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John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

When I was nine, my fountain pen (packed in cotton) arrived as a "sample of no commercial value" all the way from Aachen, where my grandmother (the kindly donor) used to live. I lay in bed with the flu, while the February winds howled around the apartment house. This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first chance I got. Me, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen.

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Are You Bored?

I’d finished swimming and was sitting in the sauna. There was another man in there, up on the top shelf, while I was on the bottom. Some guy with muscles looked through the glass door at us for a moment before coming in. He went up on the top shelf also.
‘I wanted to see who was in here before I came in,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you can tell if people are going to talk or not.’
‘Do you want to talk?’ the first man asked.
‘Yes, I don’t just want to sit here in silence.’
‘You can talk to me if you like.’
‘There should be a television in here, something to stop people being bored.’ (more…)

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