-
Continue reading →: Back matters
Beside one of my bookcases lies the Pile of the Unread, from which I pluck the next book to devour (yes, I still read dead trees). I don’t chomp through them nearly quickly enough. I’ve just finished one, Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson, that’s been in the pile for a…
-
Continue reading →: One hundred days
As an experiment, for the last 100 days I’ve written every day. No matter how full the hours, I’ve found some time. I’ve been trying to discover if the “write every day” mantra works: whether the writing flows more easily, whether it instills a new discipline. In those 100 days…
-
Continue reading →: Twenty-five years
It’s twenty-five years this month since I started at Downing College, Cambridge. I can scarcely believe it possible. The calendar used to be so friendly, and now it mocks me. My route to Cambridge was unorthodox. I had my A-level results before I applied, and so my admissions interviews the…
-
Continue reading →: The poor, powerless IOC
“But one should not forget that we are staging the games in a sovereign state and the IOC cannot be expected to have an influence on the sovereign affairs of a country,” says departing IOC president Jacques Rogge. No indeed. The IOC’s hands are tied. They can do nothing, nothing,…









