It is cold and it’s wet. The re-introduction to the UK was through some cloud the colour of mud, and then a landscape that seemed to have a wash of grey across it. Thus ended nearly two weeks of holiday in Spain. Which was fantastic.

Managed to read ‘The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900′ by David Edgerton. And nearly finished ‘Master Passions’ which has got to be the most irritating and barmy book I’ve ever read.

The only good thing to have come out of reading this tripe is that I normally have a fear of flying, but on the way home, this book was annoying me so much I didn’t have time to think about theoretical debate surrounding the mystery of flight (apparently it’s not that clear to people who study these things why planes actually fly), or the bouncing around in the air turbulence or the terrible smell of aviation fuel before take off.

But next time I go to Spain I’m taking Homage to Catalonia, Claudin’s history of the communist international and I really will finish Don Quixote…