The Corner

Last night I was listening to the second part of the radio adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, based on the novel by John le Carre. It was pretty good, and very faithful to the original book. I also finished reading The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighbourhood by David Simon and Ed Burns. It's a non-fiction book detailing a year that the authors spent following the lives of the residents of a tough inner-city area in Baltimore, in particular around a street corner which is one of may that are used as pretty much twenty four hour, open air drug markets. A large part of the book deals with a broken family of two drug-addicted adults and their fifteen year old son. The book also discusses the nature of drug addiction and the history and effects of the American drug trade and the resulting legislation in an inner-city area. It is a very good book, and very powerful. It was adapted into a six part miniseries for HBO, and Burns and Simon subsequently went on to create the TV series The Wire, which also deals with drugs in Baltimore.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived, this month's main story was about an alleged UFO crash in Wales in 1974. Our lunch today was salmon, with peas and boiled potatoes followed with some more of my Mum's homemade raspberry ice-cream. Later on I listened to the third and final part of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

The cold is a lot better now, which is good! I just really hope that this coming week is better than the last week has been.