Second paragraph of third chapter:

It takes a moment or two to appreciate how bad – and yet how good – British food used to be.

Autobiography of the UK journalist and quizmaster, with whom I had two close encounters in 1994 as captain of the unsuccessful Queen’s University of Belfast quiz team:

It’s an entertaining book, as you would expect from his public persona. Paxman was from gently decaying middle-class roots, but he got to Cambridge and, equipped with his M.A. Cantab, became the face of both Newsnight and University Challenge. He cut his journalistic teeth in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s, and paints a striking picture of the awfulness of official government policy, and the BBC’s difficulties in reporting on the situation properly – there were two striking incidents where he himself was centrally involved in clashes between the broadcaster and the government, but it doesn’t seem to have done his career much harm in the end.

Paxman doesn’t have a lot of self-doubt; this gives us an entertaining take on war reporting, writing books that nobody ever buys or reads, politicians in general and running a quiz show, but the deep reflection is more on the cogs and gears of politics, and why it is important to hold the ruling class to account, than on any deeper sense of society or indeed personal purpose. I enjoyed it a lot but slightly struggle to remember particular incidents, now that I’m writing it up a couple of weeks later. You can get it here.

It’s a man’s autobiography, so if the Bechdel Test were applicable to non-fiction it would not pass.

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my pile. Next up there is Bletchley Park Brainteasers, by Sinclair McKay.