pumpkinstrokemarrow

First, having a lot of gold in the pommel of your sword was more practical than having a lot of iron, not just a matter of showing off. I had overlooked what should be the obvious point that gold is more than twice as heavy, or more properly dense (see http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_metals.htm, first hit on Mr G.), as iron, and so one could make a counterweight to the blade which was not inconveniently bulky.

Second, the gun fun people are perhaps more like collectors than artisans. Collectors collect things for their greater glory, the greater glory of their collection and so as to be able to drool over them. To turn them over and over, to peer (or leer) at them. But probably not to use them. So some people collect stamps, others thimbles, others books and others Chinese pots of some particular variety. Perhaps one collects books once one's purse has outstripped one's ability to read the things. One can collect much faster than one can read - picture books excepted. So gun fun people are in a grey area between the artisan and the collector. A slightly odd collector in that the thing collected is lethal while the other collectibles mentioned are decidedly harmless.

Whoever writes the back page of the TLS is also in the same grey area, more precisely that between reader and collector. He, or her people, trundle round second hand book shops in London on the lookout for interest, either in the shops or in their contents. But he is very sniffy about Oxfam bookshops on the grounds that they very rarely have collectable titbits going cheap. Which I find a little harsh: Oxfam bookshops carry a good range of stock, almost down to Mills & Boon up through to obscure and learned tomes. It is true that one does not often come across collectibles, but I quite often come across good steady books at a reasonable price. Books that one might actually read. And if one does not, one has not paid a whole lot for it. The thing can be recycled to the next charity bag with a clear conscience.

Rounded off the active part of the day with a visit to Great Bookham Common, a place previously noticed as an exemplar of low-key non-destructive management by the National Trust. Sadly, while still a splendid place, they have caught the destructive, eco-vandal bug and appear to be chopping swathes of the wood down. There were a whole lot of laminated notices explaining themselves; no doubt extolling some bio-diversity fad or other. I just look the other way and hope that these people will come around one day to remembering what these places are for for the likes of me. Then they might really be holding it trust for me.

To bed with the book which tells me about swords and incest - by one Heinrich Fichtenau. The chap is clearly a lover of words and their shifts and turns. So to sleep, having been reminded of the association between age, family position and rank. So words indicative of age in people are often used to indicate status in society. So, butcher's boy and lady's maid in English and garcon in French. Boy as used to be used to denote a black servant in the southern states. Any or all of these people might well be adults. Any male, even someone as important as Mr. Blair, is my son to the pope, or even a common or garden priest. My children by Blucher of his cavalry in a film about Waterloo. But that was more that they were his family, rather than that they were his inferiors. And prince to me is associated with youth, despite there being plenty of adult princes. People that are born and die as princes.