Just up today on Guardian: a very funny excerpt from Bill Bryson's new memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.  Bryson recalls the trials and tribulations of his boyhood paper delivery route, including self-imposed distracting questions:

What if time if stopped and I was the only thing on earth left moving?

extremely old people:

Mrs Vandermeister was 700 years old, possibly 800, and permanently attached to an aluminium walker.

extremely rich people, psychotic dogs, and what happens when extremely rich people and psychotic dogs are brought together:

Poor people in my experience have mean dogs and know it. Rich people have mean dogs and refuse to believe it.

So true.  Read it here.