by David West | May 31, 2023 | News
Francis Bacon plays a small part in The Spy who Sank the Armada, my fictionalised biography of Sir Anthony Standen. Sir Anthony was a spy who was controlled, for a time, by Anthony Bacon, Francis’s elder brother. On the 31st May 1621 Francis Bacon, who was then Lord...
by David West | May 30, 2023 | News
I was gazing at the weeds in our onion bed this morning, when I wondered where the phrase “know you onions” comes from. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable came to the rescue. It dispensed with the references to C.T. Onions, author and editor of the Shorter Oxford...
by David West | May 28, 2023 | News
I went to my third meeting of Corsham Writers on Thursday. The theme was first lines. Jeff produced a list of famous novel openings, which we took it in turns to read out. Then everyone commented. I can’t remember what they all were now. I’ve just googled great novel...
by David West | May 26, 2023 | News
One of our friends picked up a copy of Fire and Earth from my stall at our village Christmas fete. She opened it and said, “oh a prologue! The ladies in our reading group don’t like prologues!” The wonderful Frankie Howard always started his TV comedy Up Pompeii with...
by David West | May 25, 2023 | News
When I got out of bed yesterday, my back went. It’s my own fault, I haven’t been doing my exercises as religiously as I should. I had severe back pain, probably around ten years ago. The timing was terrible, we were on a short break in Salamanca. It’s a wonderful...
by David West | May 22, 2023 | News
Words are now the tools of my trade, so they interest me. Claire and I visited the Weald and Downland Living Museum on Sunday, with our friends Angie and Frank. The museum was fabulous. It was wonderful seeing how people lived in Tudor times. I undertake a lot of...
