Diary: Clare at Bristol Endodontic Clinic

This morning was the long-awaited appointment for Clare to have her specialist root canal work done at this location. She's paid a high price for tripping over at Ham Hill iron age fort last October.

Still no teeth on display (as of yesterday)

The facility is pretty upmarket. Bristol Specialist Dental Clinic: reassuringly expensive. Clare had the area of infection in the root of her front tooth thoroughly cleaned out and a fibre 'post' inserted for strength. A fortnight's mopping up by her immune system will leave her right as rain.

Bristol Specialist Dental Clinic just off the Downs, Bristol

While Clare was flat on her back with her mouth propped open, I was downstairs in reception continuing my flirtation with literary libertarian women. In this case Helen DeWitt, who was briefly notorious last year for the satirical and acclaimed "Lightning Rods" ('how well you get on with Lightning Rods is likely to depend on how far you can believe in a world where female employees in large corporations are willing to have sex on demand with successful male employees in return for double pay.')

She has a book of short stories coming out soon, "Some Trick: Thirteen Stories", which I've ordered (h/t Marginal Revolution) but the novel I'm reading today is her first: "The Last Samurai".

Amazon link

"Eleven-year-old Ludo is in search of a father. Raised single handedly by his mother Sibylla, Ludo’s been reading Greek, Arabic, Japanese and a little Hebrew since the age of four; but reading Homer in the original whilst riding the Circle Line on the London Underground isn’t enough to satisfy the boy’s boundless curiosity. Is he a genius? A real-life child prodigy? He’s grown up watching Seven Samurai on a hypnotising loop – his mother’s strategy to give him not one but seven male role models. And yet Ludo remains obsessed with the one thing his mother refuses to tell him: his real father’s name. Let loose on London, Ludo sets out on a secret quest to find the last samurai – the father he never knew."

Yes, powerful stuff.

Who are my other literary innamorati?

Helen Dale (are they all called Helen?) and Ayn Rand (will I ever get round to "Atlas Shrugged"?).