My Blog

  • More smugness

    More evidence of the power of the veg…

  • Big company admits mistake shock horrror

    Mars has done a swift U-turn. Well done the Veggie Soc. I’m still boycotting them though, as they haven’t removed the calories.

  • A backward step

    This is, as the Veggie Soc says, “incomprehensible”. It does mean, though, that I won’t be tempted to have a Twix with my morning coffee, so thanks Mars for helping my weight loss drive.

  • Oh for an editor

    Over at Patternings, Ann Darnton points out how her reading of Chesil Beach was spoilt by Ian McEwan’s failure to get a contemporary detail right – he has his protagonist playing Beatles and Rolling Stones covers of Chuck Berry before they were recorded. On one level it’s a minor detail, but on another, as Ann…

  • Geography professors perform the YMCA

    I can’t see my English colleagues doing this somehow… These guys from Manchester’s Geography Dept performed for their Christmas do. I wonder what would be appropriate for other departments?

  • Man breaks up with girlfriend: a nation mourns

    Just wanted to get this in before Private Eye. Obviously worthy of the first spot on today’s BBC news broadcasts…

  • Not all about you

    Novels are not all about you, Natasha | The Guardian | Guardian UnlimitedLovely letter from Ian McEwan in reply to the review of his new book. His point is, as he says, one which you would hardly think needs to be made, but clearly it does. I’m always amused when people cite John of Gaunt’s…

  • Schools ‘avoid Holocaust lessons’

    BBC NEWS | Education | Schools ‘avoid Holocaust lessons’Who do they think they’d offend? The local Nazi children?

  • Writing for profit?

    Recent analyses of what writers earn confirm pretty much what we all knew anyway, which is that, unless you are JK, or Salman, don’t give up the day job. That is, unless you can live on four grand a year.In that financial climate, the claims of the mail-order writing schools look a bit dubious. But…

  • Like, you know

    More from Taylor Mali. Once again, he’s absolutely on the button with this demolition of vagueness in speech.Hat tip: anonymous.