Shop assistant: “Order for Yvonne! Order for Yvonne… You’re not Yvonne, are you?” Elderly Yorkshireman: “Only at weekends.”
Nonsense
Steve ‘the Colonel’ Cropper (1941–2025)
Book review: ‘The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem’ by Jeremy Noel-Tod
An anthology of poems without line breaks.
Book review: ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ by Simon Armitage
An excellent alliterative translation of a medieval masterpiece.
Book review: ‘The Shortest History of Italy’ by Ross King
An excellent short history of an excellent country.
Book review: ‘The Red Tenda of Bologna’ by John Berger
A short memoir-cum-essay on the city of Bologna and an enigmatic uncle.
Book review: ‘The Gold Machine’ by Iain Sinclair
Tracking the ancestors from Highlands to coffee colony
Book review: ‘Bibliomaniac’ by Robin Ince
Writer and comedian tours 104 bookshops, buying far too many books as he does so.
Book review: ‘The End of Enlightenment’ by Richard Whatmore
A grand vision brought down by commercial interests.
Book review: ‘Map of a Nation’ by Rachel Hewitt
A biography of the early Ordnance Survey.