Latest Posts

• How to increase your attention span

  A man is writing a novel.  He decides to check a fact.  He consults his computer, or his phone, to find he has six new…

• How men think? Part 2: Lucky Jim 

  ‘Do you hate me, James?’ Dixon wanted to rush at her and tip her backwards in the chair, to make a deafening rude noise in…

• Transience and Fat Lama

  The novel Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, opens with the following lines: His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to…

• How to read P G Wodehouse: a practical guide

  I recently inherited a splendid shelf-full of P G Wodehouse in a hand-tooled Folio edition. My shelf of Wodehouse  But where to begin? Pondering this…

• Wonder Woman and Wartime Moral Confusion (WMC)

  When I was 8, my friend Barbara Stewart used to receive a package of DC and Marvel comics every few weeks from a relative.  We…

• Review: “Lion” – the film. The real India? 7/10

  Saroo, a tiny boy, arrives confused, in Calcutta.  He does not speak Bengali and has no family or friends or idea where he is. Lion is…

• Happiness and small victories

  When was the last time you punched the air and said “yesssssssssss!”? If you want to understand me a bit, read on. Air-punching is the…

• Review: fine Austrian movies: Toni Erdmann vs Wilde Maus

  One wonderful feature of Austria is the survival of independent cinemas. Austrians do not admit this.  They complain that independent cinemas are dead or dying…

• Reviews: India: 10/10. Shantaram 3/10

  I know.  You can’t really review a whole country. Railway station in Chennai – all photos Robert Pimm Especially not India: more than 13 times…

• Women in fiction: Atomic Blonde and Blood Summit

  A review of the forthcoming thriller Atomic Blonde describes it as “the biggest action role for a woman on screen to date”. Sounds good to me. Atomic…

• Things are getting worse, right? Wrong. Here’s why.

  ‘I saw this terrible news today.’  My friend, a sensible person, is distressed.  ‘A terrorist group is breeding babies to be brought up as fresh…

• Review: The Third Man. Movie magic – 10/10

  A man stands halfway along a long, deserted alleyway.  Autumn leaves blow in the wind. A woman approaches, walking slowly. Will she stop? Or will…

• Review: Get Out – an instant classic? 9/10

  A young black man goes with his white girlfriend to see her parents at their remote woodland mansion. Bad things happen.  See the trailer. A…

• The Third Man: location photos

  When I knew I would be moving to Vienna, but before this was widely known, I changed the heading on my Twitter account to a new…

• Review: words and music in Vienna 10/10

  No-one is allowed to applaud. After each item the audience stirs, a captive beast, constrained – and stays silent. Only after 15 performances – seven readings by…