James Hanning

The eccentric who turned a village into a kingdom of books

My wife put it in her usual succinct way: ‘Why do you want to write a book about such a sleazeball?’ I couldn’t really say. The late Richard Booth, second-hand bookseller and former self-crowned king of Hay-on-Wye, was not instantly lovable. Some found him the essence of unlovability. He was scruffy, disorganised, egocentric, impetuous, hopeless

What noise should an electric car make?

One of the great pluses of electric cars is that they are so quiet. The driver’s seat is a peaceful place to be, although safety regulations dictate they must emit artificial noise to alert pedestrians to their presence when travelling below certain speeds. Now that steps have been taken to prevent the visually impaired from