Word as Image

Make your own linguistic collage

They say a picture paints a thousand words. Well no one takes this more seriously than the folks over at Wordle, a website devoted to creating images from words themselves. It's a Java application written by Jonathan Feinberg, allowing users to create their own images from texts they have written or selected themselves. The program arranges the selected words in any number of random configurations, and allows the browser to modify the fonts, colours and prominence of words according to taste.

Having a little too much time on my hands, I thought I'd experiment with the application for awhile, finally settling on the image above - a list of my interests. Naturally, the word 'Beckett' is the most prominent. You can try the web-based application for yourself by clicking here, but be warned - it's strangely addictive.

Notes from the London Underground

There's something about the London Underground that has always sparked my imagination

When I first visited London over ten years ago, there was one aspect of the trip that formed a lasting impression in my mind: the London Underground subway system. For some reason, I've always found train stations to be somehow evocative, in their way, and have always been interested by the magic these transitory spaces seem to hold.

I've become fascinated by empty station platforms in the same way J. G. Ballard obsesses over airport terminals: they are places defined by the temporary - destinations between destinations. And there are a number of references from pop culture that have sought to evoke this strange power, from David Bowie's 1976 album Station to Station to the David Lean masterpiece Brief Encounter.

What made the London Underground so fantastic to me was that it could be found deep down in the bowels of the city. Many commuters complain about the heat and the over-crowding at peak times, but whenever I've visited these have all added to the excitement. Even after an exhausting day.

I love the wide open stations, the hundreds of clicking turnstiles and the escalators moving hundreds of metres down into the dark. I also love the iconic map design that lays out every tube station in an easy-to-read colour-coded arrangement. Not to mention the gorgeous and simple Johnston typeface, or the distinctive 'roundel' logo. The Underground has held a grip on my imagination for years, and I'm still astounded to think that this labyrinth of human engineering criss-crosses such a complex layout deep under the London streets.

The sheer magnitude of the subway system is staggering. According to Wikipedia, there are 268 stations in total, covering approximately 400km of track: that makes it the longest underground rail system in the world by route length.

If we look at the busy, congested London streets for just a moment it's easy to see just how intrinsic the Underground's role is to the efficient running of the city's day-to-day life. The train lines are like arteries running underneath the surface of the city, and they've been a key part of London commuters' lives for as long as anyone can remember. The Metropolitan Line, in fact, is the oldest tube line in the world, having opened on 10th January 1863.

What fascinates me even more is the role the Underground has played to Londoners during key historical events. For instance, during the Blitz attacks of the Second World War stations were used as shelters from German air raid attack. To imagine what it might have been like to seek refuge deep under the city, while it was under such ferocious attack from above, sends shivers down my spine. It's such a terrible, and evocative image. Deep-level shelters were later built further below these stations, and still exist to this day. (The Stockwell Deep Level Shelter now houses the Guardian newspaper archives.)

Other stations during the 1930s and '40s were converted into headquarters for the Royal Executive Committee, and for meetings of the War Cabinet while the Cabinet War Rooms were awaiting completion.

There are some other, perhaps more morbid, historical tidbits. Just as Abraham Lincoln's body, packed in ice, was transported by train from Washington to Illinois in 1865, the London Underground train lines have been used to carry the coffins of two notable historical figures. The first was Prime Minister William Gladstone in 1898, and the second Dr. Thomas J. Barnardo in 1905.

The London Underground has also exercised a grip on imaginations other than my own, and in some ways has become a rich and productive breathing space for the arts. While the Poems on the Underground project, and aspiring musicians - including Julian Lloyd Webber - have attempted to introduce a rich cultural life below the streets of London, the transport network has inspired writers, artists and filmmakers to create their own tributes to this unique subterranean space.

The artist Simon Patterson was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1996 for his painting, The Great Bear. It's an exact reproduction of the London Underground's map design, first created by Harry Beck in 1931. The only exception are the stations themselves, which are replaced on the map by names of prominent artists and thinkers.

