Long Overdue.


There’s something unsavoury about borrowing FHM from the library.

Not that I've ever done this, but if I wanted to, I could. I rejoined my local library last weekend, after a twenty-year hiatus – and on doing so, I spotted For Him Magazine on a spinny stand by the doorway (presumably positioned there to aid a fast exit). It’s not the sort of thing I expected to be stocked, which goes to show how much libraries have changed since I was a kid. I can’t imagine who'd want to take it out.

FHM isn’t exactly high literature, other than where you might expect to see it in an uptight newsagent's. It’s barely reading matter. If you’d sooner borrow a much-thumbed copy than pay £3.99 for an issue of your own, you’re as tight as you are brave. I couldn't face a librarian’s judgement.

The reason for my extended bibliothèque break was fear. The last time I tried to draw something out, I was accused of having kept hold of a book for months that I swore I'd never had. It was a manual for a make of keyboard I didn’t own. Why would I want to read that? It defies logic. From then on, Stevenage Library was a no-go area. I couldn’t even risk using the one in Hitchin, because it fell under the same catchment. Any book I read would have to be bought with cold hard cash.

I decided to bite the bullet on Saturday and try registering again. Maybe they wouldn’t link present day David Ephgrave with the David Ephgrave of the past. Unfortunately, they did, though they were happy to overlook it. I can now revel in the joy of taking books out again. I wonder if they've got anything good on Nineties' keyboards.

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