I’ve written about spam before, but the stuff continues to exert a strange fascination over me. My most recent crop – no, you wouldn’t have a crop of spam, would you – my most recent cans of spam contained items that seemed to be struggling to become a novel, taking...
Once upon a time, a writer wrote a book, as writers tend to do, and got it published, however unlikely that may seem. Then she sat back and waited for the good stuff that happens to writers who get published: trumpets sound, cherubs strew rose petals and...
I got on Twitter because of Eddie Izzard’s feet. Allow me to ’splain, as Desi used to say to Lucy. As a member of C.L.A.M. -- Chronic Late Adopters Mob -- I had just discovered the actor/comedian when he started running 7 weeks of marathons around the UK for the...
See those bridges? Somehow they've joined and slang is sneaking across them from the US to the UK. There used to be a divide between people who say “you guys” and people who don’t, and that divide was the Atlantic Ocean. When I was studying for an M.A. in Liverpool in...
I’m not sure which Mom noticed first: my father's crooked grin or the twinkle in his eye. Or was it his straight, aristocratic-looking nose, which he passed on to me? Not his actual nose. One that looks similar. And where did I get my obvious jokes? Read on. “Back in...
I called my agent the other day to give her some good news. Thus: Me: I've had a great idea! I'm going to paste together bits of famous novels, poems, song lyrics, etc., and call it a book. I’ll send it to you tomorrow. Agent: Something something bad idea plagiarize...