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MEMBERSHIP The 1993 membership to date numbers 83, still 14 short of our 1992 total of 97. At our March 24th meeting, we were happy to welcome new member Mae Jackson. BOOK SALE'93 This is scheduled to take place on June 26th and 27th, 1993, in the Ice Arena, so we are starting to put together our merry band of book sorters and helpers of every kind. No doubt this will be discussed at our April 28th monthly meeting. "MUSIC IN THE MORNING" (MUSIC AT THE LIBRARY) The next programme will be presented on May 12th. The lecturer will be David Lemon and his topic will be Beethoven's opera "Fidelio." Tickets are available at the information desk in the Library. BRIT WIT Every nation is ridiculous in one way or another, but only the British could make a virtue of it. Only they could give their towns names like Great Snoring and Nether Wallop, drink at pubs called the Crab and Gumboil or the Cat and Fiddle, and eat dishes called toad-in-the-hole and bubble-and-squeak. Only the British would compel their most senior parliamentarian to sit on something called the woolsack, require judges and lawyers to wear little mops on their heads, call private schools public schools and devote three days to a single match of cricket, a game that has positions with names like short leg and silly mid-on. Britain may have lost an empire. It may stumble from one financial crisis to the next. It may have the most depressing weather, and sales-clerks who seem to be practising for a coma. It may have fast food that is neither of those things. But as long as it retains its humour, its patience, its politeness and its sense of the ridiculous, as long as there is bubble-and-squeak for dinner, and someone, somewhere is playing silly mid-on with a straight face, it will remain home to me. (Billy Bryson, quoted in Reader's Digest) In the meantime, have fun "practising random acts of kindness and senseless beauty"! Tony Scammell Editor