By Bernard Cornwell

A really creative plot goes into this story. I’m an unusual Sharpe fan in that I don’t like the battle scenes. It’s nothing to do with squeamishness; I just find several pages describing a skirmish and the tactics used during it a little tediousness.

I didn’t have to contend with that in this story. There was only the one battle, and that was in the end and covered in a couple of pages.

Cornwell really hits a niche in creating memorable, dangerous villains. It’s not enough to have great hulking men; these are just the sergeants! The villains all have traits that make them worthy of fear, all in a more sinister way than merely killing people.

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Poetry is a lost artform on me. The only time I ever feel even slightly impressed by it is when the meter runs perfectly and the endings rhyme. Then I consider it creativity. Otherwise, I cannot stand it.

Radio (and many others who know me) might suggest that I lack a certain … emotion and so can’t invest myself in it.

This post, however, is about poetry. It’s in Moldovan and was written by Mihai Eminescu. (Actually, I should say Romanian, since they’re the same language and Moldova came into being as an independent country a century after his death.)

Here’s the poem as he wrote it: (more…)

By John Fisher

Tommy Cooper died before I could register any memory of him, but I still know who he was. It’s hard not to: He wore that distinctive fez, had the most popular catchphrase of any entertainer, and is continually voted in the upper echelon of Britain’s favourite comedians, behind whatever the flavour of the month is when the vote is taken.

I’d noticed this biography in a bookshop window whilst walking through town on my way to the office and thought nothing more of it.

A few hours later, one of my colleagues started giggling to herself. Her son had sent her an email of Cooper gags, and she passed them on to me. Well, I started laughing too.

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Sometimes you hear a story and think you must have misheard.

You understand all of the words, and they make a proper sentence when assembled, but you can’t accept that you’ve got it right.

I was speaking to one of our carers today, a really good one. The subject was family members who have cancer.

Well, she brought to my attention someone who has to be the world’s most selfish person.

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Amazing service from The Economist.

I was abroad at the time so didn’t notice, but it appears that they were a day late despatching one of their editions recently.

I know this because they have my email address and know that I’m a subscriber, and so emailed me an apology, inviting me to inform them if I had been so desperate to receive an issue that I’d sped to the local newsagents and bought a copy from the stand. If this is the case, all I have to do is say so, and they’ll extend my subscription by two issues to cover the cost of the issue I’d paid for.

Not only did they email me, but they then went to the trouble of printing (on GLOSSY paper) the same message and including it with the following issue.

Check this out for a start:

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By William Boyd

I have something of a strange relationship with Boyd.

I first encountered him via a booklet from Costa which provided excerpts from each of the winners in the five categories of their 2006 book awards. Boyd’s Restless won the accolade for best novel, so I bought it and greatly enjoyed it.

And that was that.

But, like a missing sock, he turned up in the most unexpected of places.

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Football’s Tabloid Tales by Harry Harris

The author is an award-winning sports writer. I recognised his name (complete with obligatory grainy photo image) from his time with the Daily Mirror from when I was a paperboy in the early nineties.

The book promises a lot: “The bungs, the court cases, the inside stories.”

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By Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe and his team are well established by this point. He’s Wellington’s favourite and captain of the 95th. They’ve recently secured famous victories at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz (Sharpe personally storming the third breach), and are now looking at kicking the French out of Salamanca, a university town which was apparently as beautiful then as it was when I visited it in 2000.

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I tend to tut-tut when do-gooders determine that conventional language use must be changed to avoid upsetting people. I should no longer allowed to select from black or white coffee, for example, in some people’s eyes.

Well, I now need to apply these people’s approach to my own work.

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By Frederick Forsyth

The fourth book by Frederick Forsyth, who has fast become an author of high renown with me.

I picked up The ODESSA File in February, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and watched the film.

I picked up The Day Of The Jackal in May, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and watched the film.

I picked up The Dogs Of War in June, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and hang my head in shame that I’ve just had to use Wikipedia to confirm that there is a film. That’s one to watch later.

Anyway, it seems that there’s a running theme. And it continued with this one, minus the ‘couple of days’ reading time. Stretch to three for this badboy.

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