'I like big charts and diagrams' - Len Deighton on writing.

RIP Claudia Cardinale

Replying to an invite to join a meeting tomorrow morning, I forgot to add 'Rapture permitting'. Oh well, next year.

Just learned that this lovely man, the extraordinary J Michael Fields, has died. I'm devastated. I worked with him on his community show of Dr Syn. We were in touch periodically - I sent him my article on Romney Marsh - but he was a dynamic hovering and supportive presence always. Go well, m'dear x

I've just read Sverre Lyngstad's takedown of Robert Bly's Hamsun translation. Phenomenal, and highly entertaining. A magnificent, unexpected and most welcome second feature to the main attraction I actually came to read.

Partner has gone away for a week. Inside 10 hours of their departure, I managed to drop a flat peach behind the fridge. This is the most spectacularly inept thing even I have ever done. I'm going to the pub.

Peak #IsleofWight, this. 'Is your library book too racy for you, gramps?'

My kind of category

This will be wonderful. Roy Vickery is both authoritative and charming.

I've only just realised that my copy of Nan Milton's biography of John Maclean was the one she sent to Sydney Goodsir Smith in gratitude for his contribution to the Homage.

'The pub signs of the county are a secret Tarot deck...' - Alan Moore

I use an antiquated free email account that I've had forever and a day. It's... clunky, shall we say?... at times. I do tire of finding messages in the Spam box and clicking on Safe Sender to be told that they're already in the Safe Sender list. Then why... oh, never mind.

Nice new piece by the splendid Ross Macfarlane on an interesting 1842 collection of 'Customs... Curious Bequests and Charities'

As the world explodes around us, it's important we take time to continue enjoying the little things. 'It's understood waffles left in a toaster were the reason for the call-out.'

There's a sweet spot with repeat prescription requests at my local pharmacist, between late (perhaps by minutes, who can tell), in which case it won't be ready and I'll be tutted at, or early (perhaps by minutes, who can tell), in which case it won't have been prioritised so won't be ready.

I also notice that rapid scrolling increases my misreadings. No, it clearly couldn't actually have read 'Families will receive their loved one's inquest findings by letter instead of a herring.'

I wish that things that aren't funny didn't so often make me laugh. There's no reason why I should find irresistible the phrase 'Do you know the fire risks of emollients?'

Is it the 9th of November? That means it's my mate Keith's wedding anniversary. (Turned out there was plenty of space in the registry office for a short notice booking).

I've just seen someone described as 'author & Dalai Lama collaborator' and I just have no idea what that's supposed to convey.

Not too late to pick up a ticket for this tonight. Sounds amazing, and Peter's a terrific scholar (and lovely bloke), so it'll be well worth your time.

Got to love an academic institution. Just spent an hour uploading information they already had so they can decide whether to let me do a job they've already assigned me.

Jesus Christ that new Mitchell and Webb show's awful.

Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid. - Melville

I've never read Camõens. Should I?

Never mind age certificates, films should have soundtrack earworm advice. Courtesy of Fréwaka I woke up this morning with Dearg Doom in my head, and once that's in it hangs around for months.

'I'm my own personal witch craze' - Kay Turner (of course).

What's a good starting place to get my head round Prester John narratives?

Using one photo already on your phone, what is the announcement tomorrow at 2?

Just read a chapter in an edited collection by A Famous Scholar. They might just as well have called it 'What Was the Word Count? Will This Do?'

'The party's flag is deepest puce With fleur de lys in pale chartreuse...'

Spot on. Absolutely would have played to his strengths.

Nuremberg village fête.

Less cheerfully, I am going to have to explain to a friend that racist anti-Gypsy terminology is not ok.

I'd have bought this copy of JE Williams's The Derbyshire Miners in any case, but this was the icing on the cake. The facework certificate of the original owner, whose name and various addresses are also inscribed.

How I captain a starship

Cheered up by the arrival of a decent cheap set of de Voragine's Golden Legend.

Pfah. By the time I finished recording my 5-minute introduction video for this term's students I'd completely channeled my inner Butley.

Revisiting my adolescent fascination with the great (and slightly mysterious) radio dramatist Giles Cooper, courtesy of his BBC adaptation of The Day of the Triffids

#IsleofWight #folk types: I'm doing a short (5-song) guest spot at the Waverley folk night (Carisbrooke) this Wednesday coming, from 7pm

Summarising my relationship with the local folk scene ahead of a short guest spot next week.

pls RT, modernists - CFP now out for 'Weird Modernisms', the collaborative conference between @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social ! July 2026, Loughborough University. www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...

Filth. It's the Plaistow way.

I recently heard a bad local pub band play Sweet Home Alabama. Why would you even? Never mind the south, my gorge will rise again.

I think I put my shoulder out walking backwards into an ornamental barometer.

“These are, as it were, the distant thunders of the terrible storm which is approaching. The tyrants here, as in the French Revolution, have first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not be learnt with equal docility!” Shelley, on hearing of the Peterloo massacre.

I'd missed news of Frank Grimes's passing. I never saw him where he was clearly at his greatest, on stage (particularly directed by Lindsay Anderson), but a couple of his film performances had leaped out at me before I had any idea who he was. (1/3)

For reasons other than their own, I blew harp today for the first time in 12 years. For the first time since oesophageal surgery. I sounded shit, as you'd expect. But.

Partner's mother has just sent partner a belated birthday present, a copy of @fabulatrix.bsky.social's Dancing on Blades. It looks magnificent.

I'm really sad at the passing of #RayBrooks, who occupied a particular spot in the formation of my imagination. His voice was beautiful - like many people my age I was hooked by Mr Benn - but I was also totally captivated by his looks, his capacity for slightly ineffectual loucheness. Go well.