I finally got out today (January 3) and found a radiant oscillating heater (no fan), the only heater left on a long row of empty shelves. All sold out. I guess other places are cold, too. So now I have a little nucleus of heat that I don't want to step out of. I'm catching up on a backlog of TLS (Times Literary Suplement). I've read them and marked them . Now I have to clip and make notes and order more books -- must stop buying books!

I used to get upset by the TLS, feeling so inadequate as I admired the learned quality and vast knowledge of its writers. I finally realised that each one is an expert in his/her field and not necessarily any more informed than I am in other disciplines or areas of thought. Still....

Take Michel de Montaigne, and I intend to, in fact I did a long time ago. Now it's time to re-read and think some more! If ever there was a person who invented and reinvented himself, it was Montaigne. (1533-1592) The TLS I am reading reviewed three books about this French philosopher whom we remember best as an essayist - blogger, I guess, today. Here is the conclusion to this review (by Patrick J. Murray):

"Montaigne is a writer who demands and rewards repeated re-reading. As he himself says of this own writing, 'Anyone who catches me out in ignorance does me no harm: I cannot vouch to other people for my reasoning: I can scarcely vouch for them to myself and am by no means satisfied with them."

The Essais, BTW, were published from 1580 to 1595, and published in English fro 1603 to 1613. This collection of more than 100 reflections on "subjects from war to thumbs, conversation to drunkenness, war horses to the power of the imagination", creating his own persona as he went along ("his own idea of himself"). Blog-time!

Yeah, yeah, me too! I bet his fingers were cold. No central heating in those days. No excuses.