Memory
We’ve been doing a monstrous disservice to goldfish
As everyone knows, Londoners don’t talk to strangers. And heaven forbid that anyone should make eye contact on the Tube.…
The end of days: It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken, reviewed
‘Don’t try to picture the apocalypse’, advises the novel’s unnamed zombie narrator. ‘Everything looks exactly the way you remembered it.’
Remember, remember
The world that blossoms in this haunting novel about the importance of memory is in the aesthetic vein known as ‘mono no aware’, or ‘the pathos of things’
Memory test: The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan, reviewed
On page 231 of The Candy House, a sequel – no, a ‘sibling’ says Jennifer Egan – to the Pulitzer…
The difficult decisions that come with downsizing
The difficulties of downsizing
Lord Lucan, Joan Collins and the greatest dinner ever
There’s a narrow stretch of Chelsea, south of the King’s Road from Oakley Street to Ormonde Gate, that reminds me…
I loved prison
Memories for me are like beautifully edited copy: all cleaned up and retaining only the good parts. The wife tells…
Technology is robbing us of the power to forget
Technology is robbing us of the power to forget
Wisdom of the ages: we must keep listening to the elderly
My beloved grandmother died at 90, and my mother at 89, after having Alzheimer’s for 11 years. So I am…
Is forgetting a modern disease?
If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…
Keith Moon’s wedding-night abseil and other marvellous false memories
False memory disasters, from Keith Moon’s wedding-night abseil to Sophia Loren’s peanut addiction
The road to Lolita: why Nabokov’s literary talent finally blossomed in America
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov’s nostalgic memoir, reflects on his life from the age of three to 41, taking us from…
The Greece I once knew is now just a myth
I think back to my Greek childhood and longing for the once cosiest and most romantic of cities overwhelms me.…
Skunk has changed me. But art has changed me, too
Two recent preoccupations have led me to the same reflection. The first is a Channel 4 programme on the effects…
Ogres, pixies, dragons, goblins... Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in ten years is a strange beast indeed
If you’d been asked at the beginning of the year whose new novel would feature ogres, pixies and a she-dragon…
Jeremy Vine’s diary: Zipcars, hipster milk and the word that means I’m losing an argument
Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think…
My ghosts of Athens; a shooting and a royal wedding
Athens This grimy semi-Levantine ancient city has its beauty spots, with childhood memories indelibly attached. There is a turn-of-the-century apartment…
Teacher training’s war on science
There’s an increasing amount of evidence about how we learn. But you won’t hear about it at teacher training college
Simon Callow’s notebook: What it’s like to lose at an awards ceremony
It was one of those weeks. On Monday, I was in four countries: I woke up at crack of dawn…
Why I get my health advice from the Daily Mail
When one is in one’s seventies, as I am, one begins to fear the horror of dementia and to carry…
