Gulag

It was extremely warm today, that kind of still, hazy, half-cloud half-sun weather when it’s too warm to move.

We took Nanna P to Uncle Kenneth’s and then Mum and Dad dropped me off outside the library. I took back all of my books, all unread, and I was going to get out two on drawing techniques and another on the student riots in France, May-June 1968 but discovered--frustratingly--that I’d lost my ticket, so I left empty handed. I went to Smiths instead where I bought a hardback edition of Volume 3 of Solzhenytzin’s Gulag Archipelago in the sale, then on to Victoria Hall where I bought a ticket to see UB40 in July. I enjoyed looking round Praxis but didn’t get a book. I was a bit annoyed afterwards, 'cos I really wanted an art book.

In the evening I watched England v Switzerland in Basle, which was pathetic, frustrating, annoying and predictable; crowd trouble, disjointed England attacks and a feeling at the BBC that this was decision time for soccer in general. I’ve had a pathetic day really. There are so many ‘good’ books I should be getting--Jean-Paul Sartre novels, Turgenev things, obscure, worthy stuff!!