The Underground has also been the setting for cult television shows from The Tomorrow People to Quartermass and the Pit. And there are more recent examples in contemporary film, such as horror-zombie sequel Twenty-Eight Weeks Later, where the stations seemingly become the only refuge from viral infection; V for Vendetta, where the train lines are used to resist and oppose dystopic, Orwellian government forces; and American Werewolf in London, where a lone commuter is pursued through an empty station by an unseen feral entity: 'I can assure you that this is not in the least bit amusing!'

I'm planning on visiting London in early September and meeting Jennifer when she arrives at Heathrow airport. We're hoping to have another look around, visit the Freud Museum (which we didn't manage on our last trip) and perhaps see a film at the iMax theatre on the Southbank. But one of the things I'm looking forward to most of all is buying a ticket for the Underground, taking a ride, and minding the gap.

Withnail & I

Bruce Robinson's masterpiece of friendship and drifting apart

To express a love for the British cult film Withnail & I is always a statement loaded with hackneyed connotations. It's been blindly adored by generations of students since its original release in the 1980s, and subsequent releases on VHS and DVD have inspired new followers to rise up the ranks.

Set at the fag-end of the '60s, Withnail & I traces the downward trajectory of two out-of-work actors as they eek out a living in a cramped and disgusting Camden Town flat. The film's narrative is motivated by two driving forces: the first is the will to spend a weekend in the countryside, and the second is the intoxication of alcohol. The two title characters manage to secure a cottage (and its sensational wine cellar) for one weekend, and comically struggle to make sense of their new surroundings. Ultimately, the audience begin to appreciate and understand their close friendship as one based on hardship, poverty and antagonism. It's beautiful.

One of the things that always fascinated me about Withnail & I was the extent to which is was based on real-life experiences. Many of the film's most ardent followers connect with it on a deeply personal and emotional level, relating to the comic absurdity of this unstable position in a young person's life: a position of transition, of insecurity, and of not knowing what to do next or how to go about it. It's a film that I've come back to time and again since encountering it as a teenager, and for me every joke and every quip is grounded by realist observations.

When Bloomsbury published its most recent edition of Withnail & I's original screenplay in 1995, it came complete with an introduction from writer/director Bruce Robinson. Robinson has suggested many times in interviews and documentaries that the inspiration for the film came from his own experiences living in Camden with friend Vivian MacKerrell - the model for the character of Withnail. In fact, the screenplay bears the dedication 'For Viv' on its opening pages.

But what fascinates me most about Robinson's candid reminiscences of his time as a struggling actor in the 1960s is his ability to remain optimistic under the bleakest of circumstances. No matter how bad the situation gets, each scene is observed with a dry, ironic edge that never fails to raise a smile. The opening of the original screenplay is a case in point, as Robinson describes the flat the actors occupy in Camden Town: 'Dostoyevsky described hell as perhaps nothing more than a room with a chair in it. This room has several chairs.'

In the introduction, Robinson reviews diaries he kept between 1966 and 1976, a way for him to 'vent spleen' during those 'bleak days'. As he looks over the pages, he is staggered by the levels of alcohol he and Viv habitually consumed:

'I simply can't believe the amount of drinking. Practically every entry starts with a description of a hangover, and they are all different, like Eskimos have twenty different ways of describing snow. This one was gin and retsina and lasted four and a half days. It gets about a page and a half, adjectives all over it, as I looked for different ways to describe pain.'

Robinson's diaries are perpetually haunted by two concerns: money and alcohol. And yet despite their constant struggle toward some kind of chemical sustenance, he has always maintained that this most miserable period in his life was also one of his most joyous:

'The one thing we had in common was we were smart, and we would sit up all night talking about whatever. It was a marvellous time in my life, even though I was absolutely destitute.'

In a collection of interviews with the writer/director, Smoking in Bed (ed. Alistair Owen), Robinson states that it was during this period that he began to explore and appreciate some of the greats of classical literature. He was particularly struck by the Second Empire French poets such as Verlaine, Rimbaud and Baudelaire, introduced to him by Vivian, who had received a public school education.

Of course, as it was the 1960s, the 'astonishing writing' of the poets is romanticized and co-opted by the culture at large. Loyal to the tradition that sought to open the doors of perception, Vivian invented the 'The Baudelaire Principle': a process that involved 'savage black coffee with honey, cinnamon and a nut of hashish that he'd melt and stir in.'

