Long Enough, Short Enough: A Blog Learns to Speak

Twenty-Three Years On

The husbandry of a blog in its 23^rd year might leave one wondering whether there is a need to radically change its format and workings, or to provide other means of engagement with an audience whose attention is now grabbed by whatever suits these changing times.

When reviewing this issue, I have landed on the premise that textual expression still matters. I hope my blogs, as I have often suggested, follow the judgement of a good seamstress making a skirt: it should be long enough to cover the detail, whilst short enough to keep the interest.

I think I read that quip in the Reader's Digest, over 40 years ago, and it still matters. In terms of the format and appearance of my blogs, I have essentially maintained the same design for as long as I can remember.

A New Development

However, in 2026, I came upon an interesting development. On my Android phone, using the Google Chrome browser, there was an option to "Listen to this page". What you get is not a verbatim readout of the page, but an AI-generated summary, lasting up to 90 seconds.

For one blog I wrote at the end of January, I could not get an AI-generated summary; rather, it was a Read Aloud of the blog, word for word. I was not happy with that, and I could not find any mechanism to change it from a verbatim readout to an AI-generated précis.

It then occurred to me that, months ago, when working with Google NotebookLM, as it was known until earlier in July, the month we are now closing out, when it became Gemini Notebook, you could paste the URL of a source into a notebook and then ask for an Audio Overview.

The Audio Overview

In its default state, the Audio Overview is a Deep Dive: an AI-generated discussion between two people, one with a male voice and one with a female voice, on the content of the source. It offers explanation and exposition of the material to give a considered and thoughtful review of, in this case, the blog I have posted as a source.

This follows a podcast format, and you have options for a short version or one of much longer duration, with further formats beyond the Deep Dive, namely Brief, Critique, or Debate. I have plumped for the mid-range Deep Dive, which can run anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes.

To my mind, this is a judicious use of time: long enough to explore a blog's topics exhaustively, yet the podcast rarely rambles into the inconsequential or the insignificant. A five-minute podcast, by contrast, would do little justice to much of what I write about.

These conversations come in the M4A audio file format, which I upload to the Internet Archive and then share via an inline frame tag at the bottom of the text of every blog written in 2026.

I think this brings a rich context to the blog beyond just reading the material. Some discussions extend the reach of the blog to topics not clearly covered, or to issues that need addressing in clearer detail than a blog can offer.

A Matter of Inclusion

There is another benefit I had not fully appreciated at the outset. These audio overviews open the blog to those who might otherwise be shut out of it: readers with visual impairments, and those who find long passages of text a struggle.

They also serve the many who simply prefer to listen whilst commuting, walking, or going about their day. What began as an experiment in enrichment has quietly become a matter of inclusion, and I am glad the blog can now meet its audience in more than one way.

Weaving a Train of Thought

Beyond that, and this is still work in progress, I have taken links to blogs created in a monthly circle and asked for Audio Overviews that now weave an interesting train of thought. I have been surprised to see this, as each blog is usually written individually and separately, on its own subject, perspective, and merit.

I have put these out as much longer-form Deep Dive podcasts, published on a quarterly basis. I suppose the parameters for prompting in these situations require a bit more grounding and centring on the context of those blogs.

Occasionally, the Audio Overviews might misconstrue or misunderstand something; and while you can interact with a podcast, reproducing it, even on the same prompt, creates a uniquely different podcast.

That said, you have the option to put in clarifications and corrections until you are happy with the result. Some outputs are just too good to be discarded, the quality of the discussion outweighing the minor errors.

AI as a Useful Tool

My hope is that readers of my blogs can also become listeners to the podcasts, which serve as independent and usually objective reviewers of the material concerned, the blog being the core source of the podcast. As the author of these blogs, I have found the podcasts can untangle some awkward uses and styles of my writing. In this, I have found AI a most useful tool.

In the end, the same principle that has long governed my prose now governs my podcasts: long enough to cover the detail, short enough to keep the interest. The good seamstress, it seems, has taken up a new craft.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

A Spider Amongst the Saints

A Restless Weekend

The quest for sufficient sleep is one goal that defines my weekends; the pall of nocturnal insomnia hangs over my weekday nights and threatens my efficiency and productivity at work.

Just as I was considering a lie-in on Sunday, I had a date in mind a week hence, when I was scheduled to read the second lesson in church. Just to be sure, I checked the rota, and it was for today.

