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Trying to track down some people for Sean’s birthday drinks last night I ended up at a pub called the Goat by myself - fair enough I was over 3 hours late, had missed the dinner and was taking a long shot that they’d still be there. Now the Goat does good specialty beers that you can sip away at while you people watch or read a book. So holing myself up in the corner with a particular enticing Czech/English mix I got to thinking; today is World Book day, and I for one – an avid reader and writer – think it’s glorious.

I got the best of both worlds when I was young. My father would always have his head in a book and my mother would talk and write a lot. It wasn’t until I moved in with my ex-, who would put her head in a book and read for hours while I wrote and talked, did I realise that it was a way of trying to ignore the person and wishing they would simply shut up for once! Dad and Naomi – surprised they still both have their hearing.


But on this day I feel it is necessary to pay homage to the slayer of the humble book. The Don Quixote to the windmill of literature, the Captain Ahab to Moby Dick, the fourth shelf in the cupboard to people my height – the iPod.
Now this will only be a short entry, as some of you complain that you don’t like to read too much, so how pertinent this actually is (may I remind you all that if it wasn’t for your parents having a quick peek at a book called The Karma Sutra you wouldn’t even be here).

As much as the iPod is definitely killing a book I will thank it for two things:

Reducing obesity: The only time a book has been involved with obesity is when you used to beat the fat kid at school with an Encyclopaedia Britannica, but the iPod makes you walk, run, jump and all while giving you the feeling of being pretentious compared to anyone with a simple MP3 player (we all know you’ve looked over at someone that doesn’t have those white earphones and though ‘cheap bastard’). When I was living in Surry Hills in Sydney during the summer of 2005 – 06, every morning on my way to work I used to walk out my front door, turn right and stroll for about 3 minutes till I got to the corner of Favoe Street, go in to the café there – Fifi Favoe – order a coffee and a muffin and waltz outside again. It was then decision time. Would I a) cross the road and get on the bus that would have me at Circular Quay in 11 minutes, or walk the rest of Crown Street till I hit Oxford Street (which was hilarious for the sites you would see at 8am) then through Hyde Park – yes Sydney has one too – through the city till I got to work (total of 45 mins). Just about then a good song came on the iPod and there was no question – it was time to strut. By the time I got in to the office I was pumped, had probably burned off a few calories and was ready for the day to start (although it was the start of a brutal Sydney summer and was 32 degrees outside so I was sweaty as a pig and I’m sure my colleagues hated my iPod for it).

People wanting your time: Quick and simple. Big issue sellers, beggars, Oxfam sign-you-uppers. Don’t pretend to ignore them. Put in an iPod and they simply don’t bother you. Also works when people are having an argument on the train. No longer do you wonder where to look - put in the iPod and pretend you don’t hear them!