Sophie

Sophie, engrossed in Alan Mooreheads "The White Nile".

No, really.

The days can be long here, in between dodging the showers and being roasted alive under the midday sun. Being here allows me to catch up on all the books I left behind when we moved to Holland. I took with me all my Scottish contemporary fiction stuff, together with my vast collection of books about Scottish football. What remains in Ireland are the books I've either read, or was planning to read or simply bought because I liked the cover and it would make me appear exotic to women who visited my flat.

And so it is with "The White Nile", a book from the mid-60's about the exploration of Africa. An excellent book, it was bought when I was going through a phase of discovering Britain's colonial escapades around the globe. I had just returned from visiting Livingstone's birthplace in Blantyre the previous week and was curious to find out more about the man, his missions and about that particular point in history. So one Sunday, not unlike this one, I saw the book in Waterstones on Union Street in Aberdeen, liked the cover, bought it, stuck it on a shelf and forgot about it until this year, when I finally got around to reading it, some 15 years after I bought it. To say I'm a slow reader is an understatement.

As we (i.e, modern day colonialists) continue to make a complete mess of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the book takes on new meaning. On the premise that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, the description of the Moslem Revolt is particularly vivid and unpleasant (just deserts - IMHO - for years of stuck-up colonials using the natives as furniture) and should serve as a guide for what could happen now that we've gone down this particular path: the image of General Gordon, resplendent in his uniform (one he designed himself by the way) about to become the first recorded kebab in British culinary history should be hung up in the canteen at the Foreign Office. Or perhaps it already is, which might explain the carnage we see in the Middle East on the news every evening.

In the spirit of exploration, being the last Sunday in July, the wife and kids are off to climb Croagh Patrick. I, on the other hand have decided to stay at home with The Boy. I do this for two reasons: one, I know my limits, and two, I've read that most explorers have a pretty torrid and unpleasant time. I've read the book after all...

Anyway, none of this has much to do with the photo which is in fact Sophie on the trampoline this morning leafing through "The White Nile". She too quite liked the cover, suggesting that my book-genes have passed on to the next generation. Mission succeeded!