In my defense

I interrupt my usual blogging to write in my defence.
My sister-in-law sometimes reads my blog and regularly moans at me about my propensity to include quotes. There are a couple of reasons I suppose. I am fanatical about not plagiarising and I feel that if somebody's idea was even a seed for something that I perhaps would not have thought of, it should be acknowledged. But it is also because when I read a really good phrase or quote, it encapsulates so succintly what may have taken me many paragraphs to communicate, that I have the feeling of: 'I wish I'd said that!' So even if people would be confused or bored by my ramblings, they may understand it in the context of the quote. Finally, if somebody has bothered to plough through my waffle and perchance feel aggrieved that they cannot get those 5 minutes back - at least I would have shared with them a useful passage from a real writer, which they might not have seen before, that made their trip worthwhile. And thereby endear myself to them anyway. The defence rests, Your Honours.