I arrive at the door, wondering if I have to pay admittance. I've never been an event photographer before and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. The young woman at the desk looks up and smiles. "Oh, we've been expecting you. Come in " she says. She stands and I follow her into the foyer where the show is set up. I put my large camera bag on a table and glance around. There are children everywhere, and someone in a rainbow costume is singing and playing her violin, and radiating seemingly inexhaustible energy from the small stage at the front. "Rainbow Rosalind" says my host. "She's fabulous, isn't she?" "Yeah. Great." Who could argue? Who would want to? She's fabulous. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asks. "Coffee? Tea? The friands are actually very good. " "Ahh, no... I'm all good thanks. I'll just get on with it. OK if I put my stuff here?" She smiles and goes back to
Yesterday I finished the first volume of Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: our brains, our delusions and the unmaking of the world ; so I am about 2/3 the way through what is quite possibly the biggest book I have ever read. I do own bigger books - Kittel's Theological Wordbook of the New Testament, for example , and The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, but to be honest I've never read them. Occasionally, when necessary, I've dipped into them, in an eyes glazed over kind of way, but I'm not going to sit down, by the fire with them in the expectation of growth and expansion and delight, as I find myself doing with The Matter With Things . I'm reading it. Every word of it. Slowly. Taking breaks to think about it. Texting Eric Kyte, who's also reading it, to see if he wants to meet, yet again, to share coffee and responses to the book. Iain McGilchrist is a polymath. He read English at New College Oxford, published a well received boo