Friday 31 August 2007

skullduggery - a battle of the sexes!




back from the york campaign, tired and triumphant, field trip successful…a new bookshop discovered, reunited with 2 old favourites, new stretch of wall scaled, much roman and medieval building technique admired, aimless mooching and people watching indulged in. just the kind of purposeless day trip that really requires a like minded companion and sidekick...

the trusty stillingfleet and i enjoyed a spot of impromptu al fresco dining in the museum gardens, consuming an alarmingly voluminous chip butty washed down with a can of lilt (the totally tropical taste) followed recklessly by a scoop of chocolate and vanilla local ice cream. stillingfleet, ever the dilettante, loitered delighted over a street cellist and a soprano, and ever the gentleman, carried my bag of freshly snaffled second hand treasures, most kind as they were rather onerous, little suspecting his less than honourable intentions. renowned as he is for the sin of book coveting, i am still reeling from his latest bout of magpiery.

ladies beware the wily bibliotaph.

ostensibly the bookish gentleman is a perfect companion for a dyed in the wool bluestocking (punlovers, i'm on form today!), but they are never to be entirely trusted! whilst comparing and purring over our respective finds at lunch, my splendid 1950’s volume of ‘current literary terms’, initially mocked in the shop for being somewhat ‘out of date’, turned out later to be the essential tome for the stillingfleet library, and the inevitable haggling, cajoling, and blatant naggery began.


countless doughty females have straddled the globe, the equal of our male counterparts in adventure, exploration and fortitude, and i am the last to resort to the myth of a fairer sex. however, there is something simply ungentlemanly about tearing a book freshly acquired from a lady’s mitt, taking advantage of her shorter arm span, and popping the said item into one’s own satchel.

clearly, there’s no honour amongst boffins…

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