To read or to reread....not much of a question.

Whenever I get low I read, or more accurately comfort reread.

Over the years my comfort rereading books have been many and varied, though with some obvious similarities. The first comfort book I can remember was LOTR and I must be candid here....I was about seven or eight. LOTR lasted me until I was almost thirteen, but by then the list had grown to include C S Lewis's Narnia books, and Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows'; the latter of which for me still retains its charm.

In my late teens I was dreadfully pompous and read anything supposedly 'difficult'. Y'know the scene: pretentious youth with a copy of Ulysses in his pocket, pontificating on the nature of art, literature, and rock 'n' roll. At different times I have reread for comfort all of Hornblower, Aubrey/Maturin, Shakespeare, Eliot's poetry, Homer (in translation, alas), Jane Austen's oeuvre (especially 'Persuasion'), Wodehouse, Waugh, and a few others: all of which brings me to my latest comfort reread of choice: Anthony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time' sequence.

Though I dip into Montaigne, and have ploughed through Proust, there are few extended pleasures that have assuaged my sorrow in and of the world quite as much as Powell: maybe Wodehouse and O'Brian of the C20th English novelists. But as of now Powell is my choice, and is as good for me as any SSRI.

I'd love to have been Nick Jenkins (the beautifully detached and dry observer), but alas know I'm merely an inferior avatar of Trapnel, dammit: and without his vast technical knowledge. But it could be worse: I could have turned out like Widmerpool.

What comfort books do other folk have, I wonder?

Saw this in yesterday's Guardian and laughed, as you do.

Ode to Post Neoclassical Endogenous Growth Theory

Men often think of Halcyon days of long ago
But much past time was dreary, nasty, full of woe
And for this problem no one could think of any good solution
Until one day, along came the Industrial Revolution

Man's labour, engines and his keenest wit
Produced all manner of goods, some welded, others knit
And in this way Man's welfare grew at a rapid rate
Saving many from a much more horrible fate

Bright Scotsmen, and some English too
Studied hard; and so they thought they knew
That this was not just something plainly magical
But was due to free markets – and explanation quite classical

But when, later, wise men asked where all the growth came from
Then many, even great economists, were struck dumb
All the statistics that they gathered were quite clear
The hard toil of people and machinery were small beer

Only inventions seemed to have any effect
And from where these arose everyone was quite bereft
So people then began to get rather weary
Of the once almighty neoclassical growth theory

But then new analyese, oh do subtle
Questioned all this and led to its rebuttal
A new explanation arrived, over which there was quite a fuss
Technical progress – innovation, ideas – were "endogenous"

Invention was crucial but needed embodiment
In people – in skills – and in capital investment
So these were important to make growth shine
Although others had known this for a very long time

All this was important to men in Whitehall
Who hadn't had much luck with growth rates at all
Now they had reason to spend on capital, education and skills
And made sure this happened through many Parliamentary Acts and Bills

This was very much favoured by one Gordon Brown
Who soon became much the biggest man in town
And if critics did all this approach then query
He answered "it's post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory"

Sir Derek Morris

Done deliberately in the style of William McGonagall.

I may have said this before....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/11/mark-thompson-bbc-image

Now, how the Tories/LibDems respond to this information in their new coalition government....given the Tories backing from NewsCorp et al, will count for something in my estimation of their attempts at governance.

Cameron as PM

Good speech. Let's see how he lives up to it.