John Baker’s Blog

I’d finished swimming and was sitting in the sauna. There was another man in there, up on the top shelf, while I was on the bottom. Some guy with muscles looked through the glass door at us for a moment before coming in. He went up on the top shelf also.
‘I wanted to see who was in here before I came in,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you can tell if people are going to talk or not.’
‘Do you want to talk?’ the first man asked.
‘Yes, I don’t just want to sit here in silence.’
‘You can talk to me if you like.’
‘There should be a television in here, something to stop people being bored.’ Continue Reading »

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed

The unsolved murder of a private investigator 21 years ago which prompted claims that it was linked to police corruption moved closer to resolution yesterday after it was announced four people, including a former detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police had been arrested in connection with the killing.

Thanks to The Independent for this news

*

American writer and critic Cynthia Ozick has won the $5,000 PEN/Malamud prize for short fiction AND the $20,000 PEN/Nabokov award for “enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship”.
Ozick is known as a “writer’s writer”. Her 2004 novel, Heir to the Glimmering World, was shortlisted for the inaugural Man Booker International prize in 2005.

*

No matter what happens in the military there’s always a euphemism for it. But the RAF may have set a semantic record with its description of Prince William’s helicopter landing in a field next to his girlfriend’s house. The mission, it said, “achieved necessary training objectives”.

*

The Guardian reports that the actor Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years in prison for wilfull tax evasion.
Snipes was cleared of five charges including fraud and conspiracy, but convicted on lesser charges. During the three years he failed to file a tax return, Snipes earned at least $13.8m (£7m), prosecutors alleged, and would be liable for $2.7m in taxes. Snipes claimed he owed only $228,000.

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed

*

*

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed

The house started shaking last night after we turned the lights out to sleep. A few minutes before 1.00am the furniture in the room, the bed and the windows began rattling. Apparently, the epicentre of the quake, which registered a magnitude of 5.4, was in Market Rasen, about 50 miles to the south of us.

Everything is much quieter this morning.

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed