On the other hand, I’m happy to relate that the bookstores in Campbell still have lots of very comfortable seating, and managed to relieve me of much more money than the ones in Boston.
Last time I was in Boston I ranted about how all the bookstores have been gradually removing all their armchairs, and generally becoming much less nice places to just hang out and read all the books.
It’s gotten worse. Last time, the Borders in the Cambridgeside Galleria had moved almost all its comfortable seats into the coffee shop, probably in an attempt to persuade people to at least buy some coffee if they’re going to sit and read the books. This time those seats are completely gone. I could only find 2 comfy seats in the entire shop, and of course the chances of getting one of those to sit in are pretty slim. I’d already selected about 8 books from the shelves before noticing this – and I’m sure I’d have bought at least 2 or 3 of them. Instead I set them all down on a table, and returned to MIT coop.
This is obviously a policy to try to cut down on people reading without buying, but in my case at least it’ll actually stop me buying too.
I picked up a few magazines in the airport lounge yesterday to read on the plane, including Esquire, a magazine I used to read fairly regularly, but haven’t really read at all in a few years.
It seemed to have quite a few interesting articles, including an interview with Martin McGuinness, and an investigation into why the British still have such a fixation on World War II.
But neither of these articles, nor in fact anything in the magazine, turned out to have any depth whatsoever. I guess I’ve just become to used to magazines like the New Yorker where most of the articles turn out to be interesting, even if they’re on topics I wouldn’t normally have any interest in whatsoever.
Apparently it took the US Immigration Service a very long time to accept that, because most of the rest of the world write their dates as dd-mm-yyyy instead of mm-dd-yyyy, their immigration forms should reflect this.
Yesterday, when arriving in Washington, I noticed that hanging in the immigration hall were samples of the forms you have to fill in. But they were all filled as John Traveler, Jane Traveler etc., even though most other English speaking countries spell “traveller” with two ells…
