mostly david ephgrave

I sometimes feel like a fictional adult. Actually, you'd better switch “sometimes” with “always”. It’s particularly evident when I pass someone on the street. It’s at times like this when I feel l'm just portraying the role of a normal, well-adjusted human being with a job and a family: the sort of person who has a mortgage (I've got one) and a pension (I'm out of my depth there) and who actively contributes to society, and not someone who owns two pairs of jeans and barely a pair of shoes and has no idea what PPI means. The only thing that alleviates my worry slightly is the vague glimmer of hope that I’m not the only one; there must at least be a few people who feel the same as me. Surely? Maybe? Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that a man approaching forty has been deemed an adult in every culture since the dawn of time. So why can’t I get my head around it? I think it’s universal to not feel age deep down. People often say they don’t feel...

In the past few weeks, after a bit of a reading hiatus, I’ve got back into the practice of devouring books. While I’ve always been an avid (or should that be ‘David’?) reader, I tend to go through periods when - through tiredness or otherwise - I fall out of the habit. This will usually be the case when I’ve finished a book and haven’t had time to start another during daylight hours; I don’t like beginning new books at bedtime, as I’ll end up having to reread the first few pages the following day to make up for what I missed through tiredness.   It only takes a gripping novel to remind me of how addictive reading can be. It’s such a lovely feeling when you submerge yourself in a story and get lost in it. There’s little to match the pull of a great book that no sooner have you put down you're desperate to pick up. A well-written novel is a little bit like magic; how is it that hundreds of words on page after page disappear to be replaced by such vivid imagery? Yet it ...

Boris Johnson is Mayor of London. This isn’t an April Fool. The Sun is the UK’s biggest selling newspaper, with The Daily Mail taking a close-run second place. A recent poll in the Independent on Sunday named UKIP as Britain’s most popular political party. Piers Morgan, Simon Cowell and Adrian Chiles all have successful television careers. None of these are April Fools; all of them are April Facts . Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Such is life. It’s better to accept this, than to mull over the way you think that things should be. One thing’s for certain: spaghetti doesn’t really grow on trees. Richard Dimbleby may have made this claim on Panorama fifty-seven years ago, but the damage still remains. The people of the United Kingdom will never forget. I may have to go to his sons' houses brandishing a pitchfork.