What I cooked last night.

" ... in the next few years he is ... upset at the injustice and hypocrisy that exist in the world: a world in which some men are athletic stars, James Bonds and millionaires and he is not; he is morally appalled. In his dreams he recreates the world, righting all wrongs, eliminating suffering, redistributing wealth ... ending all wars. He becomes a reincarnation of Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ ... Evil governments topple, corrupt churches collapse, laws are revised, and Truth, written in Xeroxed tablets of stone ... presented to the world." Or on Twitter. Or Facebook. Anyone can take part. The description of the keyboard warrior and his (or her, pedants) delusions of grandeur are well described - in a 1971 novel by George Cockcroft under the pseudonym Luke Rinehart. * The Diceman Luke Rhinehart, Granada, 1971 Kitchen Hand's one-sentence summary: dated parody of psychoanalysis clothed (but often unclothed) in early 1970s post-psychedelic era preoccupations. * (T...

Newspapers are reporting a study that found music lyrics are not as happy as they used to be. I could have told you that twelve years ago .

They impelled themselves in mad arcs, rather than flew, towards the porch light: airborne armadas of brown hard-backed buzzing creatures about half an inch long. But they did not see the wall and they crashed into it. And then they fell on the floor, upside down, and could not right themselves. I put around citronella candles. But they were not deterred. Because they are not mosquitoes. They were attracted. One zeroed in on a candle like a kamikaze pilot at a navy ship, and found itself upside down in molten wax, waving clawed tentacles or legs or whatever an entomologist calls them in the air. I picked him out because I felt pity for such utter stupidity. I threw him into the darkness, away from the porch, but the wax probably solidified in the air and he will end up a fossil to be discovered by some future scientist sixty million light years from now. A beetle embalmed in wax! It was nine o'clock, a warm night with a northerly still blowing straight down from the Queensland...

They shut the Oak Park pool for a year and renovated it. The low curved cream-brick walls topped with white wrought iron detailing are gone, as are the cascading concrete steps and the multi-coloured 1960s seats, and the general retro atmosphere of the place. Now it's angular blocks and steel and seats made from recycled drinks bottles, and an entrance foyer with a revolving glass cylinder door more typical of an office block. But there are still large swathes of lawn, and some trees for shade, and the elephant is still there; but he is no longer pink and water no longer spurts from his trunk. 42 degrees tomorrow. Hemingway is already in the bag by the front door with the towels and sunscreen. Full circle. There was a time when I could read, when the boys were small and stayed in the toddler pool. Then they grew and needed supervision as they leapt into pools, and dived, and tore around the place. So the books stayed at home and I supervised. But now they are old enough to look...