Happenings, D-day (deadline looming): stay focused

Dear Diary,

Notwithstanding the usual rigmarole at that... place (Hades, Tartarus, the Infernal Regions, beyond the woeful Acheron, the Styx that the gods swear by and the flaming Phelegathon) I have had some little hurdles which life throws up. I could, and indeed should have been more philosophical about the whole bloody thing, but there we are. What happened was, it very soon dawned on me that without the appendix to Adriano Capelli's Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Palaeography, I would most certainly be unable to translate this text accurately. A miss is as good as a mile. Indeed, there are many more books I should be reading, researching, finding out and discovering how to read this really rather difficult text. (See image).

Nevertheless, it can be done. And yet, this itself was my undoing. I much prefer books, old fashioned books, physical, tactile, flicked through easily. With the screen on I have umpteen tabs open and cannot seem to focus, but a book has a cosy, homely feel to it. An impartial judge, a bestower of light and knowledge, a book takes nothing, but gives everything. It's simple, straight forward and does what it says on the tin (even without internet or electricity or whatever). I didn't have time (and still don't have the time, as shrouded Saturn with his cruel scythe hews down, reaps and consumes his children: each second or passing moment) to order Capelli's book online. The deadline's too tight. So, I decided to print one, but I ordered the cartridge online, and should have bought it from a store. (Around here? Yeah, are you kidding me? It's like Borat here: "Is there a telephone in this village?"). We're talking deepest darkest country, backwoods, the wild valleys and paths of ancient Britain.

Anyway. I tried printing it out. The printer ran out of ink (beause it's like 400 odd pages long). I printed it out of order (because I'd not used this printer before), but have ended up with approximately half the book, on one side only (apart from the first 50 pages, which I have complete). Today I find myself glueing wrongly printed out sides of paper (my only hard copy of these precious sections I might add) on to the correct page number, in proper numerical order. Then I tie some elastic I have through the holes (four, one at the top and bottom, two in the middle, all bound individually, several times, with quite a few binds of elastic - as many as I can fit). Then, after putting some felt or nice material around two pieces of A4 cardboard, I shall tie each of the threads of elastic to a chopstick on each side.

In short, dearest diary, I have had to write out 200 pages of this book, manually, by hand, using a calligraphy pen and a pencil. My handwriting is really rather fine. However, I don't have that kinda time. D-day looms.

Anyhow, I returned from work with the cartridge, but the printer didn't take it. I'll have to think about what I want to do, but I believe I can make the deadine (without copying it all out), just by having to make do with what I have. This means reading the pdfs (on the odd pages I don't have printed out). Must dash. Father Time's grains drop slowly but constantly in his celestial hourglass.