Category Archives: Literature

Notebook

Posted on April 30, 2020 by clivedav184z

We all have our professional notion of hell. There is a tale of a writer who died and was allowed to choose between going to heaven or to hell. Cannily, she asked St Peter if she might tour both regions … Continue reading →

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Information overload, 18th century style

Posted on June 30, 2018 by clivedav184z

“Meantime, the pamphlets and half-sheets grow so upon our hands,” groaned Swift in 1710, “it will very well employ a man every day from morning til night to read them.” His solution? Never to open any! The doctor Thomas Beddoes … Continue reading →

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Shock tactics

Posted on March 31, 2018 by clivedav184z

You are a middle-aged, female musician playing a solo gig at a small venue where a gaggle of laddish men, completely uninterested in your songs, are making so much noise that you can barely hear yourself. You politely ask them … Continue reading →

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Notebook

Posted on March 19, 2018 by clivedav184z

I was twenty-five when, in 1956, I was formally inducted into MI5 as a junior officer… Spying on a decaying British Communist Party twenty-five thousand strong that had to be held together by MI5 informants did not meet my aspirations. … Continue reading →

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Notebook

Posted on March 12, 2018 by clivedav184z

“What’s going on?” my mom said. “Oh, Nombuyiselo,” she said. “Trevor is so naughty. He’s the naughtiest child I’ve ever come across in my life.” “Then you should hit him.” “I can’t hit him.” “Why not?” “Because I don’t know … Continue reading →

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Reading list

Posted on January 14, 2018 by clivedav184z

Advice from Niall Ferguson in a Q&A with the New York Times: If you could require the American president to read one book, what would it be? And the prime minister? I agree with you that it would be wonderful … Continue reading →

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Blind spots

Posted on January 8, 2018 by clivedav184z

We all reach reach a point in life where we just have to accept that certain books, acclaimed as classics by everyone else, just aren’t going to click with us. P.G. Wodehouse’s works fall into that category, as far as … Continue reading →

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Huxley meets Spencer

Posted on December 28, 2017 by clivedav184z

In the secondhand bookshop.

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Notebook

Posted on December 4, 2017 by clivedav184z

The temperature that night was -75.8 degrees, and I will not pretend it did not convince me that Dante was right when he placed the circles of ice below the circles of fire. Still we slept sometimes, and always lay … Continue reading →

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Notebook

Posted on October 23, 2017 by clivedav184z

I wanted to ask him  if he was writing, Was he finding the time? For years, as a busy physician, I’d struggled to find the time to write. I wanted to tell him that a famous writer, commiserating about this … Continue reading →

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