Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: does SNP need to move back to the centre, what does its future mean for UK politics, is Kate Forbes still too religious for them? Plus, recognising sex in the NHS, migrants go missing, Plato’s scroll, French #MeToo , Brexit red tape, hymns etc

I have read and re-read C J Sansom’s Shardlake books. They are brilliant, earthy, thoughtful, mazy pieces of crime fiction. What a creation, what a legacy. How sad he has died.

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: time for our game of Bad Week, Worse Week? Who’s facing a tougher time: Rishi Sunak or Humza Yousaf? Plus, welfare reform on mental illness, nonsense detox supplements, tight French tipping, UK-Ireland migrant policy, royals, football etc

I personally think the 75 billion figure is misleading. The government does not agree.

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: young people drinking more in England than elsewhere - do we have a problem and why? Plus, rental non-reform, nationalising trains, one word OFSTED, impossible captchas, letters off the week, Venice fees, army horses, poor Liverpool etc

Such a good idea this (and proves why Shakespeare is inexhaustible)

In the middle of copy editing Book 3 now!

Come to this, if you’re in Cheltenham!

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: should we be on “war footing”, should defence spending increase, is this the best use of 75 billion quid? We’ll talk to Grant Shapps and Ben Wallace. Plus, put your cardie on, losing old friends, cancer diagnosis, concert ticket fraud etc

Just reminded of one of the poems that helped to inspire me to plot the landscape of Little Sky. That glimmer is in all the novels. (The poem is The Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats).

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: Rwanda wrangle ends in Parliament; it now begins in real life. When, how many, how effective, and how much will it also affect British politics? Plus, doctors to Australia, Ukraine war prospects, EV sales, breastfeeding at gigs, Huw Edwards etc

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: we launch the Times’s Crime and Justice Commission: is the system broken, have we lost faith in it, and how do we rebuild it? We’ll ask the experts. Plus, Ukraine gets money, the rosé snob backlash, Labour and patriotism, love coaches etc

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: the extraordinary story of Mark Menzies. Plus the new normal of medicine shortages, Dubai floods, Ed Miliband and Grant Shapps, Elica Le Bon الیکا‌ ل بن on Iran, women smoking, Rwanda delay, letters of the week, lab grown sausage, pet thefts, football etc

This was so lovely. Mark is a brilliant man.

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: some Tories want to ban smoking, some want to hang out with Orban in Brussels - what is the future of the right-wing in British politics? Plus, banning smacking next, Baked Alaska in an air fryer, Colditz, disinformation regulation, Israel etc

This is very nice to read. I have read most of the other books though and they are very good.

I asked Laura Farris for the government on Times Radio about how much she agreed with Liz Truss’s ideas:

Farage to Tories? No
Abolishing OBR? No
Abolishing Supreme Court? No
Deep State exists? No
Leaving ECHR: complicated.

Coming up on Times Radio Breakfast: banning the IRGC, avoiding world war, Omid Djalili on Iran. Plus, Liz Truss is not speaking to us, smoking ban, most expensive streets, are the Olympics bad for the host city, William Hague, Ukrainian view of Israel, peat etc