All the books I read in 2012

Regular readers (hello Mum!) will recall I write a post at the end of each year reviewing all the books I read in the past twelve months (2011, 2010, 2009). It’s an annual tradition up there with the Queen’s speech or X-Factor. For me at least. 

They're not hugely insightful or long or clever reviews, more just quick observational thoughts on each book as I go. If you have questions, ask below!

So, here we go - in chronological order:

Dark Star Safari - Paul Theroux: A great start to the New Year of 2012, as Theroux heads north to south across Africa encountering interesting people and places, moaning and evangelising in equal measure about what he finds on his way. 

His past life in Africa as a lecturer in Uganda helps, as he can access numerous high-ranking people and knows local dialects too. His disdain for many of the aid organisations he meets is also interesting; some don’t like Theroux for his moaning while travelling but I love it - it’s far more realistic than the endlessly upbeat schoolboy excited TV presenters we get these days who find everything and everyone just wonderful.

The Wonderboys - Michael Chabon: I’ve seen the film a couple of times and finding the book for £1 in Brighton thought it was worth a go and I was right. A great tale of drunken lecturers, the difficulty of writing and the idiocy of love. Recommended.

Watching the English - Kate Fox: A nice little observational non-fiction about the peculiar mannerism and social mores of us mad English people. Tad dry in places but interesting mostly.

The Tiny Wife - Andrew Kaufmann: A short, odd novel about a man’s wife shrinking. It was ok.

A Week at the Airport - Alain De Botton: I bloody loved this; a quick, light yet insightful meander around Heathrow airport by the people’s philosopher (yeah right). As someone who wanders through the bright concourses of Heathrow every so often I enjoyed learning a bit more about the people that keep the big ol’ place humming.

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan: Thought this was a bit overrated but enjoyable. Never a huge fan of 'linking stories' that fuse different characters together, either subtly or obviously, but it was easy to read and better than most stabs at this type of fiction I’ve read.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Moshin Hamed: Enjoyed this a lot; a terse, tight novel about the growing disillusionment of a high-flying western financial expert from India who turns his back on it all for, maybe, more nefarious activities.

Jupiter’s Travels - Ted Simon: Around the world on a motorcycle is always a good premise for a book and Ted Simon’s account is excellent as he makes his way here and there across Africa, South America, North America and onto Asia and so forth. The people he meets make the book, as well as some of his excellent descriptions. He repeated the trip again later in life, although I’ve yet to read that. I may, though.

Engleby - Sebastian Faulks: The more I read of Faulks the more I like him, after finding Birdsong quite disappointing. A dark, somewhat comic novel about a disturbed chap going through life and odd events happening around him, OR DO THEY!

The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good - Matthew Crawford: Read this on a previous blog.

A Short History of Tractor Farming in the Ukraine - Marina Lewcyka: Terribly written story-by-numbers tripe that aspired for comic-thoughtfulness but was just crap. Hey ho.

Americana - Don DeLillo: I started reading this flying back from San Francisco and fell asleep about 30 pages in so it dropped on the floor. When I awoke the woman next to me said “no good then?!” But actually it was very good. The first 100 pages or so are the clear inspiration for Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris but then it veers off into some mad road-trip novel which isn’t as good but the writing is engaging and different and kept me hooked to the end.

Cosmopolis - Don DeLillo: Inspired by the previous novel picked this up (from HMV!) but wasn’t as enjoyable as Americana. They made a film of it with Robert Patterson. Somehow sums up my criticisms.

The Reader - Bernhard Schlink: I really enjoyed this (I’ve not seen the film). A beautifully constructed tale of (too) young love and the inability to escape ones past, it had that rare ability to linger in your mind long after you’ve read it. It did this with simple, plain yet highly engaging language that I found completely beguiling. Highly recommended.

The Stranger - Albert Camus: I didn’t really enjoy this; a bit too short and the main character is a strange lad.

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins: Popular but not all that great. A page turner but dour writing and boring characters. Still, it sold gazillons, so what do I know.

Empire - Niall Ferguson: Ferguson is a contrary character it seems but I really enjoyed this thorough exploration of the Empire from its inception to its demise. It was great to learn so much more about a period of history that looms so large in the past of us Brits but yet we (for the most part) know so little about.

One Day - David Nicholls: Someone lent this to me to read and I can’t deny it had a certain basic charm but why it proved so popular is beyond me. Quite boring characters act idiotically for years on end blatantly in love but without ever acting upon it. I could believe this if we lived in a world without alcohol.

