The Edge of Reason

Friday, July 30
7:05 a.m.

Reading the 2nd Diary of Bridget Jones: "The Edge of Reason".
Excellent analysis of celibacy (end of the 90's in London) and of the dietary and social habits of a culture ending at the death of Princess Di and the accession to power of Tony Blair.
Years pro-911 and the Now New Era of Total Destruction programmed long time ago.


The Age of Communication has been awesome.
Schools. Correspondence courses like the CNED (in France) so children who are living at sea and all these rural areas where there were no schools could have an education.
Then Internet schooling.
We'll all live pretty soon in a real Virtual World that would make the physical Real World obsolete.


And it is in the virtual world that enormous chunks of money are made nowadays.

3 pages left before the end of my book. I've been cheating when some chapters were dragging on where Mark Darcy wasn't mentioned and went straight to the last page. So I know I'll like the end, they've come back together...
I can take my time to savor their journey.

So sex and wine (and cigarettes with Bridget), croissant and cappuccino, friends and fun, a career, are key ingredients for a singleton to be happy in Britain.


I like the cutting edge of the analysis of a country by a journalistic trained mind. 


It was the first time that I ever saw Rudyard's Kipling poem in English (I only knew it in French).

"If' by Rudyart Kipling


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait, and not be tired of waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream- and not make dreams your master;
 If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat these two impostors just the same,


If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- not lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you but none too much;
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -which is more- you'll be a Man, my son!