I know a guy who believes crop circles are made by creatures from outer space, the «wee folk» or «unidentified streams of energy». That is pretty off, but extraordinary coming from him. He is a great fan of science, in practicality. He is a former seaman, a firm grasp of all things motorized. A guy who always carries a leatherman. He reads science magazines and articles veraciously. He constantly pops up with more or less interesting scientific studies and results.

And he believes – with the certainty of the newly converted – that crop circles are too complicated for man to make. It has to be superior forces.

We can put a man on the moon, we can split the atom, but we cannot make a Mandelbrot set in a flat field. He got angry at me for not believing. He vigorously threw some webaddresses at me, and said -look there! Then you’ll know!!

One website were a lady in UK, if I remember correctly, who had some weird ideas and a shitload of photos of crop circles. I think she also had a cattery, breeding persians. Always a bad sign.The other site, that my co-worker so desperately wanted me to read from url to footer was – surprise – a company that earned money on “crop circle tours” ..ermm… right. That certainly proves the outer-space thingy. Someone earning money on it = truth & honesty, surely. And what convenient business! No guarantee possible of course, but the whole miserable tour starts at Stonehenge. So at least you can enjoy that. And there is always a pub. You’ll need a stiff drink if you’re going on that trip. Or a bucketload.

Fascinating. This guy will probably deny most of christian doctrine and history as rubbish, he writes off islam for mainly mildly racist reasons, Hinduism for having too many weird animals doing odd things (not being a great understander of metaphors, this guy), Judaism for being mixed up in too much hassle, Buddhism as being too ..well. Orange. Whatever.

But crop circles. That is his religion, and he defends it fiercely. He tries to prove it, he uses the argument of science. Argument of math. Oh, dear.

We find the connections we need. There is a brilliant company in Britain called Circlemakers and they do this for a living. And if you see a website with lots of pics and religious fervour – note that they all leave out the hello kitty and commercial circles.

We find the connections we need. Crop circles are beautiful. Some people are creative. Simply: some things are inexplicable. Until they are explained. Live with it.

So- without further ado:

I give you The Alchemist.

Oh god. What sensless babble, what inane nonsense. The story and the point of the whole painful exercise is that there is gold in your back yard, but you would never have seen it without a nonsensical and stupid adventure (alchemy). The language is for children at best, and you can open it at any page and find skin-irritants like «The boy thought. The boy thought about the stars – I wonder what they think.» – or somesuch terror. Godawful stuff – and would not have earned a place on my bookshelf of shame if not for the immense popularity. I am sorry – but when people list this book among favourites, I write them off as idiots. Period (Actually – I’m not sorry about that).
The language is disgusting, the plot childish and daft. A lot of people like it and say it’s inspirational, a word that makes me shudder. Believe me: it is crap. I have read a lot. It’s dumbing down.

Then, to the more laughable and serious

Atlas shrugged.
What self-centered idiocy! What blind narcissism, what racist, stupid, vapid and cloyingly vomity. I read the first hundred pages thinking it was sarcasm, irony, a weird sense of humour – not so.
The woman is dead, that is a comfort, so she cannot spew out more braindead half-baked social commentary and «philosophy». What an affront! She tries to present her «philosophy» through «drama» – it is neither, and both is godawful.
She’s got charming views on social systems, classes and government, but most of all she is basically an «elitist» with facist leanings. Tipping over, rather. So. Poo-poo!

Here’s the brilliant thing: she divides the world into do’ers and wiengers. Do’ers – that’s about one in 10 000 are the only ones worth anything, obviously. Without these do’ers and leaders, the rest falls back to the stone ages and society falls apart into caveman behaviour at record time. See? So every single person reading this book will identify with the leaders and do’ers. The brilliant result is that the woman has a following (!), a cult and a bunch of fans…. now there’s a liiittle contradiction. You see yourself as a leader, and then hang after the author. But her whole «theory» is based on opposite. Result: the loosers hanging after the author and going to «appreciation groups» (how weird is THAT!) proves by going that they belong to the authors cavemen.
Wonderful. The author was an idiot. That doesn’t justify that tail of fools…

The whole book is ..oh.. about 1200 pointless pages of bad, bad drama and exceptionally bad thinking. If you find it in a garage sale, buy it, burn it and make the world a tiny little bit better.