I saw Withnail & I once again just recently, and was surprised at how it continues to make me laugh despite the number of times I've seen it. I was also surprised by how apposite the entire film feels to me, as I attempt to make a place for myself in the world. In this respect it's both a folly and a therapy. But, most of all, I love the way the film finds its two characters managing to enjoy their lives despite their unremittingly bleak circumstances; I think it's definitely something most of us can relate to, as we fight our way through and wait for a little luck to shine upon us.

And speaking of luck, I'll finish with an anecdote from Bruce Robinson:

'We went to [an auction] in Alderley Edge, and there was nothing in it, but there was a boarded-up hotel opposite that they were about to demolish, and the only thing left was this little bar. The actors who had gone to the auction trooped in, and they all wanted a pint except me and my friend Steve who wanted a glass of wine. The barman said, 'I can't sell you a glass, but I can sell you a bottle for a quid.' We said, 'Really? What have you got?' He said, 'I don't know. Come and have a look.'

'We go into the cellar, and all the best vintages of the twentieth century were down there, stuff that even in those days was worth fifty quid a bottle. 'A pound a bottle is it mate?' 'Yeah.' So we were plundering fifty-three Margaux, 'best of the century', as Withnail says, well over £1200 a bottle now. We had £200 between us, and me and Steve bought two hundred bottles of wine. The landlord said, 'You do know this wine is old, don't you?' We said, 'Yeah, but we don't mind that. We'll have another dozen of those sixty-ones, please.' [...] We drank the lot in two weeks. We were literally sitting there with fish and chips, saying, 'Shall we have the Haute-Medoc or shall we have the Margaux?' And I'm so glad we did drink it because there's no way you could drink that kind of wine now.'

Chin-chin.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud

Before I began listening to jazz music I had two very distinctive ideas about its sound. My first impression was of a frenetic improvised noise, sound and fury that signified nothing. My second was closely linked to the film noir films of the 40s and 50s, and films of the French New Wave. These impressions, no matter how misleading or distorted, were qualities in jazz music that both repelled and attracted me.

I soon discovered that high-tempo improvisational jazz had a lot more to it than initially meets the ear. I investigated the music at some length, and began collecting old bebop records by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, to discover that while often created on-the-spot, the music was still highly conceptualized and clearly thought out. It was never simply a question of picking up an instrument and blowing into it.

As for the film noir jazz that I'd always known had existed, I could never seem to find it. I looked far and wide, but whenever I came across something slow or contemplative it didn't quite have that quality that I had imagined. That is, until recently, when I discovered that none other than Miles Davis himself composed a film noir score for first-time director Louis Malle.

The film is called Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold) and is a suspenseful French thriller based on popular American crime dramas. I haven't yet seen the film, although I've acquainted myself with more stills than you can shake a stick at, but it's certainly something I'll investigate in the future. But what interests me more than anything else right now is its soundtrack.

Miles Davis travelled to Paris early in his career, before he achieved anything like the recognition that follows him today. In France opinions towards jazz music, and Miles Davis' ethnic background, were a world apart from his experiences in America. Miles has spoken of his time in Paris fondly, stating that he felt to be equal to those around him, and treated as such. He also voiced regret about his inevitable move back to the states, where racial tension continued to affect both his personal life and professional career.

Louis Malle, who later achieved both critical and popular appreciation as an aspiring artist in his field, requested that Miles record a pared-down jazz soundtrack to his first film, and Miles agreed. The recording sessions were relaxed and informal, with Miles on trumpet accompanied by four French musicians on tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. The sessions were recorded in Paris at night, on the 4th and 5th of December 1957 (two years before Miles released Kind of Blue). The film was shown on a large projector, and the band improvised along several themes to accompany the moving images.

The result is fantastic. I managed to pick up the soundtrack a few days ago, and it's become essential night listening for those after-dark cups of coffee. 'Black as midnight on a moonless night', as Agent Dale Cooper would say. There is a sense of mystery and suspense in these haunting tracks. The first sixteen pieces are out-takes from the sessions, and are fascinating in and of themselves. But it's with track 17 that things really get under way: the music used to score the film, enhanced with an echo effect that adds depth and weight to the recordings.

