Nick Jordan

I’ve just finished reading The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, as recommended by Juliet. I confess that I was a little sceptical about how good a book about a unicorn was likely to be. I was wrong – it’s absolutely delightful. The style reminds me a little of Japanese folk tales: beautiful, somewhat sparse and often a little odd but always charming, entertaining and an absolute joy to read.

The story itself sounds like fairly standard fare (a unicorn sets out to discover what became of all the other unicorns and picks up companions and adventures along the way) but there’s much more to it than that. There’s real beauty here, both in the prose and in the ideas and characters.

I haven’t yet seen the animated film of the book but I’m going to try to do so. In the meantime, I recommend this very highly indeed.

Yesterday evening Juliet and I were due to meet some friends in the pub but, even after stopping for a meal, we were still rather early so we decided to go for a walk. We soon founds ourselves down by the Thames, a little way west of London Bridge, and found some steps leading down to the water. The tide was a fair way out, so there was a large strip of exposed ‘beach’, which we took a wander along.

As well as a large quantity of pottery there were an incredible number of animal bones. I have no way of knowing how old they were, but I can only assume that they weren’t terribly recent, jusging by the colour and the way they were broken up. I have to say that it was quite fascinating, and I’m very tempted to sign up for a day’s organised beachcombing sometime.