You find yourself, on a weekend away from London, in the rather randomly chosen town of Lewes (but what a good choice it turns out to be), on the Saturday morning, after a superb breakfast of eggs Florentine in the swishy hotel you've indulgently booked - you find yourself at a book fair in Lewes …
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I can't help it. I know it's superficial but I'm revelling in this late, short blast of summer weather. Those uninterrupted blue skies over London make me happy. I love the strange sense I have of my childhood Australian summers revisiting me in London in October. I never thought I'd be lowering the blinds to …
Here is my current selection of pencils. I like to have a few on hand, two or three in each room and at least one in my handbag. There is something pleasing about using a pencil. It's modest, workaday, unpretentious. There's nothing to go wrong; they'll last as long as there's lead in the casing. …
Am I reading enough? Am I reading enough contemporary fiction? Have I read enough of the classics? Do I read enough literature in translation? Is it a problem that my reading choices are scattered, random, unstructured? Dare I confess that I have never been a voracious reader? That I never read under the bedclothes with …
I've been resisting writing too much about recent personal events (apart from screeds in my private journal), but now that one chapter has closed and a new one is about to open, I thought it high time to chuck a few clichés out there. I've been living through them, after all, for the last few …
This is one of the things I love about London - setting off on my bike on a summer morning, a cloudless blue sky above and the tall plane trees resplendent in the sunshine, vivid green against the blue; the air almost fresh (for London), already a sense that the temperature is rising; catching a …
Blue skies over London. Trees coming into leaf, each day a brighter green. Blossom everywhere - a plethora of white and pink froth, shimmering yellow. Bare legs. Toenails painted deep red. Making salads - Greek salad, beetroot salad with garlic yoghurt. Fresh, sharp tastes. Eating Greek salad listening to Greek music with the windows open, …
What do posh Scottish people eat? Oat cuisine.
The last day of 2010 is cool, dank and overcast, and I'll soon be closing the blinds. I've yet to notice the slow lengthening of the days since the winter solstice. But for once, I'm quite looking forward to January, which, in England, is usually an interminably long and dismal month. The difference for me, …
So, farewell, old blue cardie. I have finally accepted that my midnight blue cardigan has passed over from the realm of garments to that of rags. I bought it from Benetton on King's Road sometime in early 1985, when I first came to London. How many gigs did I wear it to? The Smiths, at …
Hilaire 