posted on Sunday, September 10, 2006 2:19 PM
by
Endie
A meme??!!?!11?!?one?
Is this only my first meme in all my years of blogging on here, livejournal, spaces etc? Probably not. But Chris plaintively calls for contributions, so I followed the instructions.
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 123.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
- Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
- Tag five people.
I refuse to do the last step, so I am doubtless about to be struck down by seven years' of bad luck and an infestation of lice in my breadbasket, or something.
The nearest book (I promise: check my librarything library if you think this is dreadfully unlikely: I would have chosen something with shorter sentences: probably Caesar) gives me this:
In time of peace, and in the merchant service, the London price is from a guinea to about seven-and-twenty shillings the calendar month. A common labourer in London, at the rate of nine or ten shillings a week, may earn in the calendar month from forty to five-and-forty shillings. The sailor, indeed, over and above his pay, is supplied with provisions. Their value, however, may not always exceed the difference between his pay and that of the common labourer; and though it sometimes should, the excess will not be clear gain to the sailor, because he cannot share it with his wife and family, whom he must maintain out of his wages at home.
I thought, on picking up this book, that it would be incredibly easy. Page 124, indeed, would have been pretty obvious. But the individual writes so clearly, and in such a modern style, that I don't think it is immediately apparent. The next book (they are not even slightly sorted) was Count Zero, by Gibson. That was more obvious if read recently, with a reference to someone called Two-A-Day. But this one is amazingly easy to find out.
Tomorrow's blog entry will be an entry of unbearable poignancy about two men and their dog.