I have gained more confidence to read publicly, with my voice regaining some timbre for short periods of time.

A Fright by Email

However, it was another email that gave me the fright. We were being invited to a "Celebration of Gratitude", which read rather like a "Celebration of Life", a confusion between a demise and a departure; we were seeing off a lady who had a long-standing relationship with the church, as she moved to a home in Cumbria.

The sender, an Englishman, should have known better, having received a note from someone who speaks English as a foreign language, and obviously, once we read the content of the email, we were better informed.

After I had read the lesson, with a slight hiccup where I corrected myself, saying "through" instead of "though", the service progressed to the serving of communion.

The Uninvited Guest

Then a creepy-crawly came down the aisle, its body about a centimetre square and its legs at least seven centimetres each; a spider unlike any you see at home.

People attending church for the fear of God were soon gripped by arachnophobia.

A man of the cloth boldly lifted his feet off the floor and onto the seats, obviously not to harm the spider, or perhaps he was one of the ilk of Little Miss Muffet, who is famed for the eponymous nursery rhyme.

Calm Restored

Then a lady of the sterner kind, with the cojones that men pretend they possess, picked up the spider with a piece of tissue paper, dropped it, but scooped it up again and relocated it outside to the church gardens.

Calm and peace settled on that side of the congregation, as we deigned not to point fingers at the affrighted.

The celebration after the service was a generous buffet, with applause from us all, bidding her godspeed and new friendships at the home by the sea.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

It's bad speech winning over free speech

It’s a bad speech issue

There are so many facets to the free speech debate but one thing I am convinced about is there is no limitation to the freedom of speech. What has really happened from viewing the quality of speech of many people with platforms especially in the political arena is expression had given up finesse for crudeness.

One could attribute this to lassitude in many areas, especially in reading, the reading of the classics, of philosophy, poetry, ideas, stories, and the forms of debate that mine the seams of the richness of language that challenge our thinking or excite our humour.

Weak forms from lazy

For instance, the kind of language and expression that the American president uses might appeal to the broad masses and make him an adept communicator, however, apart from the cachet of his powerful office that attracts all sorts of patronage, there is little to inspire from his speeches that elevates the quality of conversation.

The excessive use of comparatives and superlatives reveals a standard of mental indolence poorly served by lack of reading material that allows a broadening of the discussion, giving some flow to how words interact to persuade, even speechwriters will struggle to give those lips the kind of conviction that matches both personality and position.

Even the art of oratory, which is the skilful and effective public speaking is being lost, there are presently very few leaders of the world that could attend the United Nations and command the world stage with the quality of expression that would yield quotes surviving headlines of the next day. The pulpit shakers with their training in homiletics and hermeneutics barely make the standard of this is worth listening to again.

Do more reading

My argument is if people were well read, they would always find the form of expression to convey whatever thoughts they have elegantly without being misunderstood.

Giving thought to what you have to say before you speak needs a resource of usages and misuses studied before. Then we have the matter of a rich vocabulary, from books, novels, journals, and magazines rather than from cramming a dictionary, because context always matters in the use of words.

Then again, one does not need an elite education, just some curiosity and inquisitiveness, a willingness to learn and explore, because that opens the world of expression that unleashes freedom of expression.

I posit the issue has never really been an attack on freedom speech in the UK, people have just forgotten how to say nicely the bad things they are thinking. In the process, they have been caught out and to that, I’ll say, more fool you, or get smarter.

The Bible to read, to hear, to see

My religion and spirituality

My spiritual journey through life has been exemplified in life-affirming and life-defining experiences from childhood that has ranged from terror to exhilaration, infirmity to wellness, adversity to prosperity, empowered by the force of hope, that helps the growth of faith and love. Another way to say this is I know a broad spectrum of the human experience from insufficiency to sufficiency in numerous facets of life.

Underpinning all this is my Christian beliefs and faith with foundations that bear the weight of what has become my story. Influenced by syncretic, African-initiated, Anglican, and Pentecostal inclinations, the former two are more by inducement when I had little agency, the third represents the faith of my fathers, whilst the last is one of determination and choice that has a history of almost four decades.

All this against and in accommodation with my sexuality presents an opportunity rather than a challenge that has been profitable to my health and well-being in spirit, soul, and body. I would be the first to say, for the trauma and experiences that have pitted sexuality against religion, some have been wounded, damaged, ostracised, or worse. My disposition leans more towards the pragmatic than the dogmatic.

