Hugo Williams’ weekly columns in the TLS were written between 1988 and 1994. He published a selection in 1995 under the title Freelancing, Adventures of a Poet.
My memory plays tricks. I thought I watched Upstairs, Downstairs upstairs in the library at Barmeath with a TV supper on this tray and my terrier squashed beside me in an armchair. That was how I watched lots of other TV while my mother and grandparents were downstairs in the dining room.
When a dozen Thai boys and their football coach were trapped by rising water in a series of caves I heard on the news that they would have to be taught to die.
Forty years ago every second hand bookshop was stuffed with copies of Osbert Sitwell’s four volume autobiography; handsome, salmon hardbacks with sun-faded spines published by Macmillan. They were not expensive then, nor are they now.
There are few swans on the tidal stretch of the Thames between Hammersmith and Richmond. Recently I have seen three where the Grand Union Canal joins the river at Brentford and I assume they come from the canal for a change of scenery.
This picture is in the National Gallery of Victoria. It inspired Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel Picnic at Hanging Rock. Some great novels have a great first sentence.
On Tuesday I had a simple luncheon comprising egg mayonnaise with a sliver of smoked salmon, cold salmon and devilled kidneys. I have now re-read Abbie and Arthur (much the better of the two Abbie books.)
My fiction is arranged alphabetically by author, like many bookshops. Between Raymond Chandler and GK Chesterton are two slim volumes by Dane Chandos. Have you read him or even heard of him?