Clive Davis

NOTEBOOK

In my own recent life in Washington, I have been bombarded with obscene and menacing phone calls from Muslims, promising to punish my family because I do not support a campaign of lies and hatred and violence against democratic Denmark. But when  my wife accidentally left a large amount of cash on the backseat of a taxi, the Sudanese cab driver went to a good deal of trouble and expense to work out whose property this was, and to drive all the way to my home to return it untouched. When I made the vulgar mistake of offering him 10 per cent of the money, he made it quietly but firmly plain that he expected no recompense for performing his Islamic duty. Which of these two versions of faith is the one to rely upon?

Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great.

ENDURANCE

Perfect fare for armchair travellers... The Wall Street Journal's pick of the five best books on the subject of man versus nature. I almost bought a secondhand copy of The Worst Journey in the World last week. I'll have to go back and see if it's still on the shop's shelves.

NOTEBOOK

College students, like Professor Rorty, rarely have to cope with an atrocity or give a reason for condemning those they learn of. To them, the perils of cultural relativism are purely hypothetical. One can get along most of the time with unanchored beliefs.

James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense.

LESS THAN EPIC

The new Tolkien, condensed:

"Forsooth," he swore. "Henceforth shall I remain a derivative Wagnerian hero and wander mindlessly through the realms of Middle-Earth on a quasi-symbolic quest and, Children of the Eldar, resolve only to talk in sentences of unspeakable leadenness, punctuated by manifold parentheses."

[Via Bookslut]

NOTEBOOK

I have often, particularly on a Sunday, met groups of negroes, elegantly dressed; and have been sometimes been amused by observing the very superior air of gallantry assumed by the men, when in attendance on their "belles", to that of the whites in similar circumstances. On one occasion we met in Broadway a young negress in the extreme of the fashion, and accompanied by a black beau, whose toilet was equally studied; eye-glass, guard-chain, nothing was omitted; he walked beside his sable goddess uncovered, and with an air of the most tender devotion. At the window of a handsome house which they were passing, stood a very pretty white girl, with two gentlemen beside here; but alas! both of them had their hats on, and one was smoking!

Fanny Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans.

NOTEBOOK

It requires strength of character to act upon one's ideas; it requires no less strength of character to resist being seduced by them.

Irving Kristol, The Politics of Stylish Frustration.

ONE MAN & HIS PEN

I almost forgot to set the VCR... That proto-blogger from the Victorian era, Mr Pooter, addresses the nation tonight in BBC4's adaptation of The Diary of A Nobody. I'm not sure actor Hugh Bonneville is prim enough (watch the clip and see for yourself) but, with any luck, that notoriously raunchy scriptwriter Andrew Davies will resist the temptation to turn Charles and Carrie into suburban swingers. I once wrote a Times feature on the Pooter phenomenon, and was not particularly surprised to discover that Mike Leigh is a huge fan of the book. He told me that he and his wife, Alison Steadman, used to have a catch-phrase whenever anything particularly funny happened on-set: "Carrie roared". [Hat-tip: Jo]

THE MORNING AFTER: Ah well, nice try, but Bonneville was much too broad - more like Lupin, really. And maybe it's one of those books that just can't be transferred to the screen. Reading about the pot of red paint is so much funnier than seeing it. I'm afraid I slipped back to the Man Utd thriller before the end.

NOTEBOOK

There were to be no press photographs showing cabinet ministers attending banquets, nor any reports on them. Other censored items included outbreaks of cattle-poisoning resulting from the effect of German potassium on cattle fodder, a car accident involving von Ribbentrop in which his eldest daughter had been badly hurt, and the participation of Fräulein Hess in the Berlin dog show. The question of whether Jesus had been Jewish was not to be broached, for the reason that it could no longer be decided after two thousand years.

Richard Grunberger, A Social History of the Third Reich.

NOTEBOOK

Yesterday I finished making a list of all social, political, and artistic events which I thought possibly useful for my novel between 1872 and 1882. Tedious bore, for a trifling result in the book. But necessary. Today in the forest (of Fontainebleau) I practically arranged most of the construction of the first part of the novel. Still lacking a title for it. If I thought an ironic title would do, I would call it "A thoughtful young man". But the public is so damned slow in the uptake.

Arnold Bennett, Journal, 19th November 1909.

THE COMMON (UNCLOTHED) READER

Dr Frank's admirers will go to any lengths to publicize that fine teen novel, King Dork.