Apples and Oranges

One of the downsides, and there are many, of spending three months indoors writing books all day and drinking beer all evening, is that when you finally emerge into the public domain (unlike your book, which will probably spend months in some dusty office being manhandled by a bespectacled chap who likes to use the …

The Idiot Revisited: The Tale of the Maison Trudon

I am terrible at buying birthday presents. I don’t know why, I just am. Especially for my wife. I just seem to get it wrong, year after year. So birthday shopping for me is a source of extreme anxiety. Blurred vision. Tingling fingertips. Shortness of breath. Diazepam. The whole lot. Some people feel this way …