Just As Wells

After initial reluctance and some blogging prodding, I final hunker down and give a serious attempt to Paul Wells' Right Side Up.

I get all organized: I clear my mind, take off the book's dustcover (noting with interest that Wells' and I actually went to the same school in France... that school in and of itself is quite an experience, so I tend to feel some sort of underlying understanding with anyone who has gone through a similar process of writing endless “plan en deux parties”...), I arrange for provisions to be within arms’ length, fluff the pillows, install myself on the couch, grab a duvet, and dig in...

...6 hours later and I'm on page 185... turns out, that Paul Wells was wrong (see his comment on my initial post Drowning in the Wells).... cause it actually does get better... Somewhere, not too long after he mentions Delacourt’s Juggernaut (maybe just the very word triggers a pavlovian reaction) and I am fully ensconced. I finally manage to get past the narrator’s voice and let the words lull me into the down and dirty of political campaigning and party organizing details.

Waves of nostalgia and sadness creep up when reviewing some of the Libs campaign strategies and yet somehow I am strangely assuaged when Wells' follows up with analysis and dissection of "groupthink" as applied to "The Board"...

Only another hundred and some odd pages left… but so far, the book is working well to satisfy my political fix… just in time to gear up for my return home and gather up energy to blow up my thundersticks and head out to the roar of the convention…

I promised my colleague that I’d have the book back to him before I leave on Tuesday… looks like I’ll have to buy the book after all... just as well.