Archive for the ‘Brit Abroad’ Category
Click here for a nice profile today in Vox magazine, the weekly sister magazine to the Columbia Missourian. I should say, in my defense, (jazz snob alert!) that the reference to “smooth jazz” was a little journalistic license on the part of the lady who came to interview me. I would hate for anyone to Click here to continue…
Let me see… it’s Tuesday, so I should be in London today, having lunch with my agent, Bruce. Except that I’m still here in Missouri, reading weather reports about unprecedented levels of snowfall that has put England into chaos. Flights have been grounded across Europe, roads have been blocked, trains halted. It’s all a terrible Click here to continue…
[This is an older post that seemed appropriate to revisit today. I finished my six-month rewrite of the manuscript yesterday and sent it back to my publisher in New York. I think (and hope) that it is a much better book than it was six months ago. I am certainly thankful for that. Happy Thanksgiving, Click here to continue…
No, this is not a post about books, or writing. This is a post (actually an edited re-post) about something entirely different. And personal. Ahem. You may want to look away now. So, fair warning having been issued… … the nurse was awfully nice. She asked me what I did, how long had I been Click here to continue…
Still no closer to a title for the book, although I am thinking about it an awful lot – whenever I have a spare moment, in fact. Often I forget that not everyone is as fixated about the subject as I am. This can throw up some interesting discussions, when only one party to the Click here to continue…
Family traditions can be pernicious things. Bizarre rituals – whose precise genesis nobody can quite remember – are dutifully repeated year after year, simply because that’s what’s always been done. Quite often nobody is having much of a good time, but nobody is willing to admit it. Of course, it doesn’t have to be like Click here to continue…
Ridiculously, school starts today. Our children, typically, have adopted diametrically opposite approaches to the glorious vistas of educational opportunity opening up before them this morning. Catherine is more excited than she was last Christmas Eve. The prospect of entering kindergarten is possibly the most thrilling thing ever to have happened to her; there was much Click here to continue…
No postings on the World Cup yet, although I’ve been watching as much as I can and enjoying most of it, except for 90 minutes last Saturday afternoon. Thanks to the England goalkeeper’s utterly bizarre howler, I have been on the receiving end of much gleeful teasing – cute email references to “dropping the ball”, Click here to continue…
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. It’s about an Englishman – a successful corporate attorney, who works in a big law firm in one of the most exciting, vibrant cities on earth. He’s married to a glamorous American wife. Suddenly, against his will, he finds himself transported to a small town in the Click here to continue…
We spent last weekend in Chicago. Man, I love that town. Not even a three hour delay waiting for the train in La Plata, MO, was going to dampen our spirits. Why? Because we were on our own. Sunday was our twelfth wedding anniversary, and this was our little celebration. (The children were with their Click here to continue…