For the last two years I’ve been walking around with a bit of red cardboard in my glasses case. The item in question is black on the reverse and the word ‘Silence’ is inscribed in small gold letters. What is this strange thing? It’s actually a box that once contained earplugs, taken from a Virgin Atlantic flight, probably one from Sydney to London via Hong Kong.

The point of this story is that after 2 years I’ve finally looked at what’s written on the red side of the card and it’s a list of the best libraries in the world. I have no idea where this list came from, but a wild guess would be some inflight magazine or other. Anyway, here’s the list.

1) Bibliotheca, Alexandria, Egypt
2) Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (part of New York Public Library)
3) Customs House, Sydney
4) Kyoto International Manga Museum, Japan
5) Cardiff Central Library, Cardiff
6) The Royal Library, Copenhagen