better this time than on my abortive first attempt. Only 'No Name' will be left of old Wilkie's big four after this. That won't last for long...

As this post winds down the inevitable spluttery conclusion, which could be imagined best as the rubber bands running out of oomph in driving a teaspoon propellor, it's time to wonder at the week ahead. 'Armadale' will be finished, six students will be educated or their tutor will be reconverted into a destitute scholar at large, sickness will be conquered or a slimy cough will continue, and we will have another week of negative roughhousing as the EU referendum slowly, oh so slowly, nears and the primary campaigns continue. Please, world, can we have a debate which is actually based in reality? Please? Too unlikely? Oh well.

O.