The world from my window

I’m on the Isles of Scilly with friends, the weather’s been glorious and there’s been lots of walking, paddling in the clear waters and spirited conversation. But the thing I’ve been most looking forward to, ever since I discovered a cairn at the top of the hill behind the house we’re staying in, is to take myself off for a couple of hours to read in complete solitude. Not just any book, though. The novel is one in which I’ve wanted to immerse myself ever since I ordered it. After it arrived, it sat on the chest of drawers next to my bed, on top of David Nicholl’s Sweet Sorrow , John Lanchester’s The Wall , and Stephen King’s The Outsider . I’d been given a book token and went a bit mad. My literary tastes are somewhat eclectic but a good friend tells me the common denominator is the quality of the prose. ‘You like good writing, don’t you?’ she said. I hadn’t actually thought much about it before but she’s absolutely right. I wince at adverbs (...

I've long been a fan of Coronation Street .  According to my mother, the first music I ever hummed along to was the theme from this long running soap, which came to life in 1960, a good year before I was born. I'd forgotten this, as I always thought ITV was banned in the household of my childhood. But apparently, I was brought up with Corrie. A self-confessed telly addict, I've dipped in and out of it over the years - watching it with my parents in the 60s and 70s and then gorging on it with my flatmate in the early 80s. In those early days, the sharp comedy provided by characters like Stan and Hilda Ogden and then, latterly, Jack and Vera Duckworth, were what I enjoyed the most.  That regular delving into an 'Oop North'  lifestyle seemed,  to me in the rural West Country,  as comfortable - and funny - as an old coat with tricks up its sleeve. Mr Grigg and I used to watch Corrie religiously. But then the humour diminished and the writing became fl...