Category: “Novels”

Greetings from Vienna airport where I am waiting for a plane, worrying about the unseasonal heat, getting irritated by a couple who are kissing their dog like it is a baby, and trying to find a single reference to the Tory Party conference in the Financial Times. It is the Europe edition, so unsurprisingly leads [...]

While the press revels in the judgement that allows them to carry on with kiss and tell stories about footballers (provided they are England captain it would seem) I would like to focus not on Rio Ferdinand but on Robert Enke. He was the German goalkeeper who killed himself after a long battle with depression, [...]

A break from politics and the press today, and instead three of my other interests – football, mental illness and plugging books. No, not my own books, though these are available here here here here here and the latest one, Power and Responsibility, here. Oh, and you can pre-order the next one, The Burden of [...]

I hope I’m not giving away Nicky Campbell’s trade secrets when I reveal that yesterday’s BBC Big Questions about the existence or otherwise of heaven was recorded live, and next week’s about the press was recorded immediately afterwards. I know, as the saying goes, because I was there. Trade Secret 2 . . the panellists [...]

To remind you of another Rule One of communications – never confuse media opinion with public opinion. And Rule 1a – always expect better, more interesting and more varied questions from the public. If ever I do a media interview these days there will usually come a point where the journalist shifts in his chair, [...]

Thanks to those who agreed with some (in one case all) of my choices of five books on Mariella Frostrups’ Open Book programme, which is repeated on Radio 4 at 4pm on Thursday. They were This Sporting Life by David Storey, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Alone in Berlin [...]

When I was first shortlisted for the Bad Sex in Literature Award, I decided I was happy to be nominated (first novel, all publicity good publicity, and I knew I was only there as a way of the Award organisers getting themselves a bit of cheap publicity – spin, yuk, eh? -) but I really [...]

To the Chartered Institute of Housing’s conference yesterday. Nice bunch, not very keen on my fellow Keighley man Eric Pickles I sensed, and feeling a bit battered after the spending review. But I felt they were adopting the right tone in seeking to engage with government, rather than just becoming a shrill voice of protest. [...]

What with fundraisers, festivals, speeches, interviews, inquiries, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, not to mention life on websites, twitter, Facebook and the like, I spend a lot of my time answering questions. Which means it is quite rare to be asked a question I have never been asked before. So many thanks to a man called [...]

I cannot claim to have followed every twist and turn of the Liverpool FC saga, but it says something about what top flight football has become that fans now find themselves doorstepping banks, courts and law firms, rather than merely stadia and team buses arriving to offload the players before a match. You don’t have [...]