Sponsored Post I love words. I think it comes of growing up in a family which played word games all the time – we would talk about ‘chish and fips’ and ‘par carks’, we’d say ‘what’s harpooning?’ instead of what’s happening, and my father would set off for work every day with his ‘grief pace’ instead of …
I was struggling round the supermarket yesterday, mustering the ingredients for the Book Group dinner chez moi, and muttering grimly, ‘the first rule about Book Group is … I wish there were no Book Group….’ (naturally I love it when it’s at everyone else’s houses and I can nosh the night away. But when it’s at …
Well, I’ve really gone and done it now. It turns out that the paperback version of my novel isn’t, in fact, coming out until August. I know this because I emailed my publisher to say how much I liked the picture of my very own legs taken by a secret undercover photographer hiding in a …
A lovely surprise, just when I needed it, when I was, ahem, checking out my book’s sales on Amazon. I know it’s a bit sad, but in fact I know authors who spend a lot of time rearranging stacks in bookshops so that their own wares come out on top. At least I don’t do …
I can’t pretend 2011 has been brilliant so far. On New Year’s Day my car was keyed on three sides. This casual wanton scraping by (presumably) a drunken teenager will cost me between £1500-2000 – or I should say the insurers will be paying. But then my premiums will go up and I will be …
Ok, so here it is finally, my pre-Christmas post. Yes, I know, I’ve somewhat missed the deadline, but you know what? I had presents to wrap, turkey to stuff, all that malarky that you’ll know about only too well as you had to do it too. Only you managed to get a Christmas post up …
It’s that Nativity time of year and, as usual, my sympathies go out to all those representations of the baby Jesus, be they shiny plastic dolls, real live babies who’ve been volunteered by their proud mothers, or even stuffed rabbits, as happened recently at a junior school near us. Why on earth does He need …
A bit of a shocker yesterday as the headmistress of the school my daughters attend sent out a letter confirming that Ruby Thomas, who has just been convicted of manslaughter after stamping a man to death (I can hardly type that without feeling sick) in Trafalgar Square, was at the school three years ago. According to my daughters, she was …
I was really excited to be asked along to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Royal Institution, including the making of this year’s Christmas Lectures. The Christmas Lectures have been taking place since 1825 and have been televised since the 1960s, making them much more of a long-running Christmas tradition than Christmas cards and even Christmas …
