Of the searches that brought people to my website today, my favourite by far is “grow a beard like Nicholas II”. It’s great that someone out there wants to grow a beard like Tsar Nicholas II’s and is using the internet to find out how. It’s even better that Google thinks my site (this post) […]
Read more...Well, here we are. I cycled and Tubed all over London this evening trying to get an early copy of Stylist, only to find that my housemate had one. Here is the (extremely nice) review from their Book Wars section at the back of the magazine. I’ll start with their verdict – but read on […]
Read more...Today someone got to my site by googling “banana piano”. Welcome, weirdos all. There is a banana piano here.
Read more...I’ve always tried to tell friends if I notice something about them that I like – a new coat or a tendency to be tremendous. But since my book’s been around (I mean the one I care about, rather than the two rubbish ones I was paid to do) I’ve started to tell people who […]
Read more...The last TV series I saw that made me laugh as much as Friday Night Dinner was Arrested Development. It’s on 4OD, but you have to search separately for episodes 5 and 6, for some reason.
Read more...My beard began about two and a half years ago, and has passed through four ages, as I believe all beards must. 1. Neglect Most beards aren’t planned. The man just stops shaving, usually as a result of some crisis. My dad’s beard began when he had chicken pox and couldn’t shave. Mine began in […]
Read more...Last weekend I was at my friend Francesca’s house. There were four of us there, drinking wine, talking and listening to music on her boyfriend’s iPod, which was on top of the bookshelf. (Incidentally, Francesca is the only person I know who orders her books by colour.) We were sprawling around on the sofa or […]
Read more...There’s a particularly unlikely true story on Giles Milton’s blog today about a former US gang member who repeatedly went out alone and talked huge numbers of Japanese soldiers into surrendering in World War II. Its theme of a lone man convincing vastly superior enemies to surrender reminded me of this Telegraph obituary of John […]
Read more...Just when I thought people had stopped searching for “what looks like a bunch of bananas but isn’t”, it happened again. Will this phrase dog me for the rest of my life?
Read more...I just wanted to say hello to Norma and Henry, the first subscribers to this blog. I’m too new to this to really understand what a subscriber is, but I’m sure it’s a Good Thing and that Norma and Henry are both splendid coves. And thank you to the 48 people who have now bought […]
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