Nigeness

 Halloween, Schmalloween – here at Nigeness, 31st October is always Keats's birthday (born 1795, in Moorgate, London, where his father w...

 On this day in 1618, having fallen foul of the monarch once too often, Sir Walter Ralegh, explorer, statesman, soldier and superb writer of...

 I see that another statue of Jane Austen has been unveiled, this time in Winchester Cathedral close. Fair enough – it's her 250th ann...

 Heaven knows how many Penguin books must have passed through my hands in the course of my reading life. They've always been there, righ...

 On this day in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor ensured her place in the annals of human folly by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It was her ...

 In Worthing, the dogs are back on the beach (from which they are banned from May to September) and are happily chasing balls thrown by thei...

 On a blustery, rainy, altogether miserable afternoon, I found myself thinking, inevitably, of Philip Larkin. I knew his uncollected autumn ...