Remarkable news!

Regular readers of these pages may recall that Lady Bracknell exhibits some degree of reliance when it comes to matters of etiquette on Mr Guy Pocock's slender but invaluable volume, "Brush Up Your Manners". (Mr Pocock's words of advice re two-piece suits of the amusing kind engendered much hilarity in a certain Ms Goldfish.)

Lady Bracknell received an e-mail this evening informing her that a new comment had been received from one of her readers. A charming Venezuelan gentleman has informed her ladyship that he is in possession of another of Mr Pocock's works, this one entitled, "Brush Up Your Reading".

Naturally, Lady Bracknell was immediately intrigued, and requested that her editor research further. Google having proved unusually disappointing, the editor was thrown back on that old faithful, Abe Books*. The UK version of which site currently has available a total of 255 books penned by Mr Pocock. (Most are, of course, multiple copies. Mr Pocock did not write 255 books.)

Lady Bracknell is somewhat disappointed to find that the "Brush Up Your..." series appears to extend to only three volumes, the third being, "Brush Up Your Own Language".

Several copies of all three books are currently available, although there will very probably be one fewer of both the "Reading" and "Your Own Language" volumes by the time any of Lady Bracknell's readers bend their own virtual steps thither.

But how thrilled Mr Pockock surely would have been to have learned that one of his books had travelled as far as Venezuela! Lady Bracknell makes no claims to understand how the interwebnet actually works, but only a very churlish individual would criticise its value when it brings news which, whilst perhaps not of any real importance in the great scheme of things, brings such pleasure to both the sender and the recipient.


*Should any readers be unfamiliar with Abe Books, Lady Bracknell can heartily recommend it as a source of second-hand books. Although the postage and packing charges render it an uneconomical method of obtaining copies of many books which are still in print, it comes very much into its own when one is searching for those which are out of print.