The Crow Road - Iain Banks: My brother lent me this and I really enjoyed it. Lyrical, insightful writing and an engrossing story with nicely realised characters with engaging personalities. I watched the BBC adaption afterwards but it wasn’t as good.

Last Orders - Graham Swift: I bought this book for 20p from the Putney Scouts outdoor stall (oh how we live in south west London) and being a big fan of Swifty I was expecting good things and I wasn’t disappointed. A moving tale of misdirected love and wasted lives. There’s a film but I’ve not seen it yet.

Touching the Void - Joe Simpson: ARGH MY LEG, he screamed as he fell down the mountain. Well, I’m going to die, he thinks. But then the triumph of the human spirit overcomes ridiculous odds and he makes it back to base camp. What a guy.

I, Partridge - Alan Partridge: Funny throughout although the jokes wears thin after a while. A-HA!

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck: Lenny you idiot! Poor old boys, struggling for a living; a bleak tale.

When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro: A disappointing effort from an author I usually love (The Remains of the Day) which starts off promisingly but ends poorly.

The Revenge of Gaia - James Lovelock: It’s enjoyable to read a proper rant sometimes and this is most definitely that as Lovelock has clearly had enough with our inability to accept the damage we’re doing to our planet and railing against it all.

Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis: One of the my favourite books of the year with Dixon a truly brilliant character who gets involved in some hilarious scrapes surrounded by a rag-tag bunch of awful people. A treat.

Sunset Park - Paul Auster: Same old Auster - people living on the fringes of society, somehow not wanting for money, and hiding damaged pasts. As always he does a lot of Telling rather than Showing which I always thought was a big no-no in the writer’s world but he gets away with it. I got this from Putney library for free when it would cost you £17 in hardback. Libraries are great.

The Family Arsenal - Paul Theroux: A bleak, grim tale of 1970s London that I struggled to get into until I just sat and read 100 pages plus when at an airport and then suddenly really started to enjoy.

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut: A very odd novel but one of the best I’ve read this year. Vonnegut was actually in Dresden when the bombs fell and survived and this novel was his response to that but it also includes time travel, aliens and lots of death. So it goes.

A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks: Didn’t expect to like this as it does that interweaving character thing I don’t usually like (see A Visit From the Goon Squad) but actually I found very enjoyable and when it hit its satirical targets was bang on the money.

London Under - Peter Ackroyd: There’s a whole world beneath our feet in London and Ackroyd does a great job of telling us about it all in lyrical detail.

A Touch of Love - Jonathan Coe: Very odd this as it was written very basically, almost badly, but I think that was the point. It was too short to really care about the characters that much but it kept me hooked.

No Easy Day - Mark Owen: An account of the raid on Osama Bin Laden. The first 150 pages just covers Owen’s (Not his real name) time in the SEALs and other missions leading to the Big One. This was all quite boring but the raid chapters are pretty good and it was interesting to get a first-hand take on the raid. Terribly written, though.

And that’s it: well done if you made it to the end. If not, I don’t blame you; it’s hard to review 33 books in one sitting and make it interesting and insightful throughout. Bring on 2013...

Singing out for Christmas

So, that was Christmas 2011. It always goes so fast, after such a long build-up. Still, it was a nice one this year, with mild weather, plenty of cocktails and nice dog walks with the family. My brother and I spent some time noodling around on the guitars and piano too, and even got around to bashing out a Christmas song, after discussing whether or not it was that hard to actually write one. You can take a listen to our efforts in the embedded video below. Enjoy, and roll on the New Year!

Lost in translation

It's been a month since I returned from China and Hong Kong and I can't believe I forgot to write a blog about the wonderful Lost in Tranlsation moment that occurred when I checked in to my hotel in Shenzhen, China.

I was hugely jet lagged (leaving at 6pm means you arrive at about 2pm, but to your body it's about 4am) and was also in a slight state of "Crikey, I'm in China, the red state", and so already susceptible to confusion and bewilderment.

Our bags were taken by the bellboys, and we ascend the lift to our rooms, I went inside and checked out the view, and waited for my bag to turn up before I could grab some much demanded sleep.

Sure he enough he turned up and left my bag in the room before heading back to the door, so far, so good. Then, as he got there, there was another man behind him, in workmans clothes, holding a large round bottle connected to a long piece of tube with a nozzle on the end that looked a little like a blow torch.

