One of the loveliest side-effects of a career in publishing is a social feed full of interesting literary and linguistic observations. (This is especially true when you’ve worked with so many lexicographers – they’re something of a separate breed. Never, ever get into an argument with a lexicographer about hyphenation of compound adjectives or the […]
Continue readingJust occasionally, you read a blog post and instead of writing your own thoughts/response, all you want to do is hold it up and say to anyone who’ll listen: This. This. https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2017/06/07/we-need-to-talk-about-diane-abbott-now-explicit-content/
Continue readingIn the wake of Labour’s historic, game-changing victory and the so-called ‘rebirth of socialism’, it seemed appropriate to head out on this morning’s up the Radical Road that leads from the Palace of Holyrood along the base of Salisbury Crags. Intrigued by the name, I Googled it as I dried out, steaming gently alongisde my […]
Continue readingA glorious day today, spent with two great friends I rarely get to see, as we converged in Edinburgh for a weekend. This is where I was at university, 30 years ago, and today we walked the length and breadth of the city, stopping off in coffee shops and, as the day wore on, bars. […]
Continue readingThe recent news that Uber has fired 20 employees for sexual harrassment raises a range of emotions in me. Mostly negative. It seems incredible that here we are, in 2017, and this is still a Thing. And also a kind of grudging satisfaction that it is at least an Unacceptable Thing, punishable by the full […]
Continue readingA few weeks ago I shared my patented Haribo Story-Telling Game For The Making Bearable Of Long Journeys With Children. Today I can reveal a new dimension to the game: simply trade the Haribo for Randoms. (Look, I realise that nutritionally this isn’t exactly an improvement – but there are plenty of other blogs for […]
Continue readingApparently there’s a statistically significant spike in people running marathons in years ending in a -9: 29, 39, 49, etc. The upcoming new decade is a spur to Get Stuff Done. I didn’t consider a marathon (that came later), but I did have a bucket list of stuff I thought I should have done by […]
Continue readingApparently, someone fills their diesel car with petrol every 3.5 minutes here in the UK. That’s a statistic that would have made me snigger yesterday, perhaps even roll my eyes at the human capacity for inepitude. Today, as I handed a mug of tea to the AA man, it just made me feel a tiny […]
Continue readingThere are many days when I sit down to blog and think, ‘I honestly have nothing to say.’ It never stops me, obviously. But there aren’t many days, thank God, when I feel so utterly lost for words. On my daughter’s 14th birthday, I woke to hear the news that in my home town of […]
Continue readingLove this. Jamie Byng, CEO at Canongate publishers (he was in the year below me at Edinburgh University – I try not to think about that too much) is putting his famous head of hair on the block. He’s raising money for The Howard League for Penal Reform, and to encourage Canongate fans to put […]
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