Anyone remember The List magazine's list of the 100 best Scottish books?  Well, when it came out I decided I would buy a copy and start reading the books on.  Over the next couple of months I went to various second-hand bookshops and bargain-bins looking for some of the entries.  Well, I found a few, and most of them are still sitting unread, 3 years on.

Time for a late New Year's resolution:
In 2008, I will read at least 25 of the titles on that list.

I'll start today with me and ma gal, written by my old second year English teacher Des Dillon. ISBN 1-84282-054-0.

I have a lot to thank him for: his class was fun and I enjoyed it immensely.  In the end, I got a 2, which meant I didn't go into the top set for standard grade, and the top set was taught by Mr Breen.
Mr Breen likes Phillip Larkin.
Mr Breen's pupils don't like Phillip Larkin.
Ergo Mr Breen's pupils don't like his class.

Anyway, so thanks to Des Dillon I got put in Mr Paterson's class.  Mr Paterson was a pretty normal bloke, a bit bookish and not massively inspiring, but he had a taste for literature which the class would find moderately interesting (moderately is about as interested as most teenagers get about literature) and knew his way around the material.  Standard Grade English was, well, no bad.  Which is about as good as it was going to be.  So thanks Mr Paterson, and thanks Mr Dillon.

This mild plug is the least I can do.