How low?

For the past week or more I have been vaguely searching (or searching vaguely; or, now I think of it, both), for a lost Thing around the house.

This happens to me all the time. I think it happens to most of us. I’m sure, o best of readers, o noblest of the members of the shadow republic, that it has even happened to you.

I’ve even got a queasy feeling that, books aside, most of my world consists of Things that are actually lost around the house. Of course, most Things being sufficiently large, and the house sufficiently small, they can quickly be found if and when really needed.

However, this Thing (a Bert Jansch CD, as it happens), is small, and so its lostness has managed to persist for a near record-breaking number of days.

Things get lost. This is not my point. My point is how low I have sunk, how far my arms (metaphorically) have shrivelled. I caught myself a few minutes ago thinking brightly to myself, “I know! I’ll search for it on Google.”

Results of your search for “Bert Jansch”
1. Main bookcase in the front bedroom, third shelf down, underneath an atlas

Now that would be a search engine.