The Plashing Vole

I notice from the readership stats on this blog that if I only write about books, I get 20% of the usual rate of clicks. People, I've de...

I'm busy beyond reason this week so won't detain you for long. I also am very conscious that I've moaned a lot, so I promise not...

Aristotle defined kindness (in Rhetoric ) as: helpfulness towards some one in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of t...

I'll give you a day off from my gloomy, bitter prognostications. Eeyore is in his stable. Instead, a quick list of good things that have...

I looked out of my window this morning to see my Italian neighbour, who has been here 40 years and is very patriotic, flying the Briti...

Another quiet week here: marking, reading, preparing lectures for the next semester and screaming inside as the world burns. Plus ça change ...

January is always a weird month here in academia. We're still in Semester 1 but it's an assessment period: no lectures, no seminars ...

New readers may have been lulled into a false sense of security by my generally sunny disposition and wittering on about books, but those of...

In her own Christmas address, the Queen referred to 1992 as an 'annus horribilis': part of one of her castles had caught fire, a dow...

Dick Tuck, I think it was, once gritted his teeth in the face of an electoral defeat and muttered that 'the people have spoken, the b...

They're wearing hats and gloves in hell this morning, for Radio Four has provoked me to stand up for my Vice-Chancellor. This is worse t...