On a wet Sunday afternoon at boarding school time seems to pass slowly. Today a week passes more quickly. This is because aged eight a single afternoon takes up as much memory space as a month now that my memory has become chocker.
I didn’t know Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas both died in 1870, nor did I fully appreciate that some of their best known novels were published as serials.
These authors have recently been introduced to me. I have read the first in the Erast Fandorin and David Audley series and have all the James Marwood historical thrillers ahead of me.
I am skating on thin ice or walking on dangerous ground most days, pontificating on a wide range of matters of which I am largely ignorant. If I could remember even half the material I have read over the past nine years to bone up on blogs I would have an enviable all round education.
I wonder how many spies die in their beds, old and contented, surrounded by their children and grandchildren? We will never know because we only hear about the spies who were caught.