Am at the family residence with intermittent internet access.

Liked this, in today's Guardian Review, Is there an old favourite you'd like to see back in print? Thanks to Faber and Faber, now's your chance. Here, writers tell us which books they will be requesting. And what for me is way cool is how many of them are jumping up and down and going ' ( Read more... )

Okay, I've pretty well given up on hoping that the difference between 'disinterested' and 'uninterested' will become anything but a historical curiosity that scholars will need to bear in mind when reading older texts.

My sermon today complaineth about the use of 'secret', when 'private' is really what is meant. I moaned about the silly use of ' ( Read more... )

Why Lawson is annoying (and so is her copy-editor, if she had one):
'[Beatrix] Potter's sweet little animal tales': goes 'huh?', thinking of Father Rabbit who ended up in Mrs McGregor's pie, of the sinister foxy gentleman who lures Jemima Puddleduck etc - and on the very next page, Lawson says that Potter's tales had 'an element of irony, toughness ( Read more... )