Tuesday 18 November 2008

Weird book meme

This one seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and I really wish I was at home so I could use a more interesting book, but I have been tagged by CatsPuke (what a fab name for a blog!) so here goes. The instructions are:

"Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56 Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL "

Okay, what can I lay my hands on.......

"It was his duty to take reasonable care for the safety of other road users. It was his duty to take reasonable care to drive carefully, keep a proper lookout and keep his vehicle under proper control. It was his duty to take reasonable care to avoid pulling out from the roadside into the path of the defender's vehicle."

Oh lordy, I am stopping after three sentences, that's enough surely. Yup, Siggi Bennett's marvelous book of Style Writs for the Sheriff Court. Wake up! I've finished! Aren't you glad you're not a lawyer?!

For some reason we also have, lying about in what is ostensibly a solicitors' office, a copy of Andrew Gimson's biography of Boris Johnson. Not entirely sure why. And I don't want to open that one because if I do, chances are I will carry on reading it and get no work done for the rest of today.

I am not going to follow the instructions to the letter (I'm an internetty rebel, I am) by tagging 5 victims fellow bloggers, but if you're reading and have a book nearby, have at it and let me know in the comments. I'm interested.

PS I am going for a run at lunchtime. You may come round and poke me with sharpened pencils if I don't.

7 comments:

  1. "It runs like a national helplines, which gives information and advice on the NMW. Enforcement officers at the Inland Revenue can help you to work out whether you are receiving your rights, and take enforcement action against your employer if you are not. Calls are charged at local rates, and are confidential." - Your Rights at Work, a TUC Guide

    ENUFFFFFFFF! It's too booooooorrrring!

    So, did you run? Did you, did you?

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  2. Do I need to get my pencil sharpener at the ready?

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  3. My nearest book doesn't have 56 pages, since I've just heard my little girl read. So I've moved along one and grabbed the book out of my work bag.

    "It had been renamed Liberty Avenue (instead of the more mundane Central Avenue) in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour, when Casco Bay became the northern base of the Atlantic Fleet. A big fuelling depot was established on Long Island, and every kind of ship imaginable, from little cruisers to aircraft carriers, threaded a way through the channels of the bay to take on fuel. A cable capable of detecting the passage of metal objects was stretched across the ocean floor from Bailey Island to Two Lights, and two boats stood vigil over the submarine nets at Hussey Sound waiting to open the nets in order to allow passage to military shipping."

    And that passage gives absolutely *no* indication of the nature of the book, in fact had I read that before picking the book up, I would never have bothered!

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  4. OK!

    "Casual or formal is up to you: if in doubt, make two, and alternate. Be sure your house has a lot of mirrors. Men made this way - like budgies - seem to adore them!"

    Margaret Atwood, Good Bones. (It's the chapter "Making a Man" - a spoof women's magazine article.)

    My word verification is "whishn". Very nearly Scots.

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  5. Huh. An interesting one. Mine's:

    "She landed rebelliously on both feet to see if she could. As soon as she was down, she wanted to go back up again straight away, like a child will come down a slide and sprint back round to the ladder before the exhilaration of the last descent has worn off.

    Whatever you said to yourself, she told Andy that evening, once they were back in Broad Face, when you jumped out of that plane, there was something deep within you that believed it was your last act."

    Made all the more intriguing by the fact I've not reached p56 yet! (It's from Who's Who in Hell, by Robert Chalmers.)

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  6. The roadmen's tar boilers were a familiar sight betweem the 1920s and 80s as they were towed around the island, boiling tar for the roads.

    Some mothers of "chesty" children took them to a tar boiler, in the belief that the pungent fumes were good for "learing the tubes".

    A Pictorial History of Arran, compiled by Andrew Boyle.

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  7. That was "clearing the tubes". One wouldn't want one's tubes leared, would one?

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