Magnificent Octopus

WireTap — still funny.

"Finding Patrick Hamilton feels somewhat like joining a secret society ." (Thanks, Tom .)

Me: "You're always singing. Why are you always singing?" Helena: "Because I love singing." The girl is always singi...

1. Tim Parks reviews That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana , by Carlo Emilio Gadda, in the London Review of Books . And still he thinks very ...

In the evening we went to see "Angel Street," which I recommend to anyone who wants to be absorbed and taken out of his daily roun...

Another new book by one of my favourite dead authors! I'd been awaiting Alexandre Dumas's The Last Cavalier Being the Adventures of ...

"Uncle is an elephant. He's immensely rich, and he's a B.A." Uncle , by JP Martin and illustrated by Quentin Blake, is ama...

It was around six in the evening, and light the colour of opal, pierced by the golden rays of the autumn sun, spread over a bluish sea. The ...

Saturday, J-F and I got in the car and drove. Without a destination, without a plan, and, for the most part, without worries. We had it in o...

Claude Chappe invented an optical telegraph network that operated in France from 1792 through 1846. It was instrumental in Napoleon's s...

In books Recently read: Moral Disorder , Margaret Atwood — I'm not much for short stories, and wouldn't've searched this book ou...

Stories keep. Good ones, anyway. Ideas... Some ideas keep better than others. I've been keeping quiet, keeping a low profile, keeping th...

Bedtime stories this week were plagued with difficult questions: Who's saying that? Where does it say that? Then is it the dog saying th...

A Spaniard is inferior to a Frenchman in one respect: your Spaniard thinks things over, but your Frenchman thinks them up. — from The Count ...

The date of the first draft of this post is August 21, 2004 — almost 3 years ago. I meant to share with you one of my "collections,...

Lunchtime: Lebanese food, which I love as much for the gallant service, the blessings liberally yet judiciously bestowed, as for the tang. I...

The other week, the following lines were quoted in Doctor Who (the episode entitled " The Lazarus Experiment "): Between the idea ...

Coming this weekend to a park near me: Molière's Scapin! the Schemer , presented by Repercussion Theatre. ( Trailer .)

1. Monday morning, on my way to work, I almost miss my metro stop. Because I was reading. While this could be construed as a good thing (los...

The look of delighted astonishment on Helena's face when, during last week's episode , the Doctor exclaimed, "Allons-y!" G...