The 'Old Coffee House' of Balliol College, seen below in a wonky download of a postcard which I do have

In 1958, aged 14 years and 11 months, I escaped from England for the first time, on a school trip

From a bookseller in Holland I just received a virgin clingwrapped copy of Tuin der Lusten, the 1983 Dutch translation

OuLiPo is a mainly French experimental literary movement (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle = Workshop of Potential Literature) which relies upon

I'm looking at the first paperback of Colin Wilson's Ritual in the Dark (London: Pan Books, 1962), inscribed "For Ian,

  Recently opened in Gijón is a new pub with a menu of at least 500 best beers of the

Back in 1964 when I was busy on my postgraduate thesis in Oxford, lapping up Flaubert and Baudelaire and Stendhal,

Just a bit downhill from the largest single building in Spain, Gijón's University of Work, bigger than the Escorial Palace...

This is my shot at launching a feelgood meme upon an innocent world.  Share on Facebook, and let's watch this

  I'm stealing my title from the 1000+ page bestseller by Eugène Sue, Les Mystères de Paris, serialised during 1842