Andrew Whitehead

Discussion over the dinner table the other evening turned briefly to Libya. Do you know what's happening there, my (just) pre-teen son was asked? "Isn't that where some guys are trying to get rid of the President, but he won't go?", he said rather tentatively, but with a directness that makes him a shoe in for the subs' desk at 'The Economist'.

A follow up question for him: how are you finding out about Libya? "I'm not, it's just what's happening everywhere!" Such are the times.

The previous week, he had given a summary of Mubarak's downfall that woudn't have disgraced a brief writer on the Today programme. His source? Reading 'Metro' on the tube to school.

One of the pleasures of this blog and website is the old friends and acquaintances who get in touch, and the generosity they show. My page on political lapel badges has not only attracted browsers, but quite a few new badges. And in the post the other day - following from  a perusal of my political pamphlets page - was a packet full of choice pamphlets, many reprints (such as the one to the left) and all done with love and style.

The sender was Jeff Cloves, whose production of William Morris's 'Tables Turned' I saw fully thirty years ago. He was one of the Riff Raff Poets, and now lives in Stroud where he writes and publishes.

I've copied underneath - slightly cropped because the page size was too big for my scanner - a double page from a recent pamphlet of poems (by Jeff Cloves) and photos (by Fred Chance). An elegaic piece of verse in a minor key. Thanks Jeff!

To Crouch End, to discover that Prospero's Books has closed. For the first time I can recall, this most literate of North London localities is without a proper bookshop. How sad!

There is a Bargain Books selling cut price remainders. And, more usefully, an Oxfam Books which has a good selection, and almost makes the journey worthwhile.

Well, this morning it did better than that.

I'm not a great cricket enthusiast, but the accompanying souvenir of an Australian cricket tour eighty years ago strikes me as a complete gem. Well worth the £4.99 I shelled out. The England team of that time featured Hobbs ('a delightful batsman and master of every stroke'), Sutcliffe, Larwood ('on form he is undoubtedly our strongest attack') and Hammond.

And in the Australian line-up, a young, promising batsman - Don Bradman, see below:

Calcutta - that beguiling, maddening, beautiful city captured in all its complexity by the ever engaging Ian Jack in the Guardian