Shallow of me, I know, but whenever I hear Elon Musk being criticised, I think: he can\u2019t be that bad, his favourite book is The Hitchhiker\u2019s 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\u2019s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, apparently. Top man.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no interest in books. He probably didn\u2019t even read his own, The Art of the Deal. I don\u2019t 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: \u201cThe blue one also gives you an erection, so that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out for the county<\/p>\n
Some people read to get to sleep. A friend is reading Engel\u2019s England, a travelogue in which the writer Matthew Engel has a chapter on each of England\u2019s 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: \u201cWhissonsett, Weasenham St Peter, Weasenham All Saints, Tittleshall, Wendling, Booton, Themelthorpe, Drabblegate, Fiddler\u2019s Green, Stratton Strawless, Trunch\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lit bin<\/p>\n
In The Times\u2019s 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\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n
Lionel\u2019s den<\/p>\n
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<\/a>. One day the phone rang, Bobby answered, and a posh voice asked for Lionel. Bobby asked who was speaking and the voice said \u201cNo\u00ebl\u201d. Bobby asked, \u201cNo\u00ebl who?\u201d From his office, Bart shouted, \u201cNo\u00ebl f***ing Coward, you f***ing Cockney c***!\u201d<\/p>\n The hurt seat<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Barking orders<\/p>\n 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 \u201cCome on, come on!\u201d at her in an impatient, Basil Fawlty way<\/a> as I held the gate open. Only after the couple had broken into a jog and said a nervous \u201cthank you\u201d as they passed did I realise they had no idea I was waiting for the canine slowcoach behind them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shallow of me, I know, but whenever I hear Elon Musk being criticised, I think: he can\u2019t be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-83295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}