No mention of music…

…So I’d skip this one, if I were you.

I have built myself a bear-trap. It has a double long spring design. It is 42 inches long and it packs just the right amount of punch to bite into the bone but, most importantly, not through it.

It is the two rows of terrible stainless-steel teeth that do that.

I built this monstrous trap myself from the words I used in a conversation that I had a long way from home. Names will not be mentioned but, suffice it say, I have promised to read a book that has turned out to be the literary equivalent of quicksand and it must be read.

A test will follow, he said.

It is by no means a difficult book, nor is its subject matter uninteresting. It is just so very poorly written and has become very boring very quickly. It’s just an inky blur of names and dates that make as much sense to me as a gun in a playground. Worse still, the book itself appears to be getting longer the more I read and I can't think of a way to stop it. I’ve even started looking at other people’s books covetously as I prise apart the weighty jaws of my own.

So, I have built myself a little trap - like we all do for ourselves daily - partly to “Do the Right Thing”; partly to (like electricity) take the path of least resistance. I follow that breadcrumb trail and it leads, inevitably, to those angry biting teeth - each one an off-hand promise and each one that cuts deep enough to stick. Worst of all, like all the best traps, you never see it until it’s too late.

- sha