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One of my first student adventures was going to Germany with friends for a summer spent chambermaiding in a Munich hotel. Freedom to travel, live and work across the European Union meant no visa was necessary and no restrictions were placed on our length of stay – we simply had to buy a plane ticket and find an employer, which we did on arrival.
The 17th-century diarist John Evelyn wrote about the coronation of a previous royal Charles: “King Crowned, great joy, much sin, the Lord pardon.”
The ghost of Wallis Simpson must be hanging over King Charles III’s coronation. When his grand-uncle Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, he said in a poignant radio address: “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”
When Martin Amis’s debut The Rachel Papers was published, 50 years ago this year, it was a literary and cultural sensation, won the Somerset Maugham Award, and spawned a lot of copycat novels that were very male, very London, very brattish, and certainly haven’t stood the test of time.
The courts of Skibbereen were just one of the sources of rich pickings for the colourful Somerville and Ross, writes fellow author and fan Martina Devlin A SKIBBEREEN fish dealer named Honora Hurley was just one among a host of lively West Cork people whose escapades and vib