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It looks like vigilance, as the smallest indication of symptoms spawns a localised lockdown It looks like local trips and long weekends to camp-outs and self-catered seaside flats It looks like barbecues with friends and family, outdoor …

Write about what you know, they said. What, I thought - my childhood? That continuum of nondescript non-events that somehow went to define me? Of solitary walks to school, collecting Smurf stickers from the garage, feeling no fear atop of …

Neil Peart. A drummer and a lyricist of course, an exceptional talent on stage and in the studio, an inspiration to so many through the many-layered wisdoms woven into his words. But more than that: a traveller and writer, an intensely …

Broken, broken Senseless, sudden Routine stolen Ripped away, without a trace A life taken, no explanation Please, no, you must be mistaken While around, in every detail Life goes on, Oblivious But for the screaming vacuum Dust-panned …

Fear, that’s what it boils down to. It’s a funny old thing, when you actually put pen to paper (figuratively or otherwise) and write what might be your life’s work: of course you are desperate for others to see it, whether or not it is …

To be fair, Arthur and George was always going to difficult to dramatise. The problem was not with characters, but plot: the original book was (in hindsight) a long-winded, rambling affair, following the lives of its joint protagonists …