They both looked at me, I at them, bleary-eyed and the bell-boy pointed at the bottle before pointing at the bathroom. I nodded, "Ok?" I offered, but they didn't understand and so we all just stood there.

I rocked on my heels, the two Chinese men looked at each other, and I felt we might be there forever, until the bell-boy, smart as paint, remembered his mobile phone.

He whipped it out, and showed me a list of tasks he had to do of which number one was "1. insect". I immediately let out an "Ohhhh" noise, as in "Oh, I see", when of course I of course didn't.

I gave him an eager thumbs up and watched as the blow-torch man went in to the bathroom. There was a short swooooshing sounds and then they both left, smiling and happy.

I peered in to the bathroom, wondering if he'd just pumped a lot of insects in to my barthoom as part of some local custom of welcome, but not, don't be stupid ridiculous tired and confused Dan, I thought, they've just removed on from somewhere.

With that I went to bed.

Disposing of old fashioned photography

I was at a Turkish wedding reception on Friday night – it was a lot of fun – but something interesting happened while we where there that I thought was just a nice snapshot of how technologies we (my generation and above) know never used to exist are already engrained in the minds of youngsters who can imagine nothing else.

My girlfriend took a photo of her sister and a little girl, maybe aged seven, with a disposable camera and immediately after the flash went off the little girl grabbed it (nicely) and peered at the back, clearly expecting their to be a digital image of the photo. Her face when she saw there was nothing to look at was one of complete bewilderment.

"Yes, in the old days you took photos, had no idea what they would look like, then took them to a shop where a stranger developed them, sometimes as quickly as an hour, but often longer - several days maybe - before giving them back to you, and it cost you about a fiver, and you could only get about 24 or 26 photos on each camera. And each camera cost about a tenner, and they were pretty shit. It wasn't good no, digital is so much better. How did we cope? I've no idea. Right kids, on your hoverboards, we're off to the moon !"

Eggscellent

I tried to make an omelette last night and end up with metaphorical egg all over my face. Let me explain.

I had fried some mushrooms and chopped a couple of slices of pepperoni to add in to the dish and everything was ready for the addition of the eggs so I grabbed the egg box and took an egg from the box.

I should clarify that, despite what I am about to tell you, I have made many omelettes in my life, at least 40 I would say, maybe 50, and know how to make them. Yet somehow in the rush and excitement of the frying mushrooms and the egg in my hand my brain let me down.

I cracked the egg on the side of the pan and, at the same moment, said aloud, "Is this how you make an omelette?". The egg splashed and broke across the pan, immediately beginning to fry. "No," I said aloud to no-one, "this is how you make a fried egg".

Man, did I have egg on my…oh wait, I've already made that joke.

For closure nuts out there – I just turned the meal into fried eggs, mushrooms, pepperoni and a handful of chips I had already started making in the oven. Disaster averted!

Staggering

When did the Stag Do become a 'thing'. In the old days they were the night before the wedding right? A terrible idea, surely? Many a font must have been graced by unholy water (amongst other things) from green-faced grooms at the altar.

I experienced my first one this weekend. It was fun. It involved some beaching and footballing, and best of all some clay pigeon shooting (men eh?), and copious alcohol in between, as to be expected.

All this took place in the delightful surrounds of Bournemouth, a slightly terrifying seaside town, where an undercurrent of simmering violence and sexual frenzy felt ready to burst at every minute, perhaps explaining the proliferation of sex-chat cards in the town, more than I've ever seen anywhere in my life.

It was, as stated, fun, but the idea that I could potential go on 10 more of these, spending a lot of money each time, and possibly having to go abroad too, fills me with a vague sort of dread and ennui, but then, that's probably true of lots of things.

We stayed in a Premier Inn, it was surprisingly good.

Victorian people

What I like about London, and it's something I sometimes 'forget', is just how many weird and wonderful events there are every single night. Gigs, viewings, cinema showings, sport events and talks.

I love a good talk about interesting, off-the-beaten track things. Last year I went to a great one given by two BBC wildlife camera man, and last night I went to see Daniel Maier, who writes for TV Burp, give a talk about "Ideas Man" Sir Francis Galton.

Galton was a strange chap, a quintessential Victorian who spent his life trying to measure the world, exploring the world, and inventing all manner of weird and wonderful things. He was very much into statistics, and Maier's explanation of how Galton had decided to work out if his new house could hold all the world's gold, was fantastic. Galton also had a terrible track record with animals, usually killing them, to put it blunty.

The final section, on how Galton had devised the perfect way to cut a cake was hysterical, with the Victorian gent landing on the perfect solution to stop the sides of cakes be left exposed in order to prolong its life, but all the time working to measurements of cake that made the need to keep the cake for more than one day irrelevant.

It was a very enjoyable, interesting and quirky way to spend an evening and if Maier does the talk at other times then it could be one to catch.

For the record, one of my favourite Victoria / turn-of-the-century figures is Emily Hobhouse, a Cornish woman who came before many of well known heroines of that age, who helped improve the diabolical conditions for the displaced in the Boer War, mainly women and children, and caused such a stir with her protestations, that she helped advance the peace talks between the British and the Boers.

She helped inspire Ghandi with her form of peaceful protests, so much so he called her "one of the noblest and bravest of women" while Lord Kitchener found her meddling so irritating she was known as "that bloody woman". This was the title of a book written about Hohouse recently, the author of which I interviewed for an article about a year ago in Cornwall Today.

In South Africa she is a well-known figure, with states and submarines named after her, and her story taught in schools. It seems a huge shame she is so unknown in the UK, and even in Cornwall, her county of birth.

Behind the scenes at the museum

Ah, the BBC. A fine, venerable institution, as old as slippers, as warm as a roaring log fire, full of heroes of yesteryear, and new names, keen to make an impact. (That should be read in a Terry Wogan ever-so-slightly patronising tone of voice).

I was inside the BBC on Monday, deep in its cavernous bowels, being ushered into a green room (yes, really) to take part in the first recording of Dave Gorman's show Genius. I was a genius. Or hoped to be, if my idea was to be discussed. Long story short, it wasn't. I got to read it out, but guest Chris Addison (who just does not look old enough to have two children) and Mel from Mel and Sue, didn't think it worthy of more discussion. More's the pity.

For the record it was a pay-per-snooze alarm clock that would deduct money from your bank account each time you hit it. Evil genius. I doubt I will get mention it on TV, but I may make the cut. The jolly farmer next to me did get to discuss his idea at length though so perhaps my grinning mug shall be on TV at some point. I'll let you know.

On the way in they have the Audi Quattro positioned prominently, a Tardis on display, and lots of large posters of grinning stars and people I've never seen before in my life. Everyone was very jolly, and sandwiches and cakes were laid on for us too. That's license fee value right there.

It was a fun show to be part of, due mostly to large amounts of audience interaction. I chatted to a nice girl (who may have been on drugs) who said she imagined portholes in peoples heads into which reality escaped, or could be entered (I forget which). She also explained her idea for telling good and bad actresses apart during rain-crying scenes, by creating eye-umbrellas which would ensure dry under-eye areas at all times, so you could see if an actress was actually crying during a scene in the rain, instead of just using the rain as her tears. Understand?

Minds, they work in funny ways.

Killer squirels

Seem to be blogging about animals a lot lately, hmm.

Anyway, as a former Cornishman, I am well aware of the dangers of fat, unafraid seagulls swooping down and stealing food from your hand. It happens all the time.

In London this problem doesn't really exist. But I reckon it soon will but with seagulls being replaced by foot solider squirrels. They are becoming increasingly tame, and more than willing to take food from your hand (evidenced by the fat critter pictured, snapped by my brother.)

It won't be long before Metro or Evening Standard carries a story of a child being attacked by a squirrel that wanted its food. The revenge of Gaia.

I am the new James Lovelock and David Attenborough.

Bragguns and Dragons

Started Melvin Bragg's Remember Me now, another 450+ page effort, seem to be going in for the long books this year, and it's quite enjoyable to do so, nice to really ease into a story and know you're in for a (hopefully) intricate and clever tale. As it's by Bragg I can sometimes here that leather-on-willow voice of English intelligence reading the sentences aloud. Which is disconcernting.

If I were a famous author I would go around on the tube and so forth looking for people reading my books, then I'd stand behind them and quietly say the words out loud they were reading. Be terrifying for them. Although, of course, they'd have to know the sound of my voice already, otherwise I'd just look like a nutter reading aloud words on the tube.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I saw How to Train Your Dragon in 3D the other day. I do like 3D. It seems you need to put flying dragons into a 3D movie to make it fun, and to be honest I couldn't imagine something like A Single Man needing the 3D treatment. The idea of one hour thirty plus of Colin Firth looking morose in 3D is not something I would want.

Unless there was a massive dragon somewhere in the story as well.

You don't get this on Final Score

Why Sky Sports News' coverage of the goals flying in around the country is the best in the country.



Chris' face is like that of a school boy who didn't mean to do something wrong but inadvertently did while the others laugh a genuine laugh not at him, but with him at the way he has so honestly admitted to missing a key piece of the action.

I've often said football's best moments are the comedy moments. Wonder goals and epic matches are obviously great too but the comedy from a missed open goal, a disastrous own goal, riotous crowd banter and chants and the overall joy of seeing a game that is so often at great pains to justify its own seriousness - the tactics, positioning, players ability to control the ball etc - undermine itself so frequently are often the best moments in the entire game.

All the world's a stage

So said Shakespeare anyway. But, this was in a time before pub quizzes and microphones. He would have thought differently if he ever played a pub quiz that I ventured to last night.

While the quality of the quiz and the questions are generally fine (apart from "who is currently leading the F1 standings?" to which the pub responded "it's not started yet". (What did he have as the answer then?)), the man in charge is someone who clearly believes he is an orator, a comedian and a raconteur all rolled into one.

He spends the entire quiz booming loud, inane and asinine comments about nothing in particularly into the microphone. Or he sings snippets of songs and general other nonsense. But most annoyingly of all, this man is a councillor for a nearby London borough.

This means, every other thing he says, is something sanctimonious, OTT, in your face piece of political posturing, about the wonders of Labours, the horrors of the Tories, every date or location referenced to some heroic Labour cabinet member, or some vile Conservative MP; it's utterly tiring.

The dream, it dies.

Okay Marion, concentrate, four years training, you can do this. Focus, remember what coach told you, hit the start hard, get some early speed up, build towards the middle, then fly to the end. Right, here we go, oh.

How refreshing

So there I go, getting you all excited that I might leaving, only to come back. This was something that happened that I felt required committing to the internet's paper.

I went for dinner with a very good friend on Tuesday night. We've known each other for over seven years, gone through the school system, the university lifestyles, the job hunts, and many other things between and come through it as even better friends than before. We make each other laugh, enjoy the same things, discussing books or films, sport, running together, comedy and so forth. You get the idea.

But...at dinner on Tuesday, something happened that scared me. We'd been talking for about an hour, about this and that, our mutual friends, holiday plans for summer, the usual. Then there was a lull, nothing unusual there, happens all the time, perfectly easy silence between friends...only, it seemed to drag on slightly too long, I really couldn't think of a thing to say, and evidently neither could he....I panicked, I thought of something, anything...

"I've got some Polos in my bag," I mumbled, "We can have them afterwards." I winced, wondering why I had said such a banal thing.

My friend though, perhaps sensing he needed to at least feign interest said, "I tried that new Trebor chewing gum the other day."

"Oh yes," I replied, "Any good?"

"Mm, really refreshing!"

There was a pause...I looked at him, and spoke in a hushed voice across the table, "I think we've just hit a conversational low in our friendship." He nodded back and we asked for the bill.

It's a funny old world

Here we are then, the shortest day in living memory (of 2009) and the day before we (I) finish for Christmas. I can't wait.

My apologies to my readership (Hi Mum! Hi Dad!) for dropping off so suddenly from the blogging world. Moving to a new job of news reporting makes time a lot more precious each and every day, rather than a monthly/bi-monthly print magazines where busy-ness came in waves, rather than as a bubbling river (oh, a nice water metaphor there).

Snow and ice (more water!) on the ground makes things feel wintery doesn’t it? I remember being in Cardiff in 2005 and it being boiling hot on the last day of term and my personal tutor telling me he could remember snow being 2ft high and university closing in late November as it was impossible for anyone to get in. So I suppose global warming is in some ways very real? Is that right?

It's been a memorable year. I ran a marathon, formed a band (although only practicesed twice...bad form), broke a world record, went to Slovakia and flew in a Hind Military Attack helicopter, tasted whisky in Scotland (most northern I've ever been - except when I eat mushy peas), went to Benicasim music festival with very good friends, read many interesting books, gave an after dinner, black tie, speech, wrote more for The Guardian, for Word through some bizarre circumstances, and a couple of bits for Runner's World and a couple bits for Cornwall Today, got a new job, two of my best friends got engaged (to each other), and everyone else I care about is well and good and more.

