Finally, I have got to the end of Lost Illusions, but I took longer to read...
When I was on holiday last week, I finished a book. Not writing one, unfortunately, but reading one. My copy of Balzac's Lost Illusions looks in a wrecked state, as befitting a book that has been taken...
View ArticleThe modern dictionary of quotations is like a hospital for jokes that have...
I don't usually pay compliments to my wife, Nicci Gerrard, in this column. That's an understatement. I never have. Not once. But last weekend, she achieved something that deserves acknowledgement. She...
View ArticleThis year, the march past on Remembrance Day included ex-evacuees. But what...
When I was an avid reader of Biggles, in the late Sixties, I used to try to calculate Biggles's age, because I wanted to know if it was possible that he was still alive. I worked out that he had learnt...
View ArticleI enjoyed Billy Elliot. It was lovely and humane, and a lot like many other...
Once a new art form is invented and established, an infrastructure develops to maintain it: a college to train people to do it, buildings dedicated to it, professional guilds, awards, grants. But, like...
View ArticleThey used to put sick cats to sleep; now they call them diabetics and tell...
Do you want to hear something disgusting? Don't raise your hopes. This isn't the one about me and the goat. I'll save that for when I'm really desperate for material. In fact, to many British people,...
View ArticleIt would be too easy to say John Lennon died the day The Beatles split up,...
Fortunately, nobody rang to ask me where I was when I heard that John Lennon had been shot, because I haven't a clue. But I do remember an interview he recorded for Radio 1 a day or so before his...
View ArticleLike medieval holy relics, Hollywood memorabilia multiply in order to meet...
In 1984, Harrison Ford was being directed by Steven Spielberg in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at Elstree Studios on the edge of London. Stephen, an ailing boy, was invited to the set one day to...
View ArticleOnce or twice, I have had dinner with readers, which sounds like the basis...
<em>NS Christmas</em>Some years ago, in the days before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. I opened it, and a group of slightly menacing children was standing on the doorstep. One of...
View ArticleWhat is it with Swedes and sex?
Observations - Love triangleIn the memoir of his time as British film censor, John Trevelyan described the terrible trouble caused to him when the Swedish movie I Am Curious (Yellow) arrived on his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From the Archive: Will Tom Clancy be taken seriously in death?
In this article originally written on 2nd September 1994, Sean French wonders why Tom Clancy was hardly ever discussed at all during his lifetime.Tom Clancy listens to questions during a discussion...
View Article
