Denning under a softball field

The secret lives of free-roaming cats! Some very good quotes in this piece... (Via Roger Ebert.)

Recognition blues

You'll need a New Yorker subscription for access to the digital edition, but there is a fascinating piece this week by Oliver Sacks on his own lifelong inability to recognize faces and places.

"Lurid pastries and curled sandwiches"

I have been working too hard to blog - it is almost unprecedented, and I hope that the situation shortly returns to normal!

(Shooting right now for e-mailing the novel out around 11:30 tomorrow morning - if I can't get it out by then, it's probably all over till the next morning...)

But I will indulge myself in a brief blog post, courtesy of my father. The "Lunch with the FT" feature always appeals to me most when there is also some sort of drama concerning the food! Gideon Rachman had a very good one this week with Abhisit Vejjajiva, Prime Minister of Thailand in a "jollied-up" basement room at the Davos resort where the World Economic Forum is held:

Abhisit, immaculately dressed in a grey suit and waistcoat, with a pale blue shirt and black tie with white stripes, looks slightly doubtful at the array of lurid pastries and curled sandwiches placed before him. I explain that our conversation is meant to take place against a background of eating and drinking. “OK. I will comply,” he says. But he makes no movement towards the food.

(Hmmm, I would eat a lurid apricot Danish pastry if someone gave me one right now!)

The tally:

The Congress Centre
Davos, Switzerland

Apricot Danish pastry (untouched)
Apple tart (neglected)
Ham sandwich (forgotten)
Cheese sandwich (half-eaten)
Coffee x2

Free of charge