Faber & Faber

Quite extraordinary! Just about every Christmas card I’ve received so far this year is of the same design. It must be wildly popular or something…

I am an author. I don’t know how to drive a car. I have no interest in watching or playing any sport. I’m not very good with my hands and my beard prevents me from operating heavy machinery, even when sober or not on medication. I neither like dancing nor loud music. I have never [...]

Woah? What happened? The previous entry in this “not-to-be-missed blog” was on 30th September and today it’s 30th November which means that it’s– excuse me while I take off my shoes and socks to use my toes to help with my counting, as usual — yup, it’s — er — TWO MONTHS since I last [...]

Hello again! The name ‘Roald Dahl’ has very much been on my mind lately because I’ve: been judging the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. (We now have a fantastically funny shortlist which you can find at: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/show/feature/Home/Roald-Dahl-Funny-Prize-2010 . appearing on stage with Michael Rosen and others at the National Theatre to celebrate the prize and Roald Dahl Day. offering [...]

Yup, those of you smart enough and awake enough — and interested enough, come to that — may have spotted that there are NO JOURNAL ENTRIES for July 2010. Is that because I didn’t do anything in July? No, no, no, I say. And no again. Far from it. I did LOADS OF STUFF in [...]

I spent Bank Holiday Monday at the Roald Dahl Museum. As well as the two events I did in Miss Honey’s classroom — and what fantastic fun they were — there were beard-making and duck-colouring workshops in honour of Beardy Ardagh. Roald Dahl famously disliked beards and distrusted people who grew them… so it seemed [...]

This year’s trip to the Guardian Hay-on-Wye Festival was an unusual one for me. For the first time ever, I didn’t received a festival ‘thank-you’ of a half-case of champagne or carva. For the first time ever, I was driven all the way there and all the way back — rather than enduring several taxi [...]

I travelled up to Birmingham by train after the Write Away conference and was very pleased to discover that there was a Tesco’s opposite my hotel. It’s not that Tesco’s buildings are particularly lovely to look at — they’re not, and my room didn’t have a view of it anyhow — it simply meant that [...]

What’s a pun? A pun is small cake or a bread roll and, traditionally, in stories elephants like eating currant puns. ‘Currant pun’ is also Cockney Rhyming Slang for ‘Sun’ as in the big ball of burning gas up in the sky. No, hang on! Sorry! That’s a BUN isn’t it? A BUN is small cake or [...]

I headed off to a secret location on the 14th to record some material for videos to appear on the www.visitgrubtown.com website, YouTube and a couple of other places. Because Rickets is having his false knees polished or something — to be honest, I stop listening when he goes on about his ailments — Toto, [...]