Friday, August 04, 2006

Cold-Induced Tourette's and Holiday Readings

I get colds, I hate colds, I take cold medicine because after a couple of years where I went off it and experimented with drinking juice, garlic tablets and other flights of fancy I worked out that the only way to prevent a full-blown flu, for me, is to medicate my snot glands dry and keep the crap out of my lungs.

As a side effect, I seem to get a little bout of tourette's syndrome.

Take this morning. Someone at work is talking to me about someone else I don't have a very high opinion of, and asks me if I know her. To which I reply in a deadpan voice with words that included 'hate', among others. Now I'm not particularly fond of this individual, but she's simply too mediocre to inspire anything approaching hatred, and the language was totally (notwithstanding that we're in a pretty robust team here) inappropriate.

In my last role I fell out with someone for ages when in response to a rather rude comment they made about their seniority as a lawyer, I replied 'you must be a fucking genius then!' Such language was common in that Court, and patronising people about their level of experience (and that coming from a pretty average lawyer) is very rude, but the out-of-character way I delivered it, at a crowded Court Registry counter, raised a few eyebrows.

There's no easy solution, it hasn't gotten to career-stopping proportions yet, I just have to try and keep an eye on it.

Go home, rest they say but if you are like me and you get several weeks' worth of colds each year you'll know that sitting at home the whole time just isn't an option. And besides some fucking arsehole (see, I can't help it) will inevitably be doing renovations next door with a radio turned to 11 on Hot 200 Bogan Radio singing along with the Choirboys, that's Murphy's Law.

The craphouse thing is that we go on holidays tomorrow, so I kick the holiday off on a sickly note.

The nice thing is that we go on holidays tomorrow, so I can beat this shitty lurgy lying next to a pool in 26 degree Palm Beach heat reading one of the gazillion books I've started.

Do you, dear reader, start lots of books simultaneously? I try not to, but it just happens.

Books I've started and may or may not progress (sorry about the links but I can't fucking be arsed this morning, and can only justify posting for a few minutes):

Day of the Jackal ... Frederick Forsyth
The Tyrannicide Brief ... Geoffrey Robertson QC
The Latham Diaries ... by that other fucking Tourettes headcase
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman ... Haruki Murakami
Phoenix: Policing the Shadows ... Jack Holland
In the Shadow of Swords ... Sally Neighbour

Yes I know three are about terrorism, I'm a political nerd, ok?

Books I'm eyeing off and may read instead:

Everything is Illuminated ... Jonathan Safran Foer
Something from the Booker list ... Someone Famous and Verbose
Something incredibly Fast and Trashy... Dan Grisham or some other idiot.

Or I'll re-read The Old Man and The Sea for the 4th time, some writing never loses its potency.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh, Day of the Jackal is good. Geoffrey Robertson I love but his writing is just so dense that I inevitably lose staying power.

QM

Armagnac Esq said...

Yes, he's both dense and verbose. He is, after all, a QC.

Good to see you back QM.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan Saffran Foer is a terrific writer - I loved 'Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close' and his wife is good too - check out 'The History of Love' (Nicole Krauss) if you have time.

I am struggling with 'The Romantic Movement' by Alain de Botton and 'Gut Symmetries' by Jeannette Winterson.

Zoe said...

It's worth a bit of grumpy for lines like "that other fucking Tourettes headcase"

CelloBella said...

Love the Latham reference too.

QTR here (Queen of the Trashy Read) - Lee Child's Jack Reacher series is fantastic for tropical retreat, also in crime fiction Laura Lippman writes a good Baltimore based crime novel...

Of course you won't feel so pious... but then again you're ill - a perfect excuse.

Can also recommend Lemongrass and Ginger tea to clear the head. :)

cristy said...

I also have a terrible habit of starting far too many books at once and then eyeing off others rather than taking my initial commitments seriously. The worst thing is that I end up carrying so much guilt about some books that I just cannot bring myself to finish them because they have suddenly become a huge burden. It is a terrible affliction.

Currently I have a huge pile next to my bed full of books that I am part way through. Some of them are quite wonderful, but I have little inclination to finish them once they have been in residence for too long.

That is why holiday reading is so nice. You take away a couple of books and end up reading them cover to cover - the way a book should be experienced.

Have a lovely break BTW.

Don Quixote said...

So, the only way you're going to feel better is if you "run to paradise"?

I kill myself sometimes.

Don Quixote said...

The Choir Boys, with a reference to both your illness and your holiday, get it?

Armagnac Esq said...

A very laddish pun for you Qixote but then and again...

...as they say...


... wait for it...

Boys will be boys.

Thank you all, I shall try post a couple of times, in between cocktails...xx

wbb said...

I'd finish Latham's book. And then I'd re-read that Hemingway pearl.

I rarely try to finish a book - most aren't worth it and time is getting shorter.