Saturday, 31 October 2020

Bob Dylan [playing charades]. He couldn't get the hang of the 'how many syllables?' thing at all

›
Simon and Garfunkel had dinner one night, then played charades. At least they tried to play charades. They were terrible at it. The best thi...
Friday, 30 October 2020

Character, young man

›
One summer Saturday afternoon, John and I were sitting outside the bungalow having a snack, when we noticed a sixty-something lady who looke...
Tuesday, 1 September 2020

City centres across the UK were ripped out and destroyed to make way for the car far more comprehensively than the Luftwaffe

›
Imagine, by way of contrast, an Italian transport minister suggesting that the historic centres of Italy’s towns and cities be pulled down ...
Thursday, 27 August 2020

An advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force

›
The Dowager Duchess, indeed, was there – she had promptly hastened to her son’s side and was living heroically in furnished lodgings, but th...
Tuesday, 25 August 2020

Country music was the most segregated kind of music in America

›
So I said, Country music. The average Vietnamese cannot bear it. That southern twang, that peculiar rhythm, those strange stories — the musi...
Monday, 24 August 2020

He even included a league table in his diary, ranking his friends in order

›
[Hugh] Walpole was born in Auckland, New Zealand, where his father - later the bishop of Edinburgh - was canon of St Mary's Cathedral. T...
Sunday, 23 August 2020

Scientific detection is 'too easy'.

›
 For all its associations with sportsmanship, cricket is governed by complicated laws, and Milne reckoned that if the detective novel was a ...