This morning I’ve seen Olly Robbins’s appearance before the select committee described as ‘box office’, while a commentator flagged up another key political moment with the words ‘bring the popcorn’.
That’s one of our main problems right there.
Guy on the district line just asked the woman next to him to turn down the brightness on her phone because it was getting in his peripheral vision while trying to read a book. My new hero
Reviewed Deborah Levy's hybrid novel of fiction and biography My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein for this week's @ftweekend.com. I had a lot of fun in Levy land, revisiting older works, then seeing her break new ground in this one www.ft.com/content/e2e7...
Reviewed Deborah Levy's hybrid novel of fiction and biography My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein for this week's @ftweekend.com. I had a lot of fun in Levy land, revisiting older works, then seeing her break new ground in this one www.ft.com/content/e2e7...
The trilogy shook my soul when it was beautifully published by @cbeditions.bsky.social over a decade ago. If you haven't read these indelible novels yet get hold of them now
Saw the new Jarmusch - Mother Father Sister Brother - and thought it uneven, flat in places, funny and perceptive in others. But... Tom Waits is great as an ol dad, alternately doddery and conniving. Been too long so I'll be digging out Frank's Wild Years to enjoy his voice and wit
Today 7pm Daunt Marylebone
Tomorrow night for those who want to hear from a writer who did win a Windham Campbell Prize. And you really should because The Palm House, like Gwendoline Riley's other six novels, is magnificent dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...
A new request for editing: 'I have used AI to help make sure that the emotional tone, pacing, transitions, and narrative is smooth and consistent. This is all my own work, AI did not write ANY of it.'
Again – what does this tell us about what people think the work of being a writer is?
Frustrating when rain is forecast so I wear sartorially compromising rain jacket and then it doesn't rain. If you say rain you need to rain
Reminder that Windham Campbell Prize winner Gwendoline Riley will be talking to me about her acclaimed new novel The Palm House at Daunt Marylebone on Wednesday (15 April): dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...
I do find that one upshot of the prevalence of this dross has been for me a renewed appreciation of the amateur and self-made - loud bands in pubs, poetry open mics, whatever, I'll champion any of it for being real and maybe this will lead somewhere good
Someone said Alex Preston using AI in his NYT book review would put suspicion on us all. I thought same but one positive already is that today while fretting over a review I thought well at least I'm actually writing it. A low bar but it helped. So watch out, I'm going to be getting worse
I'll be asking the great Gwendoline Riley about new novel The Palm House, and some of the other six, at Daunt Marylebone on 15 April. Be there dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...
E.B. White remembering days of freelance writing at home. V good, although I've always found mornings fine and afternoons crash time
From 'Felicita', perfect exhibition of Luigi Ghirri photographs at Thomas Dane Gallery
"...the issue is maybe that I love music so much that sometimes I can’t cope with it. I am, like a lot of elder millennials, arrested in the '90s indie scene I first fell in love with."
Luke Kennard shared a playlist for his novel Black Bag at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/19/l...
Been going through some old books and found this historical artefact from the analogue days of book reviewing.
I had the pleasure of writing about Alan Bennett and the difficult job of choosing his best works. I quote him most days and am grateful for everything he's done. His new collection of diaries and prose, Enough Said, is a delight. inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Thank you. Absolutely love A Day Out. The wit, the poignancy, the politics - as you say, all there
I had the pleasure of writing about Alan Bennett and the difficult job of choosing his best works. I quote him most days and am grateful for everything he's done. His new collection of diaries and prose, Enough Said, is a delight. inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
From last night's tribute to D'Angelo in Brixton. I've always listened to his music in isolation so a joy to see how much it means to people. And those south London musicians in the band, I don't know who they were, but wow
It was a pleasure to revisit and discover some of Graham Swift's fiction for this @thebookerprizes.com guide to Waterland, Last Orders, Mothering Sunday et al and try to get at "that inexplicable something behind words..." thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...
Just heard a man on the radio give the best definition of a cockney: "Any non-posh Londoner."
It was a pleasure to revisit and discover some of Graham Swift's fiction for this @thebookerprizes.com guide to Waterland, Last Orders, Mothering Sunday et al and try to get at "that inexplicable something behind words..." thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...
I'm out of words here
