Picture the scene.
It is the year 2000. A young, fresh faced little baw has just failed his HNC in software development and has dropped out of college.

I didn't really mind, however. I was engaged to a pretty (although quite unstable) little lady, and was still living at home with the parents. Life was good. What's more, I was off on my holidays!

Back then, I wasn't much of a reader..... I seem to have an aversion to being "forced" into anything, and school had put me right off reading of any kind. Since then, I have discovered a love for art, history and books that I never thought possible when I was expected to take an interest in such things, but as of the time of this little tale, I had not yet discovered this.

It is summer. Myself, the future ball-n-chain and some friends had jetted off to the sunny climes of Tenerife for a fortnight. My first ever foreign holiday, I soon discovered that a lifetime of Scottish weather had rendered my pasty white torso rather susceptible to the sun, and as the missus was a sun worshipper, I was faced with a choice...... spend the entire 2 weeks on the beach by day, in the casualty ward of the local hospital with 3rd degree radiation burns all over my boobs by night, or stay back at the hotel alone for at least some of the time while the others baked themselves. I decided that skin cancer was not my life's ambition, and so reluctantly chose not to rise at 8 AM every morning after 2 hours sleep and trudge off to the beach. But what to do? I didn't want to just sit there, the edition of Official Playstation Magazine which I bought for the plane had been read from cover to cover (with an interesting article about MGS2, I seem to recall) and I had no gameboy. There was only one option..... one of the missus' books.

She had brought three, I seem to recall, two of them were trashy chick novels about romance or some lady gangster types or some such rubbish, leaving me with only one real choice.

Hannibal, by Thomas Harris.

I didn't expect much, not being one who enjoyed reading. I remember that first day, sitting there, red-skinned on a plastic chair on the balcony, slowly moving myself along the floor as the sun peeped round the side of the hotel. The book drew me in almost immediately, especially the way Hannibal's mind is described throughout, developing his character far beyond what the film shows. I found myself enjoying it to the point of actually talking about it with the missus. Once I had finished, she had a go at reading it too...... she claimed to be absolutely engrossed in it, then after 3 chapters she gave up, saying it was "too hard", something that now strikes a little chord in me, being that she's now the ex-missus.

I know it isn't a great masterpiece, but it did open me up to the world of books once again. Since then, I've read many fine books, none of which I'd probably have even considered had I not picked up that first little paperback to save myself from sunburn.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 15 May 2008, 21:10, Reply)