Twitter took over the world, many notable people passed on (it's the first year of the endless deaths of media / mass entertainment personas if you ask me), Rage Against the Machine had a number one for Christmas (?), SuBo was discovered, we still haven't invented time-travel, and the world seems unsure whether it thinks money is good or evil. I think a bit of both.

In the decade itself we've had mobile phones, ipods, broadband internet, 9/11, foot and mouth, 7/7, Cristano Ronaldo, Obama, the rise and fall of Top Gear, the continued and unabated domestication of the dog (although nothing else - when was the last time we domesticated anything?) YouTube, Facebook, the decline of newspapers, I went, studied, and graduated from university (as did countless millions more), we had endless disasters, global warming became an issue, and a man named Howard became a minor celebrity through singing on adverts.

It's a funny old world.

See you on the otherside, Internet.

Only me!

Back briefly.

Here's a blog I wrote about Cliff Richard for The Guardian.

X is for...

Xs marks the spot.

One of my favourite all time Simpsons moments is when, and I forget why, someone is imagining pirates burying treasure. One, slightly foppish, pirate speaks up and says "Why are we burying the treasure, why don't we use it to buy things? Things we like." He's then shot but the lead pirate.

One of my other absolute favourite moments is when Homer visits a strange, edge-of-town car lot run by an eastern-European chap. Homer struggles to fit in the tiny, three-wheeled car as the sales man pronounces "It gets 400 hectares on a single tank of kerosene." Then, as Homer stalls the car and we see a shot of foreign symbols on the dashboard that might as well be Tetris pieces, the man shouts "Put it in H!" (I think you can watch all this here.)

One more: In the episode where Bart becomes the 'I Didn't Do It Boy' Homer is led to believe Bart has been crushed to death and turned into a box. We see him outside practicising various ways to break this news to Marge in that classic sitcom way that characters do. When Homer finally does break the news his exact words are: "Marge, I have some horrible, bone-chilling, news." Brilliant.

---

When I did Ten Tors training me and my 'tent' buddy used to keep our spirits up during the damp, boring nights in our cramp, uncomfortable tent by reciting our favourite Simpsons moments. Works well for other similar situations. Such a shame it had to jump the shark though.

G is for

Games

As in Monopoly and Scrabble, which are the main two really aren't they? Trivial Pursuit is just rubbish; an infuriatingly slow and dull game in which piece of 'pie' must be won by answering questions that range from the utterly banal, to the sublimely hard: 'The answers is moops'.



Scrabble is a game I like though. Remember a couple of years ago it became massively popular due to Scrabbulous on Facebook? Then Hasbro got a bit irate and told them to take it down. It was nice while it lasted and in that time me and my old housemate played it a lot and both got quite good at it.

Monopoly is good too, but requires a pre-game agreement, verbal or not, between all players to take it seriously and accept they could be in for the long haul. I like the Greens and Browns myself; everyone has a favourite set, don't they?

You're not singing anymore

I went to Arsenal v West Brom last night as part of the usual once-a-year-Arsenal outing to the Carling Cup 3rd round (£10 tickets you see). It's always fun to go and be part of the throng of the crowd, cheer a few goals, boo a few villains etc and enjoy the pre and post match atmosphere.

One of my favourite things at football matches is the chants that make their way around the stadium. There were two good ones last night. At random moments the Arsenal fans would chant 'Who are ya?' at the West Brom fans who, after a moment of silence presented itself, would responded with, 'We are Al-bi-ion, say we are Albion'. It just seems so weirdly banal.

Second was the chant of 'Stand up...if you hate Tottenham, stand up...if you hate TottenHAM' (to the tune of, I believe, Go West). The best bit of this was when, as we started to hear the chant emanating from the other side of the stadium, two lads, no more than five or six-years-old, were the first to stand and in high, falsetto voices, proclaim their hatred for a bunch of people that live just a few miles north of them.

Good form

I was thinking this weekend that the saying / phrase, ‘X was on good form last night’ is one of my favouite expressions. To say that someone was being themselves to the best of their ability is such a great form of speech, a reminder of why you're friends with some. Themselves³ if you will.

Incidentally my parents met Gavin Esler this weekend, who I met about a year ago, after interviewing his girlfriend Anna Phoebe. According to mother he remembered me and said I was a good journalist. Praise indeed. When I met him at one of her concerts, I also told him that Newsnight has the most rocking news theme of any on the tele. Which it does. Only Question Time comes close with that frantically fast piano-led piece.