An uninspiring canvas becomes a glamorous masterpiece when it is reattributed to a better-known artist.
From Arthur Smith
The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper - perhaps Welsh rarebit - and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up.
Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.
Comedy ages quicker than tragedy, to the extent that we can't know if the 10 commandments may originally have been 10 hilarious one-liners.
Only the pun remains. The pun, beloved of Shakespeare, children and tabloid headline-writers, is normally eschewed in the modern, sophisticated circles in which I move.
It's the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates.
It's worth turning up to an awards gig if you know you've won one but, since you never do know, it's not worth it.
Travel books are, by and large, boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact, fiction and autobiography.
Give me the new thing and give it to me now. I don't want that old thing - I've seen it, heard it, bought it, slept with it, loved it, but now I'm bored with the old thing and I'm gagging for the new stuff.
I'm an armchair kind of guy, especially when it's raining, which it always is and always will be.
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