This is very pale stuff, collected journalism really, the sort of thing agents suggest to publishers. Not for me.

Fine short essays from the masters of history. Particularly good short essays reflecting various subjects and aspects of history. The two I most enjoyed were Government and History, and War and History. Excellent stuff.

I have been dipping, but it’s a short swim. Sometimes poems that are easy to read are easy to write too. I miss any kind of depth or insight, the sudden intake of breath you get when reading, for example Larkin, or Emily Dickinson, when a great truth is suddenly made apparent, which is one of the great delights of poetry.

I began to read the new Wolf Hall on the I-Pad a holiday cruise, but it really didn’t grab me, rather like the old one. I'll give it another go, but I rarely am seduced by historical fiction, perhaps because I find real history so fascinating, for example I’m currently reading Alison Weir’s “The Lady in The Tower” which covers the same period, and the same man (Thomas Cromwell) but which is so much more fun.

I loved it and thought it a terrific read, a particularly great holiday read, or Vacation, as you Yanks call them, probably because you take so few. From the brilliant opening line of the Prologue, the whole novel unfurls superbly…“Everyone knows that when a certain kind of single American female on a Mexican holiday drinks too much tequila she will get a tattoo.” A single woman and her married lover, a brief affair, sets up the future conflict which turns nicely deadly. Chapter One opens just as brilliantly. “In the desert the sun is an anarchist. Molecules madly dance beneath the relentless glare. Unity gives way to chaos. And every day, people lose their minds.” This man can write. We are in Palm Springs, California. But I won’t spoil it. Read it and enjoy.