Julien Dans l'Ascenseur is a track that stands out in particular, with Miles Davis playing long, suspended notes on solo trumpet. Each sound hangs in the air indefinitely, as Miles slowly improvises around the same notes. Generique is another classic from the soundtrack, and stands out like a theme - it has a certain anthemic quality about it. But more than anything, Generique betrays the quality and the characteristics of the soundtrack as a whole. If film noir jazz exists at all, then this is it. The definitive statement. I can't imagine anything suiting my impressions more perfectly. It's an absolute gem.

Kafka's Unseen Papers

Reports emerge of unseen and unpublished manuscripts by Franz Kafka

Papers belonging to Franz Kafka have been found in an apartment in Tel Aviv. The apartment belonged to Esther Hoffe, secretary to Kafka's literary executor Max Brod, who has kept the papers under wraps since Brod's death in 1968. No one is sure what condition these papers are in; no one is sure whether the papers are legible; no one is even sure what the papers concern. But everyone is interested in finding out. You can read the BBC news story here.

Franz Kafka's work has been the centre of controversy since its initial publication, when Max Brod over-ruled Kafka's request to have all of his personal papers destroyed. The resulting works were often, at best, incomplete masterpieces, edited and abridged by Brod's own creative interpretations. (I'd recommend J. M. Coetzee's essay 'Translating Kafka' for a more thorough exploration of Kafka's publishing history.) Brod is almost certain to have published everything he thought worthy of public attention, and it seems ironic now that papers he wished to keep secret have resurfaced since his death.

What strikes me as interesting is what these unseen papers may reveal. Could they be the missing fragments of The Trial or The Castle that people have speculated about for decades? Could they complete lost personal correspondence with one of his friends or lovers? Or could they constitute part of the Octavo notebooks, or the journal entries that painted less than complimentary portraits of his family, friends and loved ones. (But, as Brod himself has noted, journals are often an opportunity to vent spleen concerning those closest to us, which is why he decided to omit many of Kafka's negative gripes and observations.)

Whatever the answer to this question, to publish these papers poses a kind of ethical question. Kafka requested that his papers be destroyed, and now that Brod has passed away his request falls to a new generation. If what is written does enter the public domain, then the reader is placed in a tricky, even voyeuristic, position. What does it mean to read a book, or a journal entry, that was never intended for public consumption?

Just a few years ago Nirvana fans were placed in an identical position when Courtney Love decided to publish journals belonging to the band's lead singer Kurt Cobain. Whether it was an earnest attempt to reveal the man to his fans, or a crass marketing scam, is almost beyond the point. If Kurt Cobain didn't authorize the publication himself, is it right that they are published at all? Furthermore, is it right for a fan to read them?

Max Brod continually attempted to justify his decision over the years, at one point suggesting that it was in fact Kafka's secret wish that his work become freely available. Whether Brod was right or wrong to do what he did is not my place to decide, it's far too complex to get into on a Saturday afternoon. The weather is just too nice outside.

What remains certain is that Brod's decision brought us, rightly or wrongly, some of the greatest works of twentieth century literature. Books that have not only illuminated something of the modern condition, and suggested the dangers that were to come, but helped a lot of people come to terms with aspects of their own lives and of their own identities. Reading Kafka changed me forever, and I'm thankful for that.

I think the real question is this: if the papers are published, would I read them? The answer: yes, I think I would. I know that I would.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Book designs from the Penguin Great Ideas series

We Made This has just reported the third volume of Penguin's Great Ideas series is about to hit the shelves. Some classic works of literature, philosophy and critical theory are being playfully repackaged for a generation of hip new readers. Designer David Pearson has introduced a new cover for Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which simply reproduces the image from the spine across the front cover of the book.

You can see more of Pearson's designs at his official website, which includes his work on volume one, volume two and volume three of the Penguin series.

Batman Begins

Christopher Nolan reinvigorates the Batman franchise

"Mind in its purest play is like some bat
That beats about in caverns all alone,"
Richard Wilbur, 'Mind'.

Batman Begins offers a fresh take on the caped-crusader, wiping away Schumacher's messy excesses with a return to a darker, more psychological approach. The film details not only the slaying of Bruce Wayne's wealthy socialite parents, but traces the influence of the murders on Wayne's consequent development as the nocturnal crime-fighting hero. Perpetually haunted by painful memories of the past, Wayne ultimately faces his emotional troubles in an active and cathartic way, by confronting the darker sides of a corrupt, crime-ridden Gotham City.

