Madonna -Royal visit Number Two

Okay. Cosmetic surgeried to within an inch of her life, hanging shamelessly around with toy boys not much older than her daughter, and dogged by rumours that she mimes her concerts, could we ever really believe Madonna was going to act her age and fade away quietly, like any other fifty three years old, seasoned, well-lived, lady? For those of us who can't help but admire the general display of grit, cajones, balls, (or whatever you want to call it) the prospect of another chance to witness the Queen in action is proving irresistible.

 Especially as her 2004 visit

inspired
A Royal Visit which managed to get past the beady eye of Cliodhna Ni Anluain
Sunday Miscellany

And even though the thoughts of queuing and standing for hours on Tuesday night, 24th July, already has the sane person inside me going: "Mari, are you nuts, you're far too old for that stuff,"
the less sane person inside is going, "you're not the only one around here who doesn't act her age."

Luddites of the world unite

While it's obvious my Luddite leanings do not stretch to performing a Mickey Mouse type attack on the computer, (I'm using one right now, after all) , my 'grouchy-ould-wan' antennae shoot up when it comes to the choice between reading e-books and paper books. 

The concept of a swanky portable tablet upon which to read an array of novels, however convenient, still leaves me cold. And it's not just because the insanely, prolific Jodi Picoult had a good old fashioned rant against ebooks in the Sunday Times last Sunday - her income has reduced by 30% in the last year due to predominance of e-book sales.  Or even that author of the brilliant The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen  said:

"The technology I like is the ....paperback. I could spill water on it and it still works. So it's pretty good technology. And what's more it will work great 10 years from now. So no wonder the capitalists hate it. It's a bad business model."

It's just that the e-book seems soulless, somehow. Is there anything more sensuous than the heady aroma of the pages of a new book?  Or the browsing around  a bookshop, where a surge of energy wafts from those masterpieces on the shelves?Oh and what about  George Robert Gissing
who said:
 " I know every book of mine by its smell and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things."






Call me what you will, but I don't think the paper book will ever become extinct. Not if there are enough Luddites around like me.