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Friday's NASA Picture of the Day is my new desktop picture. I was getting bored of the swirly patterns that were supplied with my Mac and the photo isn't too cluttered with detail, so my desktop icons show up well against the orange sky.

Two more favourite books

The first is "A Forest World" by Felix Salten (the author of "Bambi"). When I was making my the list of my favourite 100 books, I wanted to include this in my children's books section, but I couldn't remember its name. I had to ask my mother what it was called when I saw her last weekend, as I couldn't find anything on Amazon that sounded like the book that I remembered. It is about the interactions between the forest creatures and some domesticated animals including a couple of horses that are stabled on the edge of the forest. My mother had a copy of "Bambi" too, but I preferred AFW.

One book that I totally forgot about when making my list is "Conscience of the King", by Alfred Duggan. This is another of my mother's old books, and is the story of Cerdic, who started out as a Roman citizen of Britain just before the Romans pulled out. As his grandparents were proud of their Woden-born descent, he grew up speaking German as well as Latin, so he was able to integrate into the new order and after many adventures he ended up as the first king of Wessex. This is probably the book that first got me interested in the Dark Ages, and really deserves to be on my list.

Miscellany

1) This afternoon I went to see "Bowling for Columbine" at Broadway (more on that later). On leaving the cinema at about 5:45pm, I found myself wading through a sea of little girls waving Busted banners and realised that there must have been an afternoon teeny-bopper's concert at the Ice Stadium. Checking on the Internet, I found that it was part of the Summer XS tour, featuring Atomic Kitten, Busted, Kym Marsh and Girls Aloud. No wonder the crowd was 90% female and virtually all under 16 (except for parents escorting the younger kids). Personally I'd rather be watching Iron Maiden et al at this weekend's festival at Castle Donington.

2) The weather has been hot and sunny for the last few days, but I think the pollution levels must be quite high too, as I've been feeling tightness in the chest and have been using my inhaler much more frequently than usual.
UPDATE 10:15 PM - I have just checked The Air Quality Archive and the air pollution index locally is 6 at the moment, which is the high end of moderate (1-3 = Low, 4-6 = Moderate, 7-9 = High, 10 = Very High).

3) Last week I arranged a book swap with um from the MF book club board, as I didn't read May's book but had regretted it after reading everyone's reviews. On Saturday a parcel arrived with a copy of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. I sent um an Emile Zola novel in return. June's book is "Doomsday book" by Connie Willis, a controversial choice since it is out-of-print in the UK. Luckily there are two copies in the Notts library system, so I have put in an order for one. I just hope it doesn't take too long for them to get it over to my local branch.

4) I picked up a copy of "Smiley's People" at the second-hand paperback shop yesterday, and have started re-reading "Call for the Dead", the first George Smiley book. So my reading this month will mostly be spy novels.

5) NB: I must update the list that I made of things to do with my overtime. I am in dire need of a new pair of glasses, as my main pair have got badly scratched. I've got the day off on Tuesday, so I'll do some window-shopping at Vision Express