I came here just to say exactly that!

Sorry to hear! Hopefully someone local to you will do some Stoppard revival or other soon.

Your luck is in (if you’re in the uk and / or able to travel) because it’s on at the Old Vic from late January.

PSA: For anyone in London, the Hampstead Theatre is doing Indian Ink in a couple of weeks and the Old Vic is doing Arcadia from late Jan.

I never usually comment on people’s clothes in this feature because it’s a bit off, but I think we do need to make an exception in this case. I hope a friend gently takes him in hand and revamps his wardrobe.

Mediterranean, right? Herbes de Provence.

Sounds like the work of Gail Brodholt … worth checking out!

I’d like to thank you for replying to me, and taking my questions in good faith. I still don’t understand the economics of publishing - you made the thing and you get 15% for all those hours and years of work! - but I appreciate you responding.

Freya’s English literature PhD is going well, then.

And you’re content with doing that and the money earned goes to pay other people? I’m not being an arse, I’m genuinely interested. Because that makes the publishing industry seem very grubby and parasitic on your talent, to me. You should be paid for the work you do.

I feel as though the wood between the worlds needs to be more connected, but it’s impossible to connect it to everywhere on a Tube map, I guess!

But if I’m going to be paid £1k (or whatever) for a book that has taken me months or years of labour, that is effectively writing for free, right? So it’s basically a hobby, not a job? And yet publishers will publish it because they think they will make enough money for it to be worth their while?

I really don’t understand the economics of the publishing industry. It seems to be ‘writers work for free (or thereabouts) to create a product which publishing companies then sell and make enough money to pay other people’s wages’. But that can’t be right, it would be insane. What am I missing?!

(Presumably because we went in there during Boris’s time in office - yet another mess he’s left us with)

Bravo for common sense to that old lady.

The Turner/Constable exhibition at Tate Britain opening next week is going to be a real moment.

It never fails to amaze me how often men who write themselves off by their own actions get to come back again and again, relentlessly, shamelessly. “Their career is over!” lasts approx five minutes and then they’re on to the next thing.

Such beautiful bébés

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