Tuesday: What Books Can Mean To Us

Honestly, there was such an amazing quality to the light today - I don't think I have seen colours and lines like this for a long time!

The list of things to do at work before I go on holiday next week is getting longer and longer.  So I thought the best way to deal with it was to to go out for beer with K. for beer.

We went to the place that we frequent most often, 'Tolkien's House', which, for some reason, we have taken to calling 'The Hobbit'.  It is fine as long as you can get past the elven armour and drinks called things like 'Gandalf's Gimlet' and 'Frodo's Fizz'.

We met the owner, Roman, who is a self-declared Anglophile (resulting in two free pints for us).  He told us a great story about how his father was a great reader.  One night his father was reading when Roman came home.  Roman was a student of medicine and was studying very hard.  His father had started a book and said to Roman: 'I am reading this book.  It is full of trees and small creatures and elves and such nonsense and I just can't get along with it'.  Out of sheer desperation for something to read, other than medicine books, Roman picked up the book and started to read.  He said that something changed for him that night and he has been a huge Tolkien fan ever since.

He has also had a minor legal battle with the Tolkien estate over copyright issues but won out when he wrote them an emotive letter about what Tolkien had meant to him.

As you can see, this photo (taken from my bank) is completely unconnected with the text!

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