George MacDonald Fraser, Flash For Freedom!

I don’t think I've read 'Flash for Freedom!' since I was 16 or so, but it's so familiar and I remembered so much; and yet I struggle to remember the names of books I read last month, let alone the content. I enjoyed it so much, I'm such a fanboy for GMF. I spoted a book of his I'd never heard of before last week, but I'm not sure - his later output was a bit patchy, and if it wasn't good enough for release while he's alive. It may not be up to much.

Agatha Christie, Poirot Investigates, Max Adams, In the Land of Giants: Journeys Through The Dark Ages

Comfort reading at Duesseldorf Airport, and then a very of-the-moment meld of dark ages history and travels through the british landscape. V aspirational, we all want to be Max Adams as he travels leisurely through the islands with no day job, having serendipitous encounters with local experts, or seals, or undiscovered Iron Age Barrows. I'm completely, utterly jealous of his life ;-)

Bibs is being absolutely charming at the moment. He fetches my slippers when I get through the door, gets Helen a cup for her tea and is just generally lovely and so easy to make laugh. The long campaign to rename him Billy is still bumping along: Libby has pledged her preference for 'Billy', but has yet to use it, and Fred doesn't like it. It does sound odd on him, to be fair: 'Bibs' has become fixed in my mind for him.

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Leopard, Philip Cowley & Denis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015

'The Silk Roads' wasn't quite what I was expecting; I was hoping for a history of medieval Central Asia, but it was actually a geopolitical history of the world emphasising the role of the region as a key point. Very ambitious and readable, but I was just after a narrative and was required to think. The Leopard has passed me by; not sure I appreciated quite why it's considered one of the most important works of literature in the 20th Century (maybe something was lost in translation), but it made me smile in places and just want to visit the never-changing Sicily all the more.

The latest Nuffield study was devoured on a business trip to Germany. Very pessimistic reading of course, and right now it's difficult to see how Labour will get back into power for generations. Scotland is lost to the SNP, voters in the north don’t see the Labour Party as representing them any more and are edging in enough quantity to UKIP and in the south, 'Tory Lite' doesn’t convince when the real thing is available. And now Corbyn is in power (whose policies I agree with and for whom I voted), we're moving further and further away from being seen as a centrist party capable of governing.

I'm calling Bibs' first word; it's 'banana'. He's definitely saying 'nana' when I point at one, and while Nana may claim he's saying 'Nana', it's 'banana' alright.