One may make a distinction between two types of novel: the self-enclosed and the open. The distinction is not absolute. Such things never are. Genre fiction may merge with what is called the literary novel, for instance. Still the categories I have in mind are useful, or at least interesting. By the self-enclosed novel, I
The pilcrow is a typographical symbol which looks like this: ¶. It was once used in writing (often of the philosophical or religious kind) to indicate a new line of discussion, before the habit of physically separating work into paragraphs changed its status to that of the exotic and learned yet largely useless. It is
Oliver Tate, the hero of Submarine (Hamish Hamilton, £16.99), is a monologophobic parthenologist. Roughly translated, this means he is interested in finding new words to describe what it’s like being a virginal 14-year-old in Swansea. So is Joe Dunthorne, whose first novel this is, and both he and Oliver are extremely good at what they
Last week several people — well, two to be exact — asked me if I was looking forward to St George’s Day. One of them was a road-sweeper. Apparently it falls this year on 23 April, although in 1861 its date appears to be two days earlier. I know this because I looked it up
Er, I’m the subject of this week’s Normblog profile. It’s here.
It wasn’t just the presidential candidates and the president that Gordon Brown met on the DC leg of his trip. Here, via Playbook, are the other folk that he saw: “British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met at the British Ambassador’s residence in Washington yesterday with a collection of government, media and advocacy luminaries including David
Fraser Nelson charts Brown’s Stateside errors, and implores the Tories to reward the strivers. Matthew d’Ancona claims Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur is a chilling masterpiece. James Forsyth points out the shared values of the UK and the US. And Peter Hoskin asks whether purdah only applies to bad news.
Now for four words which, in my experience, CoffeeHousers hate the most: “in fairness to Brown”. Not many other national leaders could have drawn all three presidential hopefuls to meet him in one day. We teased him for having next to no coverage in the American press yesterday, and there’s plenty today. He also struck
Gwyneth Dunwoody – the “Mother of the House of Commons” – died last night, aged 77. I’d recommend you read Michael White’s tribute for the Guardian, from which the following is an extract: “Now that the pendulum has swung towards managerial politics, old stagers like Mrs D who caused trouble are too few. She will be
George Osborne’s main opponent isn’t Alistair Darling. It’s Vince Cable. As former chief economist at Shell, he’s that rare thing – a politician who knows what he’s talking about. Today he releases an “open letter” saying what I have heard some senior Tories say in private. The charge is that Osborne has come back from
Under the headline ‘The Real Rate of Inflation’, The Daily Mail launches its new Cost of Living Index. The idea is to show that the Consumer Price Index’s 2.5 percent rate does not reflect the actual cost of living. The Mail finds that the price of food is up 15.5 percent, with the price of
ConservativeHome have an exclusive peek at Boris’s second election broadcast. Maybe he’s taken Livingstone’s criticisms on board: this one is zippy, expansive and – gosh – even in colour. To my eyes, it also successfully straddles the boundary between being positive about London and criticising the Livingstone era. Do check it out, and let us know what
Ed Balls plays knight-in-shining-armour today, defending his leader in a Times interview. Here’s what he has to say: “The efforts of local councillors and shadow leaders should not be undermined by this kind of indulgent nonsense. Rather than cause difficulties for the party, Labour will feel that these people should get out on the campaign
Well, better late than never, here’s the long, even keenly, awaited G XI. No excuses for its late arrival, but comfort yourselves with the thought that you’ll have less time to wait before the H XI arrives to batter everyone else’s bowling to pieces. So, following Armstrong, Benaud, Constantine, Dexter, Edrich and Fry, it is
As Three Line Whip points out, yet another Labour figure has joined the long, long queue to give Gordon Brown a kicking. This time it’s the Labour MP Ken Purchase, who is less-than-kind about the Government in an ePolitix interview. Here’s what he has to say about Brown’s election climbdown: “I thought that was a serious mistake
The report into the police shooting of Charles de Menezes is now two months overdue. As the Standard reports today, it’s being sat on because of “political sensitivities” surrounding the race for London Mayor – i.e. it could damage Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and, by extension, his great supporter Ken Livingstone. The Met claim
With St George’s Day fast approaching (it’s on April 23rd), The Spectator has taken the opportunity to release a special issue on England. You’ll find the relevant articles dotted around the website, although I’d recommend you check out Rod Liddle’s excellent piece in particular. It’s also the perfect chance to hear CoffeeHousers’ thoughts on England
Context is all in politics and, with the government widely considered to be in big trouble, every piece of bad news is making waves. So, the Labour peer Lord Desai’s observation that “Gordon Brown was put on earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was” is going to be headline news for the rest
Whenever Blair didn’t like the heat in Britain he’d jet off abroad. But Brown’s trip to America seems to cast his shortcomings into even sharper relief. My thoughts on the visit so far: 1) Meeting Wall Street figures and pretending to bang heads together about the credit crunch will be recognised as a stunt in America.
Our Prime Minister’s been laying down the law on Wall Street, telling banks that they must be more open about their bad debts. Ok, so it’s good advice – we need to know the full extent of the credit crunch before we can hope to treat it. But the first thought that popped into my