For the reading and hearing

For my Bible Study, I once had many hardcover bibles before I found the ease of running multiple versions and translations on my PC, and then on all devices, laptops, tablets, and phones included. My preferred Bible Study tool is the e-Sword with an interface that accommodates, bibles [70 world languages (mostly free), 45 free English versions & 20 premium English versions]  commentaries [a few world languages, 35 free English & 23 premium English], and dictionaries [16 free English & 3 premium English].

Online, you can go for Bible Gateway or Bible Hub which is essentially free, both of which also sport versions and languages. Another bonus with e-Sword is that it has a built-in audio playback for the baseline King James Version (KJV), whilst other audio versions can be downloaded free or purchased from another website. The product licences are lifetime perpetual licenses, as I have products, I bought 15 years ago that are still valid as long as you can remember the email address you used for purchasing the associated modules.

I do have the propensity to use more audio content nowadays, I even remember having the gospels in audio playing back and I had the immersive experience of thinking I was just around the corner from where I was. Indeed, reading and meditating on scripture is a wholesome activity, however, I note that “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Rom 10:17 KJV)

From seeing to believing better

There is the added value of an audio-visual experience, for instance, to get a good idea of how Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross in a modern and relatable way, The Passion of the Christ (2004) film was a very good depiction, as it made the words jump off the pages to present a palpable revelation of what the crucifixion entailed.

Obviously, I have seen many gospel dramas from chronological scripts to subject matter indicative plays, usually tightly aligned to the text and not essentially helping with a deeper understanding of the gospel. They are useful and there are many such on Amazon Prime, but I have always thought the subject could be tackled better.

Into Samaria for a good drink

Then, yesterday evening as I was scrolling through Facebook, I came upon a short trailer that dealt with Jesus meeting with the woman at the well in Samaria, as narrated in the Gospel according to St John 4:1-41. After the conversation, the woman returned to her city to announce that the man she had just met told her everything she had ever done, the passage only has where Jesus said she had had 5 husbands and the one she was with was not her husband.

What I saw took an artistic licence and made it a relatable human story broadening the context to show how she could not obtain a divorce from her last marriage, why she was alone at the well and made an attempt at naming her first two husbands with the experiences that greeted those marriages. Together, you gained a better understanding of what then seemed like gospel in precis.

More to netting fish

I soon found out that it was The Chosen (TV series) taking aspects of the gospel narrative with Jesus Christ at the centre along with backstories and contextualisation, in the third series and available on YouTube, Angel Studios app (downloadable to tablet, mobile, or SMART TV), Amazon Prime, NetFlix, and other streaming services, for free with frequent nagging screens to pay it forward.

When I began watching the episodes, and this can be a spoiler, the backstory to when Jesus stepped on Simon’s boat to preach to the crowds on the shore, before asking him to launch the nets into the deep that all the boats were fully laden with fish and then he asked the fishermen to follow him suggested Simon was heavily indebted to the taxman with the risk of losing both his home and his boat.

In desperation and frustration he was in league with the Romans to shop poachers fishing during the Sabbath, then the whole night we went fishing, joined with other fishermen and caught no fish all night. The incredulity of a stranger asking him to cast his net in the daytime from his experience of fishing was daunting, then having caught the fish, Zebedee who lost his two sons to discipleship was not left bereft.

Zebedee sold off the fish to pay off all their debts and would have had enough to hire extra hands. That detail was not present in the gospel.

Choose The Chosen

The Chosen fleshes out the narrative and I think it redounds to understanding the gospel better. Yes, there were many times I cried in sympathy and was touched by how the gospel came to life. Luke 5:1-11 (NIV)

In my view, e-Sword and The Chosen come highly recommended, there might just be that revelation that blows your mind. 

I have been blogging for 13 years

The same story told again

Thirteen years ago, I wrote my very first blog from a hotel room in Berlin. It was not my first foray into writing, though throughout my primary school days, I was much more of a reader and talker than I was a writer.

In secondary school, in my third year, a junior friend came to me about establishing a press club, we started it together and then, I somewhat got bored and left. My friend later became a journalist.

However, I had already started writing anonymous letters to the school authorities about atrocities committed in the boarding house, in most cases, I revealed my identity, but the culprits were dealt with. I did however, get caught once because my unique style of writing betrayed me to some rascally seniors who I had called punks because of their behaviour.

