Quiet in the Library

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library
Samuel Johnson 1709-1784

The sport supplement stayed surprisingly inert as it watched the front and back pages make their bid for freedom. Displeased with their previous state of unity, the center pages quickly rebelled from their loose binding making a blind dash across the road in front of the oncoming cars.
A swift gust of wind had mugged me for my newspaper and embarrassed by my own pathetic attempt to rescue the various pages from the busy road, I slinked off to the nearby library in search of less elusive reading material and some much needed peace and quiet. Libraries, after all, are places of quiet where reading, thinking and learning are encouraged and any unecessary noise will be met with a sharp "Shhh!" from the nearest librarian.
My image of the library as being a safehaven for bibliophiles and lovers of peace and quiet was hastily shattered however. Newspaper and destitute, I trawled the downstairs floor in search for something to read, choosing to ignore the man who had passed out in the entrance. I was immediately struck by the constant murmur of voices and groups of people carrying out conversations in raised voices. The familiar noise of clashing cymbals was overflowing from personal headphones, mobiles were ringing loudly and being answered with yet louder conversations ensuing.
Perhaps I might sound petty and slightly misanthropic for criticizing people carrying out their normal lives in what is essentially a public place, but for some the library is the only refuge for reading, working and gaining some much-needed quiet time.
Should library staff not be persuaded to do more to reduce unecessary noise levels in our public libraries? To stop people viewing distasteful internet content on the library computers and using mobile phones?
Next time you find yourself in the center of any town or city aimlessly chasing a rogue newspaper, I suggest that you visit the library so you can see for yourself. But be armed with some ear-plugs.

In Praise of Being Nice

At school we were told to avoid nice. Nice is a lazy word. Nice is unimaginative and uninteresting. Nice is boring. There is a whole plethora of better adjectives waiting to be plucked from the linguistic fruit bowl, why chose the first that comes to mind? At the front of my classroom, as in many, there was a large poster emblazoned with the legend “Never Use Nice!” with a list of more savoury suggestions below just to discourage kids from ever using that filthy word again.
But all this primary school vocab bullying doesn’t seem to have done much good for any of us. We still seem to pick nice to describe just about anything. We go on holiday somewhere nice every once in a while, and if we’re lucky, stay in a really nice hotel with a nice view. Perhaps meet a nice couple who live in a nice cottage a few miles south of Somewhereshire (which is very nice this time of year I hear). All very nice. Is our vocabulary so stinted that we have to resort to recycling the same adjective over and over? Or are we perhaps in fear we’ll run out of words altogether?
Sometimes however, nice is needed. People may think nice is wishy-washy, but to me it’s meaning is very specific. Nice is friendly, nice is unpretentious, nice is humble and unassuming, nice is childishly innocent, it certainly won’t change the world but nice is - when it comes to it, just plain nice. And that’ll do nicely.
People trample all over the good name of nice everyday. Gordon Ramsey, Jeremy Clarkson, Sir Alan Sugar, and Simon Cowell to name a few who grumble and snigger their way onto our televisions every week. All these people for one reason or another have lost the ability to be nice along the way.
Anyone who’s made a name for themselves shouting at, intimidating and belittling others, posturing and being self-indulgent, self-loving and downright selfish should take some time out to consider just being nice.
But all this complaining sort of defeats the object of what I was saying in the first place, so I’ll keep quiet. But hopefully someone reading this article will have dropped the magazine in shock, knocking their skinny latte over their be-suited knees in the process, then swiftly dialled up Margaret from the office to apologise for shouting at her earlier on.
Or maybe someone will take a deep breath before moaning to the waiter that his or her food hasn’t come yet, or to the girl behind the till that they can’t get a refund on their latest purchase; it is after all not their fault. Probably not. But of all the things I can’t stress enough, please: if you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.