Alan Davies

This is the true inheritance tax of life. Behaviours and habits, ingrained, your own but not your own, a duty on your existence, a tariff to be levied on those who try to love you.

This is the true inheritance tax of life. Behaviours and habits, ingrained, your own but not your own, a duty on your existence, a tariff to...

Old bat' can only mean a woman. It’s derogatory, of course, arriving with us on a journey from the out-of-use term 'fly-by-nights', suggesting witchcraft, or its French equivalent, the Night Swallow (hirondelle de nuit),which implies prostitution. There are no nice terms for a woman out on her own at night.

Old bat' can only mean a woman. It’s derogatory, of course, arriving with us on a journey from the out-of-use term 'fly-by-nights', suggesti...

Children often enjoy books about good people, preferring villains to see the error of their ways. Only adults like their protagonists cynical, vain and cruel. Kids like nice people, preferably with a sweet tooth, and clumsy bears, and spirited dogs who save drowning children, cats who can’t catch birds, and noble horses. They are open-minded, able to believe even in a miraculous healer of the sick, a feeder of the starving, who cares not for possessions but only for all things bright and beautiful and who would, for the common good, make the ultimate sacrifice.

Children often enjoy books about good people, preferring villains to see the error of their ways. Only adults like their protagonists cynica...