stuff – Page 2 – toby wallis

I’ll try anything twice

For years I didn’t like tea. But even though I knew I didn’t like it, I really wanted to. So every now and then I would make myself a cup of tea and take a few tentative sips. I’d do this about once a year, hoping to discover that I had developed a taste forContinue reading “I’ll try anything twice”

The Art of Fielding

I was going to write a blog post about how I have just finished reading The Art of Fielding, and how it is a Great American Novel about the Great American Novel. I was going to talk about how The Great American Novel, such as it is, tempers the American Dream and how the twoContinue reading “The Art of Fielding”

My new favourite part of the week

I used to be a real night owl. I’d stay up till 2 or 3am any time I could. In fact, unless I had some impetus to get up early the next day, it wouldn’t even occur to me to go to bed until that sort of time. Friday nights were my favourite. A greatContinue reading “My new favourite part of the week”

The Art of Planning Ahead

I’ve not been buying many new books lately. It’s not because I’ve gone off them or anything, its because I thought it would be a good idea to work my way through the backlog of unread books lying around the house before I started adding to it. I had this idea that it would beContinue reading “The Art of Planning Ahead”

Why I can’t speak French

The worst element of PE classes in school was not that it forced physical activity on otherwise bookish, Nintendo-based children, such as I was. It wasn’t the ritual humiliation. It wasn’t the prison style showers. It was that no would tell me the rules. It was one of the oddest paradoxes of school that anContinue reading “Why I can’t speak French”