Pages

▼
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Monday, 15 December 2025

Defence Against the Dark Arts XXXII: Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers at Christmas

›
A few books with a Christmas theme have inspired posts in the past.  I wanted to produce something similar for this year; I remembered tha...
Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Leslie Charteris and his Saint books: some further thoughts

›
W hen the idea of featuring Leslie Charteris's Saint books  first came to me, I expected the article to be a short one. I soon realised ...
Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXX: Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends

›
M y first encounter with Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends was in the pages of Rider Haggard's exciting adventure story King Solom...
Saturday, 18 March 2023

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXIII: Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers stories

›
I discovered Anthony Horowitz’s Diamond Brothers around 14 years ago. I read the seven books that were available at the time and even review...
Monday, 6 February 2023

More about Leslie Charteris's Saint books

›
T he previous article about Leslie Charteris's Saint books  goes into detail about what made these books so attractive to me when I fir...
Friday, 6 January 2023

Something about Leslie Charteris's Saint books

›
T he books that I first read when very young fall into two main categories: those that have stayed with me throughout the years and those th...
Saturday, 23 July 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XIX: Anthony Armstrong's Prune's Progress

›
W hile working on the article about Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon's Kings and Queens ,  I was reminded of Prune's Progress , Anthony A...
Wednesday, 18 May 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XVII: The Farjeons' Kings and Queens

›
W hen I was working on the article about the  witty and amusing books of  W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman,   their British history textbook p...
Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XVI: J. B. Priestley's Low Notes on a High Level

›
T he novelist J. B. Priestley has been mentioned both as a reader of and contributor to the Everyman Library  and as the author of Angel Pav...
Saturday, 8 August 2020

Artemis Fowl and the demon cult leader: Part II

›
T he other demon of interest in Eoin Colfer's  Lost Colony is called Leon Abbot. He is one of the worst of the demons and the secret en...
Friday, 31 July 2020

Artemis Fowl and the demon cult leader: Part I

›
I read the first three of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl  fantasy novels when they were first published. I remembered them recently when compil...
Monday, 22 June 2020

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XII: The books of Sellar and Yeatman

›
T he article about balancing depressing books with amusing and uplifting ones gives Terry Pratchett and Gerald Durrell as examples of peopl...
Thursday, 29 March 2018

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part X: Plus X and Bad Medicine

›
T here are two very amusing short stories that I feel impelled to re-read from time to time. One is Plus X by Eric Frank Russell, the other...
Monday, 22 May 2017

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VIII: Two school stories

›
M y investigation of Rudyard Kipling's early life has stirred up memories of two good books about life in boys' schools, one of the...
Saturday, 30 January 2016

Being positive can occasionally backfire

›
I have learned from experience that our inner state often determines our experiences, so we can definitely change our lives for the better...
Saturday, 17 October 2015

Do inner demons sabotage our lives?

›
I t is important to take responsibility - where appropriate – when we do stupid things, make mistakes, and experience setbacks, accidents a...
Sunday, 23 November 2014

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VII: Charlotte Brontë’s Martin Yorke

›
O f all the characters in all the Brontë sisters’ novels, Martin Yorke, who appears in Charlotte Brontë’s socio-historical novel Shirley , ...
Monday, 4 August 2014

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VI: Two amusing anecdotes

›
I have many painful memories of incidents in shops and on buses. I have one or two positive memories to offset the bad ones, memories that...
Sunday, 15 September 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part V: Conspiracy Theory Humour

›
I have mentioned how junk food , many TV programmes and junk advertisements on the radio make me feel ill: I just can’t tolerate them.  ...