A biography of T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. I was once asked the difference between D. H. and T. E. Lawrence, and I said D. H. was Lawrence of a Labia. (Rim shot) So yes T. E. was undoubtedly a hero, a great military strategist, a remarkable stoic, an extraordinary historically important person, an unusual warrior and a weirdo… This is an enjoyable biography and a useful look at the beginning of oil politics in the 20th Century, when all those States were just arguments in the desert, and Lawrence rallied the tribesmen against the Turks.

This one is set amongst pirates in Djibouti, but of course I have forgotten everything. I love Leonard but he is the great Chinese food writer. Twenty minutes later you want another.

Early. 1965 First Edition. Small tales of amateur spying and the setting up of the secret service in the UK, at its most porous. This will lead to the great Tinker Tailor world…

I went to see Dave Hicks interview Steve Martin at a Writer’s Block event in LACMA where he was very charming and had a lot to say, indeed almost too much as the subject was Steve Martin and we were there to hear him discuss his fine novel about the art world An Object of Beauty. Hicks is an agreeable chap and conversationalist and it was interesting to meet him afterwards and hear about the multi-disciplinary work he is doing on campus in (I think) New Mexico, but anyone who was an Art Critic from the University of Las Vegas is clearly not simply interested in just art. Sex and drugs and rock and roll are his real loves. I don’t think you can be a critic of that quite yet unless you work for Rolling Stone or The Rolling Stones. In the end I find these essays promise much but deliver little. Hicks is always about to make some devastating point but never quite gets round to it.

Nice Modern Library edition picked up in Washington State. Classic writing, classic book. He is very influenced by Scott Fitzgerald, whose influence one can easily detect in this, but the country club snobs and the way his protagonist Julian English drinks his way to insulting friend and foe to his ultimate downfall is very well done. I loved it.

Not quite Life as we know it, but certainly life. In a petrie dish. Three years ago I had dinner with Keith’s ghost writer James Fox because he desperately wanted me to tell him “anything I could remember” about Keith, because, he said, Keith could remember nothing. At the forefront of this book Keith says “I haven’t forgotten any of it.” Really? Hm. This book has been so well written by the very clever Mister Fox (White Mischief) in collaboration with KR (the Noel Coward of Rock) that it is highly readable. Keith is at his best talking about song writing, about which he has a lot to say and all of it true. In fact he is a closet intellectual, and I believe he took all those drugs only so he could tolerate the barely tolerable fact of having a brain and being on a rock and roll tour. He is erudite and very well read. Incidentally none of my anecdotes were used in the book, most of which were about Keith being out of his mind, but always conscious of what was going on around him. The book is very good until the end when he turns on Mick in a classically ungrateful act of ungenerous fratricide. I remember times in New York when Keith was in a rehab recovery unit upstate and Mick spent hours going up to visit him and taking him books. Of course nothing is more annoying than ones partners, but to leave shameful things in your book about people who have dragged you round the road, well it’s just unkind and seems petty in the full course of a life. Pity. Because he is a really nice man, and really bright, and really funny, and has given me some wonderful nights of laughter and madness. And quite a few headaches…