Tissue alert

The premise is simple: your dog is the best dog in the world, despite little foibles like eating your furniture; he grows old; you know his time is up; and when you say goodbye, it breaks your heart and you write a tribute to him.

It's a tried and tested dog book formula. And it works. Some work better than others when they become movies and you can cast Jennifer Aniston as the wife.

Some of those books should come with a warning label. It doesn't mean a bad label though. Just that it's so good, so evocative that it will make you cry.

Which meant that riding the bus to work was the worst possible place to read Life with Beau. It took me less than half an hour to read the slim 82-page volume. And a whole lot longer to pull myself together. But oh, how much emotion was packed into that thin book. Marley -- as much as I loved it -- aint got nothing on this.

My first spelling mistake

Maybe the folks behind this pre-school group was going for cutesy little tyke sort of spelling. But you'd think that parents looking for their kid's first school would want to pick an institution that can spell school in the first place.

You know how teachers have been blaming students' lack of ability to spell nowadays on texting and instant chat. Well, it started way before that. Dun blame e fone, e teech in skool st8ted it 1st.

Second look

I didn't take a second look at the new Adam Lambert CD. I thought it was Rihanna. Don't they look the same to you? It's that "my head hurts" pose.

Nice work

I've had a few days off -- time that I had wanted to take off over Christmas week but had to delay till January, thanks to a printer who didn't differentiate between five days and five working days of lead time, forcing us to rework schedules and deadlines.

I spent my time off vegetating on the sofa, watching TV. I don't think I've watched daytime TV in years -- reruns, talk shows, game shows, old episodes of reality shows (turns out that you never do remember who wins Survivor and can happily watch it all over again). It was like audio-visual junk food -- zero calorific value but you just can't stop.

Has anybody wondered why Vanna White hasn't been downsized from Wheel of Fortune? It's not even like she has to turn letters any more, now that everything's gone electronic.

Moving on

Geographically, in terms of reading, that is, from Afghanistan to Turkey. Went for another round of Khaled Hosseini (almost half glad he's only written two books so far) and then went on to Orhan Pamuk. You'd think that a Nobel prize winning author with a barrelful of books would occupy more shelf space at the library but no, there were only two Pamuk books available -- I took the one entitled Snow if only because of snow-bound friends in US and Britain -- and six copies, yes, six of Husseni's first novel.

Maybe the Nobel prize for literature is like American Idol and Britain's Got Talent. Winning isn't necessary for success. Just ask Adam Lambert and Susan Boyle.