BAFTA award winners' speeches

Earlier posts on actors' award winning acceptance speeches can be seen HERE & HERE.

Followers of this gripping subject can now review a selection from last night's BAFTA award winners' speeches HERE.

In the gratitude to all and sundry stakes, best actor winner Colin Firth deserves an additional special award for originality (not to mention his neat demonstration of the effectiveness of a simple anecdote) for thanking the man who came to repair his fridge.

You can't judge what's in Nelson Mandela's book by its cover

I used last week's post on you can't judge a book from its cover to advertise the fact that the Russian translation of my book, Lend Me Your Ears, is being published in Moscow TODAY - making it available to a potential market of about 170,000,000 new readers.

The day after that, I posted some comments on and a video clip of Nelson Mandela's speech after being released from prison in 1990, which reminded me that I have further proof that you can't judge a book from its cover.

Here's the cover of my copy of the illustrated edition of Mr Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom:

Open it up, and the first thing you see inside is a handwritten note from the great man himself:

Unfortunately, I wasn't there when he actually signed it. But a close relation did have the privilege of meeting Mr Mandela during his visit to London in November, 2000 - and got him to sign what was by far the most memorable Christmas present I received that year.

(N.B. Burglars and/or book thieves should note that this particular volume is not to be found on any of my book shelves - and that they would have to graduate to robbing banks to get their hands on it).

A weep in politics

Every now and then, Private Eye comes up with a cover that makes you want to show it to people who aren't regular readers of the magazine.

The current copy features a nice sequel to yesterday's post on the Morgan-Brown TV interview - though I do wonder how many of their readers are old enough to remember that it was Harold Wilson who famously said that 'a week in politics is a long time' (c. 1964).

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