Prussians, Polyurethane and Planetary Parleys - continuing adventures in Libraryland

Meanwhile back in the Library, the King of Prussia popped in to inform our brave Librarian that he had been invited to a celebratory dinner to commemorate the old Battle of Waterloo. Dammit if I didn’t find that all our books appear to have been written by the Duke of Wellington, who – bless him –seems to have forgotten that he didn’t win the blessed battle single-handed.

And talking of history books: the dashing young writer (who is so busy being dashing that he has chosen to do several duels using first-rate top-brass as his Seconds, rather than sort out the copyright on his looted artworks) has nearly completed his tome on the history of our venerable institution….yes – you at the back – I said venerable, not any other similar-sounding, yet frankly unsavoury words (the very idea).

So today, I was so put out by the frankly inconvenient congregation of senior members of the Chemicals industry, who have taken up semi-permanent residence in my Library with their fancy bread sticks and fine

wines, that I decided to head off to chair a meeting of Astronauts at Galileo’s old gaff. Unfortunately, too many turned up, so there was no room in the space-ship and we had to settle for Tea in Piccadilly with a semi-functioning Teasmade which hadn’t been used since 1936 and therefore was a tad hard to handle.

Meeting went well though and I learned several new cleaning techniques involving miniature vacuuming apparatus, pipe cleaners and beeswax. All in a day’s work eh!