Just back from 10 days in the south of France, which is why it’s been rather quiet around these parts. Spent the first couple of days in Nice, which I far preferred to Cannes. It’s a proper city and has a (very slightly) gritty edge that you don’t get in the Eurotrash resorts of the [...]
Apr 29th, 2007
Never having been stung by a bee, I’ve often wondered how painful the experience might be. Not anymore. I still haven’t been stung but I now know that a bee sting is more painful than that meted out by a bullhorn acacia ant, although markedly less agonising than a sting from a pepsis [...]
Apr 22nd, 2007
It was a heart-wrenching sight. The man crouched on O’Connell bridge had clearly been of some standing once: his cashmere overcoat and expensive leather shoes attested to that. Now there he was, seemingly destitute on the side of the road.
I hunkered down beside him, anxious to discover what had reduced him to such [...]
Every time I am due to go on holidays, I start worrying. I don’t get preoccupied about making connecting flights or language difficulties, I worry about not having enough to read while I’m away.
I spend ages working out precisely how many books I need to bring, using a complicated and well-honed formula involving pages per [...]
April 15th, 2007
Vote for me! Despite being approached by none of the political parties and although my family and friends have done their best to talk me out of it, I’m still considering standing in the forthcoming general election.
Every month, I have to make myself wait until I’ve read all of Vanity Fair before I read the Proust Questionnaire on the inside back page. And every month, I think I should fill that out for myself. Well, I still haven’t done that but I did answer the 50-question meme I saw on RedMum’s [...]
Was just catching up on the 37signals blog and came across a post on a graphic designer called Susan Kare. She is exalted in the design world, apparently, and is the person who drew all of the original Mac icons - the cursor arrow, the little hand, the bin and so on.
I had never stopped [...]
Like some sort of sleepy woodland creature, I’ve been working away at home for the past few months and it has felt slightly unreal. Well, the hibernation is over. They were short-handed in the Examiner and asked me to come in for a shift today. So I did. And it was lovely. Friendly people, swanky new [...]
That Andrea Byrne thing reminded me that I was thinking of Jeffrey Bernard this morning. The Sindo used to publish his Spectator column, which was a reason in itself to buy the paper.
I was thinking about all of that because I was reading one of Bernard’s old columns in which he was complaining bitterly about [...]
Twenty Major has hauled Andrea Byrne of the Sindo (reg. req.) over the coals for some pretty clearcut plagiarism. Cogging is the cardinal sin in this job and only an idiot would do it.
What I can’t understand is that Byrne (who I don’t know) obviously didn’t cog most of her article, as it is largely [...]
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