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Saturday, 2 November 2019

To publish posthumously and squeeze a bit more money for the estate of the writer and his publisher (even though the work might be crap) or not? Decisions, decisions, though as it turned out not a difficult one for Charles Scribner’s Sons, of New York, publishers to the gentry

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Below are around 400 words from Joan Didion’s piece — the opening — on the practice of publishing Hemingway’s work posthumously. It appeared...
Monday, 28 October 2019

In which I admit to slightly odd behaviour (and later in the day put the boot in Honest Ernest yet again)

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It really is bloody odd. Every day since I’ve retired I’ve been conscious of ‘using my time’ and not wasting it. The silly thing is, though,...
Saturday, 26 October 2019

Crisis? What crisis? This one, matey, this one!

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We here in Britain are stuck in a truly bizarre age: for once the observation that ‘the country is split’ isn’t actually just a silly, self-...
Thursday, 10 October 2019

The Brexit farce continues and it’s not going to end well . . .

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I am conscious that I haven’t posted here for a while and there’s reason: the only thing I would like to write about at present (not having ...
Thursday, 19 September 2019

On the road . . .

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Travelodge - Retford Markham Moor Off on my travels for a day or two, this time to visit the Jorvik Vikin Centre in York which I did yeste...
Friday, 13 September 2019

Rose Tremain's The Colour: less than the sum of its - many - parts

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I’ve just finished reading a novel which I didn’t much enjoy, but which I forced myself to finish because I wanted to leave a review of it o...
Sunday, 1 September 2019

You do realise, of course, that reading this blog marks you out as — well, how do I put this without being too effusive? — a little more refined, a cut above the rabble and someone whose intellect and lively mind one can only admire. Elite? Yes, and then some

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Over the years like many, many people the world over, I had bought ‘the Sunday papers’. Being — apparently — less intellectually and politic...
Saturday, 10 August 2019

Bugger Hemingway and his phoney machismo - the football season has started! Rejoice.

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To Bodmin last night with sister-in-law and brother-in-law Julie and Denis and Denis’s friend Leo to the folk club. Folk really isn’t my thi...
Monday, 29 July 2019

Longwinded? Dull? Are we really talking about the acme of new journalism? Yes, sadly we are - ain’t nothing as impressionable as impressionable folk. On the other hand: RIP Jim Innes

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I have made no secret of the fact that growing up, with a very bright older brother who seemed to be able to master whatever he turned his h...