Frank is away this week, but here's a craft project from the archives to keep you busy... This week’s exciting activity project is to spruce up your mud idol. It is probably languishing, neglected, matted with dust and cobwebs and harried by bats, up in your attic, so before reading on ... Read More...

From the Big Apple to a 'Bob Marley and the Wailers' (a BMW), Jonathon looks at man's mania for nicknaming... Nicknames, eh? You gotta laugh. ‘Ali’ Barber, ‘Blanco’ White, ‘Shiner’ Bright, ‘Lackery’ Wood, ‘Queeny’ King, ‘Bodger’ Lees, ‘Ned’ Kelly, ‘Dusty’ Miller, ‘Bogey’ Harris, ‘Happy’ Day, ‘Hooky’ Walker, ‘Tug’ Wilson, ‘Wiggy’ Bennett ... Read More...

Elberry enjoys a new addition to the pantheon of great surrealists... In an age of drably realistic novels about middle class London fools and their tedious midlife crises, it's refreshing to read a book narrated by the Principal Composer to the Imperial Court of Greater Fallowfields. Alas for Greater Fallowfields, the Emperor ... Read More...

Mark Cosgrove (pictured above) has the talent to be a great Australian cricketer, but he can't get in the side because he refuses to lose weight. But are we missing the upsides of being a fat sportsman, asks Jon Hotten... One of the marks of cricket's ineffable genius is its scale. ... Read More...

Never mind Juliet's, we don't overlook the more humble balcony... On a recent visit to Istanbul I stayed in an apartment looking out on the Bosphorus. Every morning I’d get up and see the sun sparkling on the surface of the water as birds circled languidly overhead. At night it was ... Read More...

On Thursday Tony Blair stated that it was important to ‘de-escalate’ matters in Gaza. I’m not sure if he coined the word but I’d not encountered it before. In that night’s Question Time two panellists also spoke of ‘de-escalation’. Fascinating, the irrepressible urge to coin, to fill in ever tinier ... Read More...

Not your usual warblers... On a Friday night at 9pm BBC4 occasionally show some of the best documentaries on rock and pop music I’ve ever seen. Yes, they are indeed worth the license fee on their own. A couple of weeks ago they showed Queens of British Pop and it got ... Read More...

In our part of the world, most of us reach middle age without ever seeing a dead body, making death a subject of fascination. Death is just out of reach, yet it affects us all – it is both universal and indiscriminate. Death – A Self-Portrait, the new exhibition at ... Read More...

It happens to be around about the right time of year for a poem featuring the seagull.Susan’s post of last Saturday and associated comments touched on the subject of seagulls. I think we can all agree that they’re unsettling. But I don’t think it’s just about the ‘cold, black eyes’ ... Read More...

Frank throws his hat into the ring... Having let the Archbishopric of Canterbury slip through my fingers, I am not going to make the same mistake with the other big job now unexpectedly on offer. George Entwistle's resignation after just fifty-four days at the helm means the post of BBC Director ... Read More...