One day I will invite you all to a bookburning, methinks. And we can laugh and read the worst sections of favorite pet-hates before getting hotdogs and hot whiskeys all around. And make the world a little bit better.

..and another day – I might tell you about my loathing for Mr. Hemingway, Anna Karenina and some of the Brönte clan.

minor disaster
minor miracle
misanthropic humanitarian
necessary evil
recycling dump
somewhat destroyed
UN designated safe haven
vigorously ignoring
violent agreement
well-preserved ruins
Wilderness management
act naturally
friendly fire
new classic

-some are good, some not so good. All have been used in all seriousness – bless journalism.
I actually disagree with “misanthropic humanitarian” being impossible- I am one. But my favourite is “UN designated safe haven, or possibly “enforce peace”. Brilliant. In a moronic way.

Bookshops without books. Somebody should get shot. Somebodies head should roll.

In a corner, behind the massive display of diddle figures, pink pencils, rubber balls, key rings, balloons, wrapping paper, glittering teddy bears, and multi-coloured markers… there’s a small shelf, with a few books. It’s about the size of mine; after I removed 10 boxes and moved here.

They’re seemingly randomly thrown up there, not even alphabetically arranged, and different books and authors stacked in front of others. But they aaaaall have front facing.. the very least, they could have placed them spine out. I stood looking at the shelf for a good seven minutes, trying to wrestle out the system of it. There’s none. Either it was never meant to be a system, or no one is bothered that customers mess around to figure out what is behind.

Or maybe they don’t know the alphabet. Even their limited shelf of audiobooks are not arranged alphabetically.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

And what sort of books is it? I shouldn’t have to say. The DO have a Johan Borgen, the first book of the trilogy (and only that), but that’s just because there’s been an anniversary. And there is a Hamsun there too. Shame I detest him. But you know- standard, awful airport crap, with the embossed names of authors covered in metallic foil. Add a bullethole/slashing knife/bits of skeletal joints… and titles containing words like “final”, “destiny”, “blood(bath)”, “death” and “midnight”. (in fact, all airports I have ever been to, with one exception, had better bookshops than this university college town.).

I asked for five titles, they had none. All of them solid literature, price-winning, booker nominated, current and translated. Oh, I’m lying. They had one of them, as audiobook. It costs a fortune, and it is not the same. It is not a book. The woman behind the counter had obviously never heard of any of them, and I had to repeat author and title several times. Bless her, she’s probably a certified expert on Diddle-pencils and fluffy keyrings.

I’m lying again. They DO have books. Under the title “gift books”. You know, the type full of glossy, gorgeous photos of sunsets, cars, planes, food and as little text as possible. These books often come in folio formats, and take up a good deal of the shelf. So no surprise. They’re beautiful things, usually, but breaks a bookbinders heart more than paperbacks ever could. Don’t say the word “fiber” as you open one of them.
Coffee table books. As if I have a “coffee table”, where I can casually leave out a bunch of exquisite poster-sized books on buddhism, antarctica and cooking with asparagus.

Beauty doesn’t help, if it’s brainfood you want.

And don’t tell me about cost efficiency, the customer-gets-what-the-customer-wants, or any cows dung about majority rules. It’s a f*x%#*! bookshop. It says so on the front.
I’m pissed off and offended. I miss the irish bookshops. The stairs and upstairs in Dublin, Byrnes and Kenny in Galway.

“Stationery’s” is at least a fair name. Or “toys”. Bookshops it ain’t. An offence. A lolly-coloured hell.

Torch them all.

They wouldn’t burn, though. With all that pink fluff, they’ll just melt.