...and then there was a big bang and the end fell off.

I should never be allowed within a mile of technology.  I realise this would prove restrictive, eg, this blog would have to be delivered via me shouting individually through your letterboxes which would probably curtail my social life quite severely and also be expensive.  But it would mean that my chances of pressing the wrong button and deleting the whole post would be less.  Although I suppose I could commit the technology-free equivalent, of shouting through the wrong person's letterbox, thus ensuring that my words of wisdomish never actually reached your ears...

And why, I hear you cry, for your voices are loud and, truth be told, really rather penentrating particularly this early in the day when I had half a bottle of wine the night before, so if you could keep it down I would be very grateful?  I shall tell you.  Lean close, my dears, for this is a tale that begins one dark and stormy night...

 

Pretty much like this, only a bit more gothic...  For I found myself in the streets of York, wandering carelessly over the cobbles like a windblown McDonalds wrapper only a bit less greasy.  And, it goes without saying, without a giant yellow M all over me.  Anyway.  I was inexplicably drawn to the doors of Waterstones bookshop, pulled as though by a giant, invisible elastic band...one of those thick ones, not those stupid thin ones that snap and ping back to hit you on the cheek leaving a little red mark that you spend the day explaining away...  Propelled by same elastic force, and also just a little bit by my own legs, I was flung through the doors and into the comfortable and luxurious inside!  Yes!  I will pause here for you to draw breath, suck your teeth and shake your head at the folly of my being allowed out of doors unattended by my usual care-force.

 

This is how I picture you right now...

So, I wend..err..wended...went my way inside and towards the back of the shop, where bookshelves are arraigned.  The books upon them are not just wiggled into place higgledy-piggeldy you know!  They are alphabeticised!  And lo, I found myself crouched, sheltering from the storm which raged outside (see above) right next to the 'L''s.  And, just as a particularly arcane and indeed eldritch crash of thunder boomed out overhead, my eyes fell upon ... MY OWN BOOK!  Yes, well may ye gather your skirts around you and draw closer to the fire, for I had foreseen the coming of the shelving!  And, and this is the important bit that relates back to the beginning of this post, I attempted to photograph, for posterity, this positioning of both cover and words in such form that the passing public may be tempted to peruse, nay, purchase, said book.

I took three shots of my own thumb, two of my own face (the camera was on a phone and facing the wrong way, but it's not my phone and, quite frankly, I think it's a bloody miracle that I managed not to call everyone in the address book) and finally.... a shot of Please Don't Stop the Music, resting amid other novels of its ilk.

But I can't work out how to get it a) off the phone and b) onto this blog.  So you'll just have to believe me.

This is what it looked like, though.  Only there were more of them.  And bigger.  And other books too.