Am finally tackling the mountain of books at home, which must have numbered the best part of a thousand before I began a daily culling system a few days ago. Not only do they spill onto all available surfaces, they have begun to form random piles on the floor. There’s simply no space in either of the two bookshelves, themselves creeping into the phase where books appear horizontally on top of the packed rows, or worse still in double-parked piles on the deeper shelves, pointlessly obscuring the books behind. It’s the handbag theory of space management: unless you keep an eye on what’s happening, the space will automatically fill itself up.

So every day I’ve been pulling out books, and using the shelf height to measure a potential reject pile (just under a foot). I also make a note in a computer file (via the VoodooPad Lite program) of what I’m throwing out, in a kind of deal with my secret hoarding demon. Making a list of what I’m ejecting somehow makes it easier. I list, therefore it isn’t.

I now realise that a surprisingly large proportion of the books are from friends, relations, past lovers. Some are presents, some are indefinite loans. It’s hard to tell when there’s no name written on the flyleaf; neither my name denoting a gift, nor a name of the friend, marking their property. In some cases, I have lost contact with the donor in question. In others, it’s so long ago that I’ve forgotten who it was who lent it to me in the first place. I find it’s generally easier on the nerves to just give books away rather than lend them.

Then there’s the dedication page anxiety. I love to find second hand books where there’s a handwritten message on the flyleaf, hinting at another world. Even if it’s just ‘To Sally from Victor, 17th August 1958’. Yet I feel curiously cagey about letting one dedicated to me go into second-hand circulation. Some dedications are too personal, even heartbreaking, and I tear a few out. It’s only a pre-title page, so the book is still perfectly useful to someone else. Still, by donating a book that was once a token of affection for me and me alone,  I can feel like I’m committing a kind of betrayal. It’s nearly akin to the worrying over just when to throw away birthday and Christmas cards.

But if I’ve read a book and have no wish to finger its pages again, and I need the space it occupies, then surely it has to go. I know I’m fussing over nothing, but I almost mutter a prayer of forgiveness as I hand the carrier bags over.

***
David Barnett suggests that, if I do tear out any inlay pages with dedications on, I should keep them all and use them to create some kind of art piece.

He says this on Sunday (yesterday), in St John’s Tavern, Archway. Anna S and Alex P are here too. I’m on the mineral water.

In the early 90s, St John’s Tavern was a fairly ordinary pub which put on indie bands in its Wild-West-themed saloon room. The tiny stage was in one corner fitted with vaudeville drapes and a hooded canopy. I think there may even have been cow horns mounted on the top. I played there in an early version of Orlando, twice, in 1993. A long-haired character called Slim ran the place, and after we played there, he kept phoning me up in Bristol to invite us back. I can’t believe London was ever short on indie bands looking for a gig, so he must have really liked us.

Now it’s been completely refurbished and turned into a more ostentatiously middle-class bar. Jazz on the CD player. Little wooden tables. Pews. Sunday supplements. Couples in their thirties and forties with bottles of wine. Waitresses. When I arrive, I walk into the saloon bar, now a dining area, looking for Anna S. Everyone at the tables stops talking and stares at me. It’s like a middle-class version of that scene in An American Werewolf In London.

I sit on a pew, and make a mental note to avoid doing so the next time. Because a man at the next table is also on the same pew, so I’m at the mercy of vibrations from his little absent-minded kicks and fidgeting, in that way only men can do. I consider having a pew-shaking contest with him, but decide against it.

I leaf through one of the Sunday supplements. An article on networking websites once again, examining which kind of people use Facebook and which use MySpace. It’s against the law to have a newspaper supplement without at least one Facebook article at the moment.

***
How to spot bohemians from a distance, part 79.

Gazing out across Alexandra Park on a hot and crowded afternoon, Rhoda’s birthday picnic is conspicuous for being the only one with:

(a) no baby buggies, and
(b) no men with their tops off.