Lighter Note

Book exchange
The Note is never happier than at a book exchange,
especially when actual authors are present.
But the photo above comes with a twist, which takes
some explaining, so hang onto to your newspaper.
For those that don't know a European leader when they
run into them on the street, the man on the left is Czech
Republic president Vaclav Klaus, the author of Blue
Planet in Green Shackles.
With him is David Archibald, a WA scientist who wrote
Solar Cycle 24. Both are climate change sceptics and,
due to this common link, the photo was taken when
Archibald was invited by the president to join him for tea
at Prague Castle.
That is lovely and all, but what makes this story most
pertinent to The Note is the book being exchanged.
That tome has been written by WA Business News
columnist Joe Poprzeczny. Now the State Scene
commentator might be our resident climate sceptic,
but the subject of his book is leagues away from global
warming.
Called Hitler's Man in the East, it is a biography of SS
nasty Odilo Globocnik, one of the key (and yet largely
unknown) players in the Nazi's Polish death camps.
As it happens the Czech Academy of Sciences has
recently arranged for Poprzeczny's book to be translated
into the language of its homeland - hence it makes a
perfect gift to present to a Prague-resident president.
This is proof that books are truly gifts that keep on
giving.