I’m reading James M. Cain’s terrific novel ‘Mildred Pierce’ and musing that, even by the preposterous standards of film casting, it was quite the leap to go from this description of the title character to the unmistakable, terrifyingly charismatic Joan Crawford…

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Most popular requests (so far) for dedications when I’ve been signing copies of ‘Picnic on Craggy Island’: ‘Shower of bastards’ ‘Get them fecking crunchies out of the car’ ‘Arse biscuits’

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I have actually quite enjoyed the occasional 'let's look at three flats today', which essentially in London means 1) a flat I can actually afford 2) a flat that I can afford but is much smaller and fancier 3) literally this flat:

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The chapter's title is 'Touching Pitch'; a metaphor from the Apocrypha for the corruption of the soul. On TV, the confrontation with Wolsey's daughter has a similar function, but the finale implies that Cromwell is innocent. The show always lets him off the hook biblicalallusions.org/treasure-isl...

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I'm still sad that we never saw Mark Rylance's Cromwell confronted by his betrayal of William Tyndale. In the book, Cromwell's Protestant daughter describes Tyndale's death by burning in tones of outrage; we gradually realise, but she does not, that Cromwell arranged his capture to please Henry.

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