The famous novelist is making his promotional video. Shortly, his face will be on the front of Time magazine, his book praised to the heavens and at No 1 in the American bestseller list. "This might be a good place...
Read moreThe clatter of police horses's hoofs on tarmac, the wail of sirens, the throaty roar of English malehood up for a fight, alarmed bystanders scuttling into side-streets for safety: it was not just any old midweek evening game of football....
Read moreRecent publishing history suggests that there is good money to be made from telling women how to change their lives. In the 1980s, Shirley Conran surfed a great wave of female dissatisfaction with her bestseller Superwoman. It was no longer...
Read moreHow much more mature and sensible our culture would be if primary school children were taught about the countryside, preferably with regular nature walks in the company of a well-informed teacher. It may sound-old fashioned, even Blytonesque, but, if children...
Read moreIt was one of those moments of quiet smugness at which the British excel. The director-general of the BBC had delivered the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Festival, arguing that the BBC is more popular than ever with the general...
Read moreI’ve been thinking about song lyrics recently – or, rather, the translation of French song lyrics into English. The folk wisdom among serious translators is what, while French is the more natural language of romance and love, English is more...
Read moreAt a time when the careers of successful authors are as carefully marketed as those of politicians, it is good to be reminded now and then of the true nature of the literary life – egocentric, brutal, unreliable and...
Read moreDear Fifa inspectors Welcome to the home of football! In what must be the highlight of your trip around the world to decide which country should be appointed host for the 2018 World Cup, you have arrived in England for...
Read moreI wrote recently in the Independent that the high level of self-satisfaction within the BBC at the quality of its output was not exactly borne out by what we see on our screens every evening. I concluded: “Away from the...
Read moreThere was once a very silly government minister who floated the idea that Britain's public libraries should be privatised. It was in the days of Margaret Thatcher when such talk was fashionable. Even so, the idea was quickly laughed out...
Read more
