Nigeness

 Here's a question that I think would flummox everyone in any literary quiz:  Whose first novel begins with this sentence?  'In this...

 There is a lot of talk these days, in the kind of places where these things are discussed, of the health benefits of thorough and lengthy c...

 The new issue of 'the real reader's quarterly', Slightly Foxed , is out, and, as ever, it's full of good stuff, including p...

 This morning on Radio 3 I heard a hauntingly beautiful piece for violin and piano which stopped me in my tracks. It turned out to be the sl...

 The other day I was in the garden raking up leaves – not from the lawn, where the worms take care of them, but from the paths and various c...

 It has come to my attention that it is now considered perfectly acceptable, indeed laudable, in polite society to call for the assassinatio...

 This morning I attended the Remembrance ceremony that takes place every year in the Garden of Remembrance. The sun had just shown itself fo...