Category Archives: Blather

There is a new bookshelf in my office, placed there in an attempt to stave off melancholy. The top shelf is furnished with books which had fossilised by my bedside — that being a place to which books are often … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In about a month I am doing a couple of talks at the Bath literary festival (memo to self: write some material). One of them is about — I suppose — feminist interpretations of hominid evolution. In any case, it … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This is just incredibly tasteless and not in the least bit funny. However, since none of my readers will ever have experienced anything remotely similar, and this applies especially to the clerical ones, I thought I should link to it Continue reading →

I finally went to see Lost in Translation today, and the scene where he wakes up next to the cocktail pianist is one of the funniest, saddest, and best-acted things I have ever seen on screen. No nudity; no writhing; … Continue reading → Continue reading →

By the standards of the middle classes we are not rich at all but it is astonishing how well free trade lets us live. Last night I ate a plate of mussels for supper, and then some bread and cheese … Continue reading → Continue reading →

According to the weather service, the south west wind at Stansted airport is only about 50km/h this evening but it feels a whole lot more on the ridge that runs north from Saffron Walden. The sight of trees being tousled … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I was trying to sell a radio programme on the way that scientists are just vanishing from the world the other day, and ran up against an unexpected problem: my prospect thought that this was no bad thing, and they … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In all of England, there are only 27 “thankful villages” – places to which all the soldiers returned who had gone to fight in the First World War. They are all listed in the Guardian’s Notes and Queries page today. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

For anyone worth knowing must be this. If they don’t get the joke, they are too young to be worth knowing at all. Continue reading →

One of the nicest things in Saffron Walden is Lankester Antiques, a second hand bookshop housed in a building once used by Cromwell as his headquarters. Since the hardback fiction is arranged alphabetically by author, you can, if you tiptoe … Continue reading → Continue reading →