Browser Daily Newsletter 1202

My Wicked Stepmother

Martin Amis | Daily Mail | 4th January 2014

Tribute to the late novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, who spent 15 years married to Kingsley Amis — his second marriage, her third. It started well, ended horribly. "In a good marriage the principals soon identify each other’s irritabilities and seek to appease them. Jane, and especially Kingsley, did the opposite. As he became coarser, she could not but seem snootier. The infection proliferated and ramified; it became a cold war"

Choking, The Yips And Not Having Your Mind Right

David Papineau | More Important Than That | 1st January 2014

A philosopher writes: "When Jonathan Trott was struggling in the first two tests of the current Ashes tour, some cricket commentators suggested that he was suffering from The Yips. This didn't make sense to me. You can’t get The Yips when batting in cricket, nor for that matter in baseball, for reasons explained below. Rather Trott’s problem was simply that he Did Not Have His Mind Right"

Bad Year For Boars

Diana Hardeman | Dihard | 30th December 2013

What it's like to have a stroke. "Mmy boyfirned was just coming to chec on what time we are leaving and I xiested the bathroom, slumpted on the ground. I was a champ though, if I do say so myself, and took everything in stride. The tw hour turned 50n hour bed redst The f’ig TEE, transesophagael echocardiogram where they stuck a probe down my throat to cheyc o8ut my eart , which turns out it has a hole"

Harper Lee’s Permanent Christmas

Brian Warner | Celebrity Net Worth | 6th January 2014

She has only written one book. But, luckily for all concerned, it was the right book. "To Kill A Mockingbird sells between 750,000 and 1 million copies every year. So how much money has this put into Harper Lee's pockets? According to legal papers filed against former book agent Sam Pinkus, in the first six months of 2009 alone Harper Lee earned $1,688,064.68 in royalties. That's $9,249 per day"

Death Of The Translator

George Szirtes | White Review | 4th January 2014

Poem. "The blind translator had developed his sense of smell to an exquisite pitch. He could read books the way a dog reads lampposts. / The blind translator felt his way through the book, knocking whole sentences over. He’d have to build it all again by touch"

Video of the day:  Does Being Cold Make You Sick?

Thought for the day:

"Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family" — Jane Smiley

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