This is a collection of diary entries and articles. There's some repetition, so maybe it's better to dip into it but I had to read it all at once because it was a library copy. Nevertheless I enjoyed it - especially the bits about his childhood in Leeds. And there were some bits that had me weeping with laughter. For example...Talking about the news that an aunt he never really got on with has died: "So entrenched are my convictions about her character that even when she is in the grave it does not entirely undercut them, so that I catch myself feeling that her death was somehow not quite sincere: she had died just for effect."
At the funeral tea for the aforementioned aunt was Cousin Florence. "Her husband's name was Frank, and six months before we had had a two-page letter filling us in on all her news. Halfway down the second page came the sentence: 'Frank died last week, haven't we been having some weather?' Seldom can a comma have borne such a burden."
Writing about a school trip to Leeds City Art Gallery and a picture of the aftermath of a battle: "Seemingly without shame, the lady, who may have been Boadicea (though she also bore some resemblance to Mrs Hutchinson, the vicar's wife), was squeezing the contents of her breast into the (presumably) parched mouth of the injured warrior. Novel though the procedure was, what really staggered Standard 3 was the accuracy of the aim. The range was at least three yards. Of course she may have been all over the place before she got it right but certainly at the moment of depiction her perfect lactic parabola was dead on target."
Brilliant!
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