Monthly Archives: October 2011

A tip for anyone considering Petra…go before dawn, hire horses and go over the mountains to the far end of the valley. That way, you do the whole experience back to front, and it’s a deliciously hairy and cowboy-like experience with the horses slipping on loose shale near sheer precipices – unsurprisingly, ‘Indiana Jones & […]

No visuals today as my Flash Uploader has ceased functioning – but we struggle on. I’m heading back from the Middle East (having singly failed to get to Jericho or Jerusalem, thanks to the Byzantine arrangements of the Israeli border system), and I just looked back at my holiday reading. ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ […]

So what exactly was Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s relationship with pal Adam Werritty? What on earth made it so strong that Werritty would print up business cards announcing his connection with Fox? Did they just like hanging out? What was this, a special edition of ‘Entourage’? Well, the answer is coming out this morning, and […]

Well, I decided to give my Sony eReader one more chance. Even though it refuses to download books to the device after I’ve legitimately paid for them. (It says ‘Transfer to READER’ – but there’s no READER column to transfer to) I’ve still got some stuff to read on it before I frisbee it into […]

This is a photo I took of a fence surrounding building works in King’s Cross, where I live. The old joke about people one day waking up in New York to find that all the builders have finished and gone home will never become true, so construction companies are making areas attractive while they’re in […]

This week, Brent council closed down six of its twelve libraries in order to save money, despite massive protests. Obviously you only need to be able to read pamphlets to work at Brent Council, but perhaps they could have saved the requisite amount by taking a collective wage cut. Of course, that will never happen, […]

Recently I gave my mother a copy of the JB Priestley novel ‘The Good Companions’. I’d found it in a secondhand book shop and knew it was one of her favourites, about an troupe of seaside entertainers. The next time I saw her she told me she was puzzled. ‘I read this when I was […]

Okay, I’ve reached the dead sea – just about to go and test its buoyancy – then I’ll be heading for the Israeli border to visit Jerusalem. After that, off into the desert to Petra. Wi-fi is not exactly prevalent here and I’ve yet to work out how to ward off the plague of flies […]

I missed this play first time around and am thrilled it came back with the original cast intact. Jex Butterworth has matured as a playwright in the last few years, but his edge is as sharp as ever. This is a big evening; a lengthy three-act exploration of the power of English mythology. Id Mark […]

And there I was thinking the Internet was a democratising force. I noticed this phenomenon too, and have since started carrying out a few simple tests. Sometimes it becomes very difficult to find what you’re looking for from where you are. This is why.