Edward Upward made it to 102, and Leonora Carrington to 96. Perhaps the surrealists know something we don't

1. Life is a bowl of coffin nails.

2. Keep your heart close--preferably under a nearby loose board.

3. To cleanse your pipes in the morning : trip off tintinnabulation-10 times in 10 seconds.

4. Early to bed early to rise makes you miss all the somnambulent guys.

5. He sells Hell's bells, she sells Hell's bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.

6. Memorize all the words that rhyme with -ore. (Just do it! It's a genetic thingy.)

7. The story that was Greece? The tory that was Greece? The gory that was Greece? Aaaach!

8. An effective put down: Hey, Roderic, dude, were you born in a tarn?

7. Reply to that nice X-mas card from that Baudelaire fedllow.

8. The reading public is a sucker for anything or anyone buried underground longer than ten hours.

9. Never give a reading without riding at least one horse into a fire.

10. "Nicean barks of yore" sound too fundy Biblical.

You don't haver to BE Edward Upward to make it to 102 do you? Which Greek playwright lived for bloody ages? Sophocles, I think. He wasn't the one who was killed by a tortoise from outer space.

To change the subject and I should probably be on another thread, Bill has a new book of poems out called 'Ringers' and published by Cinnamon Press (Ann Drysdale's publisher). Sphereans should buy it in their droves. I have one.

John is thinking of Diana Athill, whose memoir "Instead Of A Letter" is a treasure. I suspect that, as mehitabel the cat would say, there's a dance in the old dame yet.