Tuesday, December 9/2008

Phone after breakfast to confirm the transfer for tomorrow. AOK. A few more cafes and shops are open today, though by no means everything. Sort of a Boxing Day selection. Internet closed though. Stil a small amount of lamb's blood in the gutter.

Packing night. Leaving Newsweek and Mrs. McGinty Est Mort *the Agatha Christie in French translation I've just finished reading( at the hotel. But what about the others? All very well to say, to begin with, that we can leave them behind, but when it comes to it I hate seeing books consigned to the rubbish bin. They're not ideal ones to find a home for here either. Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman would simply be considered pornography in a country where it is forbidden to access hotmail on the internet. As for the other two, a travel book featuring Central Asia and the biography of a Trappist monk are probably minority taste and tough going for most Arabic speakers. But they're too heavy to take.