Brief memoirs. His publisher seeking a quote. I sent: “Eddie Izzard is my favourite stand up chameleon.”

Wonderful essays on everyone and everything.

While she may have been uncertain herself, one thing Carrie Fisher certainly was is a fine writer. From the evidence of her earliest writing on Star Wars here it’s clear she can express herself in words. Revealingly she says she likes to write because it slows down her thoughts so she can finish one. Not only is it heart rending that she has gone so young, it is sad because we miss out on the writing she might yet have done.

An officer from Scotland Yard is studying Maigret’s methods when a call sends them off to an island off the Cote D’Azur. I have been doing research and gave myself a quick course in Biology. Amongst the books I perused: LIFE ASCENDING by Nick Lane WHAT IS LIFE? by Addy Pross LIFE ON A YOUNG PLANET by Andrew H. Knoll EVER SINCE DARWIN by Stephen Jay Gould A NEW HISTORY OF LIFE by Peter Ward & Joe Kirschvink THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH by Richard Dawkins (which rather flatteringly contains the entire text of a parody lyric I wrote for Python called “All Things Dull and Ugly”)