Manga bleedin' Carta

I was in the British Library reading rooms at St Pancras for the first time. I had been in the building a couple of time before to attend book-y events, but this was my first time using the facilities. It's a stunning building - the collection, of course, mind boggling. The 'turn the page' technology on their website is pretty cool as well.

I was researching parts of my long discussed, much anticipated magnum opus. I now have publisher interest in it after cornering a couple of publishing directors at industry 'dos after I've had enough to drink to tell them all about it. I'm aiming to finish by September.

I was in the Rare Books bit. I looked up at one point and counted 20 cctv cameras that I could conceivably be in the frame of. A trifle over the top, even given the UK penchant for surveillance. When I first moved here the sheer scale of the coverage used to frighten me. Big Brother and all that. I've been told, but I've really not checked this out, that you can go from central London to Manchester and be on camera the entire way. I've realised, though, this is Britain. Odds are, half of the cameras won't work full stop, the other half probably will be shut down for cost saving measures.

I popped into the exhibitions on the way out to look at some of the British Librariy's treasures. It is a bibliophiles wet dream. Jane Austen juvenilia, the log book of the HMS Victory from Battle of Trafalgar, a third century bit of the new testament...

Best of all is a separate room for the Magna Carta. It is startling to see, this 800 year old document, the foundation for much of British (and American) law and society, just there. Inches from my nose pressed greedily against the glass case. Almost religious experience. Except I was distracted by this bratty 14 year old who was in the Magna Carta room with me. He was with his family, squirming around, complaining, wanting to go watch the FA Cup. His father shut him up by saying, in a voice rather too loud for the BL, 'Jimmy this is the bloomin' Magna fucking Carta.'

I kind of smiled and looked back - yeah, it is the Magna fucking Carta.