The salvation in expression

For some reason, I was threatened but never beaten up, I guess they realised I had a superior manner of stating my case in writing that they would get away with nothing. Yes, my writing at play and at work has gotten me out of sticky situations, for well over a generation.

Later, after secondary school, I wrote under the pen name of ‘Who Else’ using a marker pen on A2 sheets and nailed my script to boards at the entrance of the dining room, but after that for years, I never really found an outlet for expression until the medium of blogging became one.

In some years, I have been prolific and in others quite lazy, it saddens me that 2016 might become one of the years in which I wrote less than a hundred blogs. It is not for the want of having something to say, I guess I have been lethargic, restless and bereaved, but the spirit has always been there.

More outlets for thoughts

The blog has not been my only channel of expression, I have Twitter and Facebook forums where the snippet or the comment can just be as profound as the treatise.

My first blog, A cliché too many - Introduction! did broadly set out my aims and goals for blogging, I do not think I have deviated much from that apart from being probably less of a libertarian than I once was, certain elements of personal experience and affliction can teach you some very human lessons.

One is the need to communicate, that is important; because you have to take cognisance of your audience; the other is the need to express the richness of the language.

I celebrate, nevertheless

I doubt if I would be able to repeat the feat of having 35 people write a blog to be published on my blog when I celebrated a decade of blogging, #YourBlogOnMyBlog - A Decade Blogs Backstory.

Every anniversary, I seem to have a commemorative story which is hardly dissimilar to the one I wrote the year before, what I lack in originality for this day, I hope I make up for in still being here when many have come and gone.

I will probably have to call out all those who abandoned their blogs after a period of creative output I do not believe has deserted those fantastic writers, you know who you are.

I hope for and look forward to many more opportunities to celebrate this day, even as I grow more aware of my many human limitations.

Thank you!

Thank you to all of you who have visited my blog, enjoyed my posts, left comments and encouraged me through the pleasant and tough times, I am full of gratitude and thankfulness. May the stories in our blogs of life and experience never cease to interest, arrest, protest and address matters that matter to the one and the many.

I say again, everyone has a story and so has a blog in them, getting writing your story in your own style and voice.

My anniversary blogs

2015 - Celebrating 12 Years of Blogging

2014 - 11 Years of Blogging - The purist is dead, long live the pedant

2013 - How I started blogging 10 years ago - On my decade of blogging

2012 - 9 years of blogging but I forgot

2011 - 8 Years from the First Blog

2010 - Imagine having blogged for 7 years

2009 - 6 Hurrahs to Blogging

2008 - Five years of blogging - Remember the children

2007 - 4 years of blogging - Thanks!

How I started blogging 10 years ago - On my decade of blogging

I hated writing

When I was in primary school, I was a voracious reader but I hated writing, it felt like a tortuous exercise as bad as my visit to the dentist when drills were like pneumatic hammers, to fix the badly chipped teeth I acquired as a result of misadventure.

Blog - Childhood: Defanged by Misadventure

I remember the first serious essay I wrote was about our class 4 excursion to the National Veterinary Research Institute at Vom, it was interminable with minutiae that left the teacher flustered; it was down to the detail of flies on the hides of sows in the piggery, I had recorded a film in words.

When it came to examinations, my dislike for writing was most evident, I wrote the shortest answers, used the least amount of paper, and I was out of the examination hall just a little over half the allotted time for the examination.

It grew on me

It was later in secondary school that first, a writing competition where I won the second prize and the interest in forming a press club kindled seeing the value of expressing my thoughts in writing beyond the articulacy of my speech.

However, I did not do much writing; I did more song writing and eventually gave my album of about 30 songs freely to a group that believed they were going somewhere, because I simply had no need for the material again.

I was up to lots of mischief in from late secondary school into my political polytechnic days, writing under the pseudonyms of Philip Bucknor of the Bucknor & Bucknor Chambers of Inquiry along with my partner Larry Bucknor and Who Else later on.

Bad investigations got many others in trouble as we railed against abuse, everywhere we were with threat and much else to call people to order, though once I was on the verge of getting a very serious beating but I was spared.

Finding a platform

About 11 years ago, I used emails to friends to write about my life and many other issues with a religious slant; it probably ended up in their junk mail boxes as each day brought my nuisance