get out, and get gone: this town is only gonna eat you

Today began at 1000, after five and a half hours' sleep, when my mother bounced into my bedroom and said GET UP IT IS WARM AND THE TIDE IS GOING OUT LET'S GO SWIM, or words to that effect.

(It was emotional bouncing, even if no physical bouncing actually occurred.)

This is how I came to be standing thigh deep in the Irish Sea before 1030, awake for less than a half hour, my entire bodily frame much less enthusiastic than usual about this whole cold, wet business. A mist was rolling in, and a group of regular strong swimmers were also about in the water - water clear and grey-green when you open your eyes under it.

I swam even more weakly and pathetically than usual, but I swam.

Then I went to town to spend the afternoon in the library, chasing citations, before hitting the gym for a good session.

Gym:
Benchpress: 1x5 @65kg, 1x5 @67.5kg, 2x5 @70kg, with a spotter.
Assisted pullup: 2x5 @25kg assist.
Unassisted pullup: attempt x5, nope.
Squat: 2x5 @20kg
Military press: 3x10 @4kg/arm
Shoulder fly: 3x10 @6kg/arm
Leg press: 3x10 @80kg
Treadmill: 0.5 mile in 05:00, constant running; 1.00 mile in 13:00, intervals.
Exercise bike: 35:00, in excess of 12km
Second treadmill: 3 intervals of 00:40 at 12.5kph, rest intervals 01:00.
Rowing machine: 1km in 05:30
Third treadmill: 02:00 incline, slow jog.

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Now my knuckles hurt, but at least I've had an exercise. Benched more today than I did last week, which is something.

Books 2014: don't judge a book by its title, apparently

Books 2014: 136

nonfiction

136. Thomas F. Bonnell, The Most Disreputable Trade: Publishing the Classics of English Poetry, 1765-1810. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.

It's my habit to keep a book in the bathroom to read while cleaning my teeth... and doing other things... a book I don't mind reading three and four pages at a time. By this means, I've learned a little about a large number of historical things. I seized on this particular book because of the interesting - dare I say alluring? - title, and because I'd read a history of the illegal book trade in prerevolutionary France that was quite frankly fascinating.

Well. Don't judge a book by its title. Quite frankly, I expected something more... lascivious? Disreputable? Something more scandalous? But nope. No scandal! No disrepute! Not even any really juicy bookselling feuds, for crying out loud. It's a fairly bland history of the creation of a publishing canon of English poetry by printers and booksellers in Britain. Apparently, the "most disreputable trade" part refers to what one London publisher thought would become of the publishing trade after a copyright decision went against them.

I was seduced by a misleading title, and now I know more than anyone really needs to about collections of English poetry in the late 18th century. Doubtless I will forget it all with great promptness, and remember only that there is a book in which information about it may be found.