The Liberators by Philip Womack: Times Critic Amanda Craig's Children's Books of the Year

So out of some weird synchronous activity, I bought a copy of The Times just before I went in to see the new Harry Potter (review to follow shortly). I got home, settled in my favourite chair with some music on. I always read the Review section first; I opened it, without looking, where I imagined the first Books page might be. I saw a large picture of a cat. Ah, I thought. Children's books. And then I saw my name - The Liberators has made it into the excellent Amanda Craig's selection of Books of the Year, alongside Eva Ibbotson, Kate Saunders, Patrick Ness and many more. I was so amazed and thrilled I had to read it again to check it was true and I wasn't actually reading about some other book ('The Terminators', for instance, as some of my friends have called it.) Libations were poured all round to the god Dionysus; paeans were raised and a hecatomb offered up. Io io!

A link to the piece is HERE: you have to be a subscriber to the Times to access it.

That Naughty Verres, and A Certain Mr Satoshi

I was reading some Cicero the other day, in particular his superlatively nasty speech against the general Verres, on trial for extortion and being the worst possible governor of Sicily ever. He used to swan around in a litter filled with rose petals, and set up an enormous tent to which were brought various ladies of ill (and worse) repute. Here is a description of one of his parties:

'itaque erant exitus eius modi ut alius inter manus e convivio tamquam e proelio auferretur, alius tamquam occisus relinqueretur, plerique ut fusi sine mente ac sine ullo sensu iacerent.'

Which translates (in rather bad English, but you get the drift) as:

'And so, there were exits (to the party) of such a kind that some would be carried out in the arms (of the other guests) as if from a battle; others would be left as if for dead; most would sprawl on the ground without any idea or sense of where they lay.'

Now I don't know about you, but all this sounds like it could be rather fun. It looks like Verres was heartily enjoining the worship of Bacchus. I wonder if Cicero was just jealous because he never got invited and was too busy writing epic poems about himself?

I attended a party (which didn't end like that) for the launch of Jonathan Lee's Who is Mr Satoshi?, which is his debut novel and looks intriguing. The party was in a pub in Islington; as far as I know nobody was carried out as if from a battle, but it was certainly enormously enjoyable.