That was interesting. And Vian Junior’s band sound rather promising…

Time for a Frenchman, Boris Vian, who had many strings to his bow: writer of hard-boiled, sensational pulp fiction, jazz musician, inventor, surrealist …..He died at the age of 39 during the premier of a film […]

There are some Premier League writers on that list, Morrison, so it is not that you were selling minor names.

The reading public are fickle. All it needs is a film or tv adaptation and a writer like Somerset […]

I’d never heard of this Aussie classic.

Now, Smiley the movie!

Sixties film classics indeed! The cinema audience of that time were very keen about gritty Northern kitchen sinks

Barstow’s A kind of Loving, Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Loneliness of […]

Once again, a remarkably hard-working writer.

None of this, one book every 10 years nonsense from him!

Bevis sounds well worth looking for. Jefferies’s birthplace is now a museum so he is not completely forgotten in Coate.

A fascinating, very tragic fellow.

Did none of these excellent Northern writers make it onto the O or A level syllabus and thus ensure a longer shelf life?

Of the same vintage is Kingsley’s Amis’s Lucky Jim. Hilarious book but I can’t imagi […]

Yes, Hubert! Bryant and May sound just right for me”

Well I never! That really was an eye-opener.

When Roger Moore became Simon Templar in 1962, we are talking about a reboot. The first Saint movies had been made in the 1930s!

But the Swinging 60s did have […]

Maintenant, le pere du Saint.

Charteris mentions Hollywood. I was surprised to find out that The Saint had been going strong, long before Roger Moore.

Take your time, Lo! This thread can meander along at a lazy pace. Perhaps we should have that Stockholm mingle in an antiquarian bookshop?

Here is what Mike wrote about Gibbings.

“Blue Angels and Whales by Robert Gibbings, Pelican Special S16, 1938. This was the first original, as opposed to reprint, that Penguin published. Not many old Penguins h […]

In a few years, they will be two good reasons for mwhy you are up to speed with youth culture.

Bushido is something to look forward to!

Sorry! I know full well that a normal social life is impossible with young kids.

You are certainly right there. Goethe is the Teutonic answer to Shakey. Even Can, Herzog, Kraftwerk, Fassbinder etc are probably […]

Oops. Forgot to mention that Walter is now Waltina….

There are some things that a school has that you are unlikely to find at home. Like bunsen burners. I can’t remember anything I learnt in physics lessons b […]

I would say it is more the opposite, Sniffity. I am definitely the one in the family who enjoys cooking most and does most of it.

Go Mavis go!

One subject that I am very glad is on the curriculum here is domestic sciences. Not just cooking, it also includes nutrition, storing food etc. Very useful for the future and the kids seem to […]

We have no school teams here at all in Sweden, but the tribal loyalty to football and ice hockey teams is strong regardless. So that tribalism is not something that comes from school in my opinion.