When one's books on the go prove indifferent, it's a lot easier to do the necessary other things like exercise and kanji writing. Yes, and indifferent French reading practice as well. Claudine in French gets on my nerves, possibly because I detect the slimy hand of Willy. But I wish I had better books on the go. The second Vinyl Detective came in. Once again someone wants him to find a record. Once again, no sooner does a lead appear than the lead is murdered. If the theme of the series is going to be 'accidental judgements, casual slaughters' then I'll drop it now and let the sixteen people behind me in the library queue have it instead.

Then, having finished the rather charming and certainly out of date The Medieval Myths, completist me has to start in on the only slightly later Medieval Epics which is what I read Beowulf out of in my medieval lit. survey course. But this is a translation, not merely a retelling, prefaced by in-detail historical background.

Thought I'd start out with El Cid because he, alone of the Medieval Myths guys, behaved like a decent human being and not (cf Roland, Prince Igor, and Sigfried) a berserker bathing in the blood of a thousand youkai/ whatever. I'm still wading through the preface to that which is all head-spinny shifting alliances among a dozen Muslim and Christian kingdoms, when I thought the tory was just about El Cid trying to win back the love of his king Alfonso who for reasons unstated had sent him into exile. Yes, well, reasons were that El Cid had been fighting against Alonso on the side of his brothers, since the three kings, in best medieval fashion, were constantly trying to take over each other's territory. So when oldest brother is murdered and Alonso takes over his territory, Alonso is not gonna be best buddies with brother's champion. (Incidentally, Spain provides a strong argument in favour of primogeniture. Though I suppose if you're fratricidal enough, it hardly matters if only one of you is king.)

Maybe I should read some Pratchett instead.

Also low-fat low-carb eating is getting old. I would die for some toast and butter, or sweetened yoghurt, or chocolate. Someone on the FFL lost thirty pounds not eating wheat or sugar. Won't happen to me, not with my sedentary lifestyle, but the vague hope of getting to what I weighed in 1987 keeps me sticking to it. I cruise various restaurants on various delivery services, click on pad thai and hamburgers, and then back button.