The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu.

Having allowed myself to spend much of today sleeping I, hardly surprisingly, am now wide awake. Which is wonderful. Today's been as irritating as hell, feeling fine one mint, nauseous the next, so dizzy I can't stand the one after that. And there's been all that beautiful snow and I haven't been able to take advantage of it.

I have however very much enjoyed tonight's BBC 4 documentary The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu. Presented by the confusingly familiar Aminatta Forna, and part of BBC 4's simply ace Why Reading Matters series, this was a look at a number of manuscripts that survived (thanks to some extraordinarily dedicated people) hundreds of years when they could easily have been lost or destroyed, and how they're now being returned to the world and forcing everybody to reconsider their opinions of Africa's literary inheritance at the same time.