Robin's Random Rambles

In my early-mid teens I read and fell in love with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . The amusing reference to Arsenal very early in the book prompted me to write to Douglas Adams' agency and ask if he was an Arsenal fan. I got a reply confirming that he was. I figured "if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me" and started following Arsenal from then on. What cemented my love for Arsenal as a football team was the Wenger, Bergkamp, Henry era. To this day Bergkamp remains my favourite Arsenal player ever, in my mind capturing perfectly the spirit of "the beautiful game" - unlike his teammate who for me forever tainted his legacy with his infamous "bite me/FU" style response to his handball for France against Ireland. Because I have never been (and will never be) in a position to see any games live, and have seldom been able to watch games on TV, a special focus of my interest in Arsenal has been Arsenal in culture. As a tee...

 After an up and down (or rather, a down and up ) year of mystery reading, in early November  I was introduced to a new word and a new concept and a new challenge. The new word and new concept were new only to me, of course - middlebrow. I'd never heard the word before noticing it crop up a lot on Dean Street Press's Twitter feed, mostly courtesy of Scott, aka Furrowed Middlebrow    His vigorous advocacy of female middlebrow authors was beginning to intrigue me when Liz Dexter    shared an inspired idea for a December reading challenge. She suggested a Dean Street December , a month devoted to reading books published by Dean Street Press .  Since I've enjoyed so many DSP books this year, the idea of reading more while broadening the range of authors and genres was too good to pass up, so here I am.   One of the things I've learned from starting Christopher Bush's Ludovic Travers series in particular, and also Alice Campbell's works (another ...