Batman Begins follows Bruce Wayne (played by Christian Bale) as he begins training in China under the guidance of martial-arts expert/vigilante philosopher Ducard (Liam Neeson), who challenges Wayne to a range of duels and mental challenges, including treks through vast glacial landscapes, swordfights on lakes set in ice, and disorientating combat training under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. After a disagreement with some of Ducard's somewhat extremist views on justice and retribution (one review describes Ducard as a "ninja version of Michael Winner"), Bruce Wayne returns home alone to confront and resolve the corrupt urban landscape of Gotham City.

With the help of Michael Caine's witty and affectionate butler Alfred, and Morgan Freeman's warm and incisive scientist Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne soon peddles an arsenal of gadgets that would make James Bond wince. Batman Begins even finds time to explore the icon of the bat, presented as a symbol of Bruce's childhood fears and insecurities, and intended to strike a similar fear into the criminal minds of the city.

Since Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, Bale has been an actor-to-watch, and is fast becoming known as a wonder-boy of cult cinema; his performances as psychotic yuppie Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, along with the portrayal of paranoid insomniac Trent Reznick in The Machinist both secure him a place as a traveller of dark, psychological spaces. With Batman, Bale dips his toe into the mainstream and finds the newly designed costume to be a snug fit, retaining his characteristic intensity. Bale betrays a psychotic instability in Bruce Wayne that hasn't been implied since Michael Keaton took up the cape in Burton's gothic double-act.

Among the other cast members, Rutger Hauer raises a smile as the money-crazed top banana of Wayne Enterprises (which seems to confirm the actor's gravitation towards dark and troubling urban dives: Blade Runner, Sin City), while Gary Oldman is a nice surprise as the Commissioner Gordon that is not yet a Commissioner. Not to forget the slick yet spooky Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) as Scarecrow, the outwardly calm and controlled nut that owns the nuthouse; or of course the token love-interest, childhood friend of Bruce Wayne and morally-infallible District Attorney Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes).

Gotham City has been conceived both as gothic neo-fascist fairytale and paint-soaked comic strip, but Batman Begins describes its central location in a more recognisable landscape that - in one sense - plays down the fantastic elements and brings a more realistic feel. Having said that, Nolan's multi-layered backdrop of modern façades and suburban, inner-city grief holes still holds a kind of jaw-dropping power throughout some of the key scenes of the film. The ever-obscuring rain and omnipresent darkness make the city a character in itself, ambiguously shrouded in doubt and uncertainty.

Of course, a film with the legacy of a Batman comic-strip cannot entirely evade corny lines, cheesy accents or over-the-top, death-defying stunts, but that's all part of the fun. Batman Begins is an enjoyable action-adventure film with a dark twist, packed with complex and exhilarating action sequences that convey all the heightened perceptions of an thrilling roller-coaster ride.

A train chase towards the climax of the film offers an exciting hit of The French Connection ('on acid', if you include the hallucinogenic drugs); an exciting mixture of action, combat, and CGI, seamlessly edited together in a way that typifies the film as a whole. Batman Begins not only offers a compelling new twist on what seemed to be an exhausted story, but integrates Nolan's sensibilities for action and its underlying psychological undertones (Memento, Insomnia) into a welcome addition to the Batman mythos.

Christopher Nolan's sequel, Batman: The Dark Knight premieres in the UK on 21st July.

Francis Bacon

One of the great post-war painters of the twentieth century

I can vividly remember the first time I saw a Francis Bacon painting. And I can place it exactly. It figures prominently in a scene from Tim Burton's dark re-imagining of the Batman franchise. Jack Nicholson's Joker invades a museum of contemporary art, and defaces every work in sight to a 1980s Prince song; he paints the phrase 'Joker was here' on the wall of Edward Hopper's Approaching the City (1946), and dismantles sculptures from their plinths. But there is one work of art that he does not touch: 'I like this one,' he leers. It's Francis Bacon's ghoulish and distinctive Figure with Meat (1954).

