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As George Orwell astutely observed, England is a nation of hobbyists – and their sometimes eccentric private pursuits are one of the reasons that this country did not follow the rest of Europe into totalitarian dictatorship during the 20th century. A people bent on taking a fishing rod to stream or canal every weekend, or hanging around railway platforms to note the numbers of passing trains, or laboriously sticking stamps into albums, are unlikely to have the time or temptation to fall for political extremes. The English devoted their leisure time to hobbies, though it should also be noted that such peaceable pastimes are mostly the preserve of men. Women

In the penumbra cast by the light of my phone, I can dimly see the wreckage of a night with a newborn baby: half-drunk bottles of milk, the tangled cord of the monitor, muslins strewn across the bed. It is 3 a.m. and the baby has gone back to sleep. I, however, am wide awake. Or rather, the consumer in me is wide awake. I decide to buy a Dreamland Baby weighted sleep sack costing £79. Its promises are seductive, outrageous even, to my crazed mind: ‘Our mission is to help your baby feel calm, fall asleep faster & stay asleep longer, so your whole family can get the sound sleep they deserve!’ The sleep they deserve. Yes, I think, we are owed sleep and I’m prepared to pay

Anyone who flicks through their television channels this Bank Holiday weekend will almost certainly glimpse the final of the World Snooker Championship. Played over Sunday and Monday at Sheffield’s Crucible, the 35-frame marathon is snooker’s answer to Test Cricket. And as one of the few sporting events the Beeb still has the rights to, it still gets blanket coverage – if only on graveyard slots on BBC2. A glimpse, though, is about as much as many people bother with these days. Snooker is a long way from its mid-1980s heyday, when 18 million Brits tuned in to watch Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis in the 1985 Crucible showdown. I am

Tokyo, Japan ‘Shhh! Now on face to respectable great eels life’. How’s that for the first line of an article? I spotted this gem written on a sign in the window of a seafood restaurant in the Hibiya Midtown shopping centre in Tokyo recently. I was delighted. I’ve spent 25 years in Japan and have always enjoyed a good bit of mangled Japanese English. I had been dismayed of late by an apparent improvement in the quality of English on signs and noticeboards around Tokyo. But this was the old stuff. This was ‘Engrish’. Why would a people usually so meticulous about every aspect of life be so seemingly careless

Russell Brand was baptised on Sunday, he says – in the River Thames, despite his tongue-in-cheek fear of catching a virus – and he’s thrilled about it. He thanked those who embraced his decision, while expressing understanding of those who are cynical. He’s not perfect, he explains; he knows he’s going to make mistakes, but ‘this is my path now,’ he says. ‘I’m so grateful to be surrendered in Christ.’ Speaking as a Catholic, this writer can’t but consider the advantages of baptism in church: waters freed from viruses and demons through exorcism, holy oils, and proper storage, might have been preferable. Yet it’s impossible not to feel hopeful for

If City of Troy is as brilliant as his trainer Aidan O’Brien thinks he is and he runs to his best form, then he will win the first Classic of the flat season at Newmarket tomorrow. The three-year-old colt is not just a ‘talking horse’: his record on the racetrack last season was sensationally good, namely when destroying a decent field in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes in October. Similarly, if Rosallion is as talented as his trainer Richard Hannon thinks and runs to his best, then he should finish second to City of Troy in the Qipco 2000 Guineas (Newmarket 3.35 p.m.). He won three of his four races