...for the shortest queue...

i'm british. we love to queue.

if no queue exists, you can count on two brits 

to get together and form one.

it is not, regrettably, quite the same art-form it used to be.

 one rarely sees queue-rs / queuesters / queuees camping out overnight in order to gain entry to anything

 (unless it is an apple store, and that doesn't count

 because it's driven by pointless consumerism).

apparently other nationalities queue too.

 out of necessity though, rather than for pleasure.

the diane arbus retrospective, currently showing at the jeu de paume in paris, has had heart-sinkingly lengthy queues, as has london's national gallery's leonardo at the court of milan show.

regrettably i have been unable to join the throngs

 queuing for either of these. 

it got me thinking though - how long is too long to queue?

i'm not sure.

but i did begin to wonder if, once an artist's show becomes

 a blockbuster, perhaps their game is over.

...for the perfect ride... (part three)

blue sky and the long shadows of winter sunshine.

close to perfection.

which makes this taste even more rewarding at the end of it...

i woke as an englishman,

but feel tonight i shall sleep like a belgian.

(you'd have to be a cyclist to understand)

...for a good book...

call me shallow (no, actually please don't!), but i was going through a list of '100 books to read before you die' and became quite ashamed as i realised how few of them i've actually read.

examples:

in search of lost time by marcel proust - no

tristram shandy by laurence sterne - nein

suite francaise by irène némirovsky - non

the glass bead game by herman hesse - seriously?

but then i looked at someone else's list, far less high-brow,

 and discovered i have (pretty much) read them all.

i feel much better about myself now.

forget the books, i shall instead be more selective about

 which lists i read in future.

...for a reason to be bothered... (again)

idiots.

...for educational fulfillment...

i can hardly believe my good fortune.

this morning i received an email from a professor julius tumwebaze of the university of kampala, in which he has offered me a degree of my own for only $59.95.

how lovely.

now all i have to do is decide what i want it in,

 and where to hang it.

it makes me wonder why anyone would study for years to get one of their own when there are good people like professor julius around.

...for the perfect brain nourishment...

i feed my brain on a daily smörgåsbord of bbc radio,

 london's 'i' newspaper, the iht, a small selection of what i perceive as reliable internet-based news sources, and an even smaller selection of those who i perceive as reliable, well-informed and entertaining 'bloggers' and 'tweeters'.

a recurring highlight is the weekend edition of the financial times (at the weekend there's less about the finance,

 and more about these times).

since 2007 i have gorged (almost) monthly on tyler brûlé's

 'monocle' magazine.

surely this is what all publications dream of becoming

 when they grow up.

now brûlé has launched 'monocle 24 radio', and my life is complete.

you can, and indeed must, discover it for yourself here

...for a renaissance in etiquette...

i had a piece of cake with my espresso today.

it was nothing special, nor anywhere special.

what made it remarkable was that it was served (rather curiously, on a saucer) with a cake-fork.

i don't eat a lot of cake, but it reminded me what a difference it makes when any food is served with the correct cutlery.

one important tip i learned many years ago was to:

'never eat with a spoon what you can eat with a fork'