‘May we come in?’I usher them in.‘We understand that you have written a book entitled Scalpels Out?‘Yes. That is so.’‘We have had a complaint. A woman has reported that it has caused her deep psychological damage.’‘Well, there is nothing sadistic or malicious in it …...

A few years ago, a colleague’s daughter who had just completed a degree in Italian and Arabic, was given a four-month internship in a large London publishing house

The Parliamentary sub-committee on health expenditure gathered in a slightly fusty oak-panelled room. The statistician gave his presentation. With or without such high-tech stuff as cancer therapies genetically tailored to each patient, the costs of what could or...

Italy beckons. I have been working so hard. Sunshine, a sun-lounger beside the pool and a good book … ecstasy. Rucksack? Sun-glasses? In the airport bookshop, I scour the recent fiction. A tempting cover, but … it is all shagging and shooting, so no. Next, some...