When it is too painful to go forward any more, it is time to go back. And so it was that I found myself in the Oxfam bookshop down a little cobbled street, buying second-hand vinyl records. I had not gone into the Oxfam bookshop to buy vinyl records. I had gone in to see whether they stocked such a thing as a desk diary. I have been having an awful time since 1 January searching in vain for this most obsolete of items — an A4, one-page-to-a-day, wide-ruled desk diary.
‘Why don’t you just put all your appointments in your BlackBerry like a normal person?’ said a girlfriend snootily.
‘Because I don’t want to. I want to write them down. Then, when I look back over the pages in the months or years to come, I can orientate myself. I can remember things about any given day by looking at the style of my writing or the pen I used.
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