Shallow of me, I know, but whenever I hear Elon Musk being criticised, I think: he can’t be that bad, his favourite book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Same with Kamala Harris, who claims to be a fan of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Good for her, I think. And George W Bush is all about Andrew Roberts’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, apparently. Top man.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no interest in books. He probably didn’t even read his own, The Art of the Deal. I don’t suppose his Maga followers are bigly readers either but they do like films, especially The Matrix, and are wont to ask one another whether they would take the red pill, representing a choice to learn an unsettling or life-changing truth, or take the blue pill and remain in the unquestioned experience of an illusion appearing as ordinary reality. When I asked my middle son which he would take, he answered: “The blue one also gives you an erection, so that one.”
Out for the county
Some people read to get to sleep. A friend is reading Engel’s England, a travelogue in which the writer Matthew Engel has a chapter on each of England’s 39 historic counties. My friend does a county a night in bed before turning out the light and he emails to recommend a particularly soporific passage. At one point, it seems, the author lists the signs to the villages along the B1145 in Norfolk. Like a Betjeman poem it reads: “Whissonsett, Weasenham St Peter, Weasenham All Saints, Tittleshall, Wendling, Booton, Themelthorpe, Drabblegate, Fiddler’s Green, Stratton Strawless, Trunch”.
Lit bin
In The Times’s office we have the ultimate form of literary criticism. Every few weeks the literary editor Robbie Millen will fan out a dozen or more unreviewed books on the island in the kitchen area and members of staff can help themselves. After a few days there will be about three remaining that no one wants, even free. I sometimes make a note of their titles. My favourite so far is Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy by Rachel Ricketts. It’s still there.
Lionel’s den
As with new books, people sometimes send draft obituaries in on spec. Few make the cut but some come close on the strength of one anecdote alone. We got one the other day for a minor Sixties actor/pop singer called Bobby Shafto (real name Robert Farrant) who as a gauche teenager had worked in the office of Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame. One day the phone rang, Bobby answered, and a posh voice asked for Lionel. Bobby asked who was speaking and the voice said “Noël”. Bobby asked, “Noël who?” From his office, Bart shouted, “Noël f***ing Coward, you f***ing Cockney c***!”
The hurt seat
Every now and then I will get to my usual desk in the office to find some hot-desker has swapped my uncomfortable chair for a more comfortable one. The uncomfortable one won’t be far away and I will seek it out and swap it back. It is just wrong in its every backache-inducing angle. It is also missing an arm and the remaining stump has a hard edge that digs into your elbow. In short it resembles a medieval torture instrument. I like it because it keeps forcing me to press the up button on my sit/stand desk.
Barking orders
Our springador is knocking on a bit and dawdles on walks. I reached a gate the other day and looked back to see she was trailing about 50 yards behind me. She was also now behind a youngish couple who had appeared from a side path and were ambling towards the gate, holding hands. As the old girl is a bit deaf, I shouted “Come on, come on!” at her in an impatient, Basil Fawlty way as I held the gate open. Only after the couple had broken into a jog and said a nervous “thank you” as they passed did I realise they had no idea I was waiting for the canine slowcoach behind them.