While researching a book recently, I came across the figure of Max Plowman, a minor writer of the 1910s, ’20s, ’30s, and very early ’40s (he died in 1941). His name rang with me the very faintest of bells, though I could not have said why. He is now largely forgotten, as almost everyone who ...

I suspect that I am of the last generation that ever considers writing anything by longhand. Indeed, there are reported to be places in America where children are no longer even taught longhand. Astonishing though it now appears to me, I recall learning to write by using old-fashioned pen with a ...

Paris is by far the best city in the world for cinema. At least, it is the best city known to me; perhaps Irkutsk or Conakry are better, though I rather doubt it. You could see two or three interesting films a day in Paris for the rest of your life, if you had the time and energy (in fact, I once ...

On a recent visit to Geneva, somebody handed me a pamphlet titled 170 Daily Actions to Transform Our World, produced, so an understandably self-effacing line on its rear inside cover informed readers, by the Perception Change Project of the United Nations Office at Geneva, which is known by its ...

By their adverts shall ye know them; such, at any rate, is my supposition whenever I arrive at any airport. It did not surprise me greatly, when I arrived at Geneva Airport, that the advertisements on the way to the baggage reclaim should have been for expensive luxuries. Geneva, after all, is a ...

One of the most denied of all human rights is that to silence. I do not mean by this the right to remain silent when accused of a crime, though in Britain at least this has effectively been abolished. I mean, rather, the right not to be assaulted everywhere by extraneous and unnecessary ...

Last week, I spoke at a writers’ festival and there was a demonstration against the following speaker who was known for her sulfurous views. The demonstration was expected, in fact it had been announced beforehand. Its intention was to prevent the author from speaking, and in the end it succeeded ...

One of the pleasures of working as a prison doctor was to learn the language of prison. It was often colorful and expressive, and it changed rapidly, sometimes because of technological change. For example, when I started working in prison I was sometimes called to attend a prisoner who had just ...

I returned recently to my house in France for a brief break. The weather was of the best—a cloudless sunny sky, warm and dry. It was almost perfect, but there was a fly in the ointment, the fly in the ointment being the flies in our bedroom, hundreds of them. Why they should have gathered there I ...

Life is full of irritations, major and minor. One of the minor irritations is the activity of the Sock Fairy, the sprite who seems to inhabit all washing machines, at least all that I have ever owned. However careful I am to put only matched pairs into the machine, the Sock Fairy plays havoc with ...