Clouds above Bradford central library

I have a thing for libraries, not just the knowledge & books stored there but the wonderful silence interrupted by shuffling newspapers, the smell of long dried ink & 1970s wallpaper.

They lend out CDs, DVDs & have Internet access these days but I still like them for the old men coming in from the cold to doze by the radiators, the students nervously cramming for exams with outdated text books, the children's corner decorated with owls made of pasta stuck to paper & the pervading sense that time has stood still & that there must be the sort of reverence usually reserved for the vast beauty of a cathedral!

If we were invaded by hostile six legged aliens (I watched Falling skies last night) I'd go to the library over the church any day. Gods in there somewhere amongst the dewy decimal system & the ISBNs perhaps reading a copy of Darwins 'On the origin of species' chuckling to himself whilst keeping warm next to a 5 bar heater.

Plus I pop in for a chance to rescue ex library books which are sold off for 20p a go (where can you find such a bargain these days?) before their brethren are sent to library book hell - the pulper! Stop!

If only I could rescue them all!

So my love of libraries & Bradford central library in particular is fittingly depicted in my blip today with heavenly clouds floating above - you can almost see the angels clutching copies of Dantes inferno!

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library Jorge Luis Borges