Then we came to the end, but not quite.

I'm getting fired from my job at Waterstone's in 3 weeks.  It's not the first time this has happened.

Before I got fired by Waterstone's the first time, I used to review books for their website.

And I once won £100 in book vouchers for writing a review for head office about reading Murakami in Mevagissey, which is harder to say than it is to type.

They may have deleted me, and turned the branch where I worked into a Poundland, but my reviews are still there, which is somehow comforting.

My reviews 

It's strange reading things I wrote a few years ago, because not only do I not remember writing some of the reviews, I don't remember reading some of the books. 

Of course I still remember clearly Timequake, Brilliant Orange, Football against the Enemy, the Life of Pi, The Cruellest Miles, Seabiscuit, Stasiland and the Wall.  They're not just books, they're unforgettable, life-changing events.

One of the last books I read before I got fired, was called Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris.  It's a book about getting fired, and not long after I read it I got fired.  Luckily, I am able to separate fiction from fact, so I resisted the urge to go back to my old workplace dressed as a clown and blow away my colleagues.  It wouldn't have worked in my case anyway, as I'd have only ended up making a mess of some strangers in Poundland, since the last day for me, was the last day for the shop too.

Sometimes when I look back, particularly at the good ones, I think, in the words of Kurt Vonnegut 'How the hell did I do that?'

I don't read much these days, mostly because my eyes are now full of super glue, but I used to do it a lot, especially in the days when there were only 3 channels on the TV.

Life was simpler then.  I used to alternate between watching TV, playing football, playing with toys and going to the Library.  I can't remember owning any books in those days, but I was in the Library every week.  I went back in recently.  It's had a refurb and an extension and it's even got a coffee shop now.  They let me use the internet there when my mum was ill.  I tried to talk to the woman on the counter about the olden days, when all of this were fields blah, blah, blah, but she didn't seem as interested in my monologue as I was.....