My father recently retired from his third career as a physics teacher with the Open University (having previously been an RAF pilot and a software salesman). It remains to be seen how long this retirement will last.
Love this! I wish we would all live life like your dad, not give up and think it is too late to learn something new or change careers. So many people are depressed in their careers but think it's too late to change things.
I consider myself overly online, but from this week’s post I learned the words ‘therian’ and ‘otherkin’. Does this mean I’ve actually lived a sheltered life?
I did hear a summary of it. I like Stewart but he’s a hell of a self mythologiser so i can’t imagine he would enjoy seeing himself through someone else’s eyes.
I am seeing more and more journalists declaring this of him - does he seem to be more of a self-mythologiser than anyone else in Westminster, or is it just that his popularity now makes it worth mentioning?
No, he’s just good at it because he’s very charismatic. Theresa May’s book is an attempt to self mythologise but it doesn’t work because … it’s Theresa May.
Oh lordy no, I was born at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum! I met him a few times in Kabul when he was running Turquoise Mountain and I was at the embassy.
Well it alters my view of Campbell - hugely relieved it was Springsteen concert. I was so disappointed to think he’d be such a sap as a Phil Collins fan. All that lachrymose, self piteous, bitter & borderline stalker caterwauling over whichever woman recently legged it from him. He should come with a public health warning
I only have a dodgy jpeg of this old meme. Not sure where it is from.
BOOK BLURBS GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Enchanting = there's a dog in it
Heart-warming = a dog and a child
Moving = child dies
Heart-rending = dog dies
Thoughtful = mind-numbingly tedious
Haunting = set in the past
Exotic = set abroad
Audacious = set in the future
Award-winning = set in India
Perceptive = set in north London
Provocative = infuriating
Epic = editor cowed by author's reputation
From the pen of a master = same old same old
In the tradition of = shamelessly derivative
Spare and taut = under researched
Richly detailed = over-researched
Disturbing author = bonkers
Stellar author = young and photogenic
Classic author = hanging in there
Vintage author = past it
Love this. I might cut out the middle man one time and just give someone the blurb “bonkers”
Uplifting - bone crushingly depressing until the last 50 pages at which it becomes a little less so
A literary sensation — I hated it but you scum will lap it up.
My favourite Auberon Waugh maxim “never give a bad review to a book you haven’t read”. An element of that here?
'A twist at the end that you won't see coming' = Predictable
Also alerts you to the fact that there’s a twist & it is immediately blindingly obvious
(Really enjoying Great Wives. Nancy’s astrologer was priceless. Thank you.)
Thanks for including my birth rates piece, Helen!
Very good, as ever, and fortunately I checked the reference about dining out in Edmonton before I sent it to my Canadian friends.
My father recently retired from his third career as a physics teacher with the Open University (having previously been an RAF pilot and a software salesman). It remains to be seen how long this retirement will last.
Love this! I wish we would all live life like your dad, not give up and think it is too late to learn something new or change careers. So many people are depressed in their careers but think it's too late to change things.
I consider myself overly online, but from this week’s post I learned the words ‘therian’ and ‘otherkin’. Does this mean I’ve actually lived a sheltered life?
Congratulations on touching grass
Rory and Alastair had an interesting discussion on that interview on their podcast this week. Worth a listen
I did hear a summary of it. I like Stewart but he’s a hell of a self mythologiser so i can’t imagine he would enjoy seeing himself through someone else’s eyes.
Thank you! Finally someone else who sees through his many layers of self-constructed BS (although I am not sure he is doing so at a conscious level)
I am seeing more and more journalists declaring this of him - does he seem to be more of a self-mythologiser than anyone else in Westminster, or is it just that his popularity now makes it worth mentioning?
No, he’s just good at it because he’s very charismatic. Theresa May’s book is an attempt to self mythologise but it doesn’t work because … it’s Theresa May.
I met Rory before he was an MP. He was a fervent self-mythologiser then too.
Were you at school together?
Oh lordy no, I was born at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum! I met him a few times in Kabul when he was running Turquoise Mountain and I was at the embassy.
To be fair to Campbell & Stewart I’d consider throwing myself off a balcony if I had to sit through a Phil Collins concert
I think it turned out to be Bruce Springsteen, if that alters your view
Well it alters my view of Campbell - hugely relieved it was Springsteen concert. I was so disappointed to think he’d be such a sap as a Phil Collins fan. All that lachrymose, self piteous, bitter & borderline stalker caterwauling over whichever woman recently legged it from him. He should come with a public health warning
Don't forget to credit illustrator Jesse Zhang for the third image!
Thanks, have done.