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In troubled times, turning to Jane Austen can provide a little respite. Her prose uses parody, burlesque, irony, free indirect speech and a degree of realism. No shortage of material for her style at the moment, then. Penned over two hundred years ago, some passages resonate today. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet, unable…

Travel so it’s said, broadens the mind. This was presumably murmured wistfully in the era of flying boats and the sheer glamour of being abroad, and well before the days of mass tourism. Still, one of the smaller pleasures of taking an early morning train is the prospect of a calorific Pret croissant and coffee. Now, there’s…

The phrase on many people’s lips this week might have been, who would do that? None more so perhaps, than on those of M People. The Manchester band members were reported to be livid when they heard their 90’s banger, Movin’ on Up, used as Liz Truss’ walk on number for her conference speech.  Allegedly…

Johnny Mercer – that’s the American lyricist as opposed to The Rt Hon MP for Plymouth – is responsible for some of the world’s best known hits; Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses and Autumn Leaves among them.He’s also credited with dismissing somebody else’s work with the pithy riposte, “I could eat alphabet soup and…

Guardian sketch writer, John Crace, is extremely annoying – on a number of counts. It’s not enough that he is a brilliant writer, with a fabulous turn of phrase and a seemingly bottomless well of bons mots. He’s also very funny in a drole, observational sort of way. And, he has thousands of Twitter followers. All…

Photo by zibik on Unsplash Have you ever had shocking jolt, suddenly realising that last night, along with the remnants of the chicken casserole, you threw away your headphones, glasses or even your wedding ring? Try £150m. In what must be one of the most personally frustrating endeavours in the history of humanity, the man who accidentally threw away…

It’s been quite a good week for women. Conversely, it hasn’t been a particularly edifying one for men. Dominating the news this week – and likely to for weeks to come – is the grisly business of the televised Conservative Party leadership contest. A man is pitted against a woman, with every poll suggesting the woman…