Deborah Friedell

From Playing the Game by Belle de Jour: jeudi, le 03 novembre Sigh. My boys love me, they do. And do they ever know what sets my tiny heart a-racing. The last two of my birthday gifts have finally come through: from A2, a gift voucher from Figleaves; from A4, a subscription to the London Review of Books.

'It's the kind of book Jane Austen would've written if she'd been male and hipper.' 'It's The Name of the Rose if Sean Connery's character was a conglomeration of self-aware spores instead of a medieval monk.' 'If Virginia Woolf had a younger sister with a passionate interest in icebergs – ' 'This book is probably the first introduction to disciplined introspection in over 100 years.' 'A powerful depiction of humanity personified.' 'George has fallen in love with Lucy. A prostitute. Worse, a robot.' 'No leader of modern times was more unique and more uniquely national than Charles de Gaulle.' 'James Brabazon has written a fully-adrenalised book.' 'If Joan London never writes another word, The Good Parents is more than enough.'

'They laughed over the Harvardian eccentricities all around them. Visiting professors from the University of Oxford speaking with Oxford accents and publishing in the New York Review of Books, and American professors also speaking with Oxford accents but publishing in the London Review of Books.' – E.O. Wilson's Anthill.

Two months before Richard Reid tried to blow up American Airlines 63 with his high-tops, he took a flight to Israel on El Al. The airline's security team questioned him, as they do all passengers, and couldn't find a reason not to let him fly; but his body was searched, his luggage was put through a decompression chamber and hand-checked, and an air marshal was put in the seat next to him. El Al likes to boast that the 9/11 hijackers would never have succeeded on one of their planes: I don't disbelieve them. Last week I flew from London to Tel Aviv and back on El Al.