I had a lovely relaxing (sic) time while I was away and I bought a number of books to add to my collection of  ‘Books I will start to read but not finish’

One that I may get through though  is called “100 Plants that won’t Die in your Garden”  I take it with me in the garden  as I survey my efforts  and try to identify what the shrivelled lifeless things that are no longer of any use to me  once were. (I do a similar thing when I’m having a shower…)

I also bought a book of Robert Browning’s poetry and T S Eliot’s work,  Roger Penrose’s The Emporer’s New Mind’ and a couple of books on St Anselm’s Ontological Proof of the Existence of God.  A little light summer reading I’m sure you will agree!

As I was sitting on the Harbourside of my favourite holiday destination  next to people reading the latest John Grisham thriller and Aga sagas by various writers,  I was idly leafing through ‘Theories of Everything’ by John Barrow, a passer by asked me “What book are you reading?”  when I showed them they ran away…

I got to thinking  about ‘The Peter Principle’  does it apply to internal thinking processes as well as to business systems’ because I’m reading books that make my brain hurt and I wonder if I  am reading stuff that is really out of my league.  It’s lLike listening to music from a distant room; I know something is going on but I have to strain my senses to make out what it is!

I can recall the problems I had with Steven Hawkings’ ‘Brief History of Time’  My phone didn’t stop ringing “Eddie,” he  would say,”does this sound right? Can I pass this by you? Can I put this in the book?”  I would reply “Look Stevie just do your best, there’s only you and me that would know if you got it wrong again anyway!”

When I was a lad I used to get learned tomes out from the public library and write in pencil in the margins  things like NO! Think Again! and Check your Calculations! before returning them and wondering what the next reader would make of my annotations.  Such fun!   I still do it to books I give to charity shops and you should see the margin notes I’ve written in my Bible!  I have tried to explain to my wife about her duties and obligations by claiming…”You have to do such and such a thing, it’s written in my bible” and it is, albeit in biro!

I am a firm believer in Anselm’s Ontological Proof of God, partly because it makes sense and partly because I have not found any competent refutations of the Proof, even Bertrand Russel’s prognostications on it are bollocks!

So back to The Peter Principle’  Does it apply to internal thinking processes as well as to business systems?

Think about it!