Arthur Smith

Travel books are, by and large, boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact, fiction and autobiography…

Occasionally I find a travel book that is both illuminating and entertaining, where vivid writing…

I’ve noticed that my resolutions involve me not doing stuff that I wasn’t going to…

It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not…

Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not…

The history of the relationship between comedy and swimming is short indeed. Of course it…

Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare…

Don Quixote’s ‘Delusions’ is an excellent read – far better than my own forthcoming travel book…

I am 54 and age is slowly writing itself on my face…

The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I’ve often found myself following in their…

It is more interesting to be compared to someone famous, because it lets you gauge…