When I went on holiday recently I bought three books for the price of two to take with me but I feel that I ended up with one book for the price of three.

The translated from the Italian cops and robbers novel was about as boringly predictable as it could be and only cussedness led me to complete it which I did at an early stage.

My second choice was The Forsyte Saga. It was satisfactorily thick and long lasting and enjoyable and sealed the bond of affection for the story and characters that the black and white 60s TV adaptation had engendered.

Thickness is an important criterion in holiday reading so despite my lukewarm appreciation of science fiction I took Dune whose 596 pages include a map, four appendices and a glossary. After all one must keep an open mind and this novel has won prizes and according to the blub is the finest and most prescient science fiction novel ever written.

Well God preserve me from its lesser competitors. I didn’t get round to it when I was on holiday and started it the other day. My favourite condemnatory word for works of art that don’t appeal is tosh. For Dune let me spell that TOSH. Now I don’t deny it’s imaginative and the author has gone to a lot of trouble to make up funny objects and funny words and to harness genuine or near genuine Arabic and other terms to delight our eyes and ears and it’s a lovely map. But what TOSH, and I’ve only read 10% of it. That’s when I decided my prejudice against science fiction was in fact sound literary judgment and gave up reading the book.

Let me give you a wee flavour or two. Here’s a definition from the glossary:” Poling the sand – the art of placing plastic and fibre poles in the open desert wastes of Arrakis and reading the patterns etched on the poles by sandstorms as a clue to weather prediction.” Now that, while akin to reading tea leaves at least makes some sort of sense. Unlike “ CHOAM – acronym for Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles.”

And here’s a bawdy song sung by the player of a nine string baliset (?) whose multipick (?) is going like the clappers: “ Oh-h-h, the Galacian girls/ Will do it for pearls,/ And the Arrakeen for water!/ But if you desire dames/Like consuming flames/ Try a Caladanin daughter! “ What could Rabbie Burns not have done with that raw material.

And this is where I hope one of my female friends can help me out. “A skinny girl the colour of bronze, her body tortured by the winds of puberty..” I don’t recall flatulence being a problem of male puberty. In fact there’s nothing a young boy likes better than a good fart.

I had a bellyful of young boys and girls this afternoon and it was nothing to do with puberty since these were about nine years old. The occasion was a kids golf competition for a couple of classes from the local primary who have been coming along to the course during the year and learning the rudiments. This competition was their end of the year treat. Several adults were called upon to provide some supervision.

In France you don’t have to be proved innocent of child abuse to do that sort of thing but by the end of the afternoon my thoughts were well past abuse and moving rapidly towards slaughter. I’ve done this and other child and golf activities before and enjoyed it but the six I had charge of today were the most ill-disciplined and obstreperous lot you could hope to meet. I earned my free pint I can tell you.