I love Francis Bacon's paintings for their stark, horrific portrayals of human beings as animals of flesh and blood. His smeared portraits of moving yet static figures unsettle our assumptions of the human subject as a unified and complete individual; in Bacon, the human being is a site of intense psychological and physical conflict, defined not only through the poses, but through the claustrophobic, disorientating spaces that confine them.

Sex and death define much of the psychological trauma in Bacon's work, personified in paintings like 'Two Figures' (1969), where love-making becomes a hideous, writhing memento mori. Bacon's paintings dislodge the stability of repressive cultures, cataloguing the horrors of the century that brought reason and nightmare into a hideous and brutal synthesis. Screaming popes question the order and rationality of established cultural authority, while desperate, yelping chimpanzees offer a glimpse of our more primitive, disordered selves.

Bacon's acknowledgement of the so-called darker sides of our nature not only confronts the spectator with the visceral or the unpleasant, but offers an opportunity for catharsis and emotional release. Through Bacon's painting there is an open acknowledgement and attempted expression of our psychological grey areas: a recognition of our darker aspects as a natural facet or mediator of our emotions. What 'respectable' elements of society seek to repress, or hide under the carpet, Bacon paints in visceral, crimson colours: bright for all to see.

Francis Bacon presents the horrors we see within ourselves as life-affirming aspects of our natural make-up. There is a uniquely compelling beauty to his work that not only offers the chance to think and reflect, but to dream. There are some people who consider Bacon a painter who despised the human race, accentuating the negative, but to see in those terms is to miss the point; Bacon's work holds a unique affection for human beings. Self-Portrait (1976) might present its subject's identity as a dissolution into an indeterminate and chaotic mass, but it may also be seen as a paean to the fluidity of possible definitions: a liberation of boundaries. Francis Bacon presents new and challenging emotional landscapes that are just as beautiful as any conventional piece, and offer glimpses of ourselves never seen in any other way.

Since I discovered his work something within me has changed forever. I know that things will never be quite the same again. Whenever I visit any art gallery there is a part of me that actively seeks out whatever Bacon fare might be on offer. He is the only painter that provokes a physical reaction in me: a blend of simultaneous repulsion and fascination. The paradox of modern man - a comfort and discomfort with one's own flesh, a simultaneous sense of pride and shame. To look at Bacon's paintings is to accept the human body as something both beautiful and hideous, humble and mortal and fragile and vital.

Bliss of the Collector

'O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg's 'Bookworm.' For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector - and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be - ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.'

Walter Benjamin, 'Unpacking my Library'

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. After months of anxious waiting, I have moved into a new house in the city. I collected the keys to the property yesterday afternoon, and spent the better part of the day reorganizing furniture and arranging my belongings. I have a small but comfortable room at the rear of the house, with a window overlooking the garden; I have already placed the bed in a position that can enjoy the morning sunshine, and have placed my new desk immediately below the window-sill.

This morning I took a train to the family home in the valley. I have been sitting in what was my bedroom as a child, and looking over many of my old belongings. But what's caught my eye most strongly has been the books upon the shelves: ten years of collecting arranged tier by tier, row by row. Among them I see paperbacks I read as a young adolescent, texts I studied as an undergraduate, and novels I picked up in obscure second-hand bookshops but never found the time to read. It's bliss.

Whenever I return home I find a lot of comfort in these books. I enjoy picking up a copy of something, almost at random, and browsing through it on my bed; sometimes I like the nostalgic sense of warmth that familiar passages might bring, whereas other times I become excited by the surprise of something I haven't thought or felt on a previous reading. Of course, there are other books in the collection that I have never read, but have only ever picked up to flick through, finding something interesting here or there; but while I cannot ever imagine reading these from cover to cover, I can't imagine ever putting them down, either.

I find a certain sense of security from the books in my collection. It's as though my identity over the years has somehow become invested within them. And I've recently come to a decision:

Last weekend Jennifer went in search of a bookshelf for her room. After finding one that she liked, and taking it home, we both spent an afternoon trying to put it together. There was a feeling of excitement when the last shelf was secured, and the bookshelf was put into position. As we stood back to admire our handiwork, I decided to buy a new bookshelf of my own, and to bring some of my oldest, most treasured books with me to the flat in the city.

I can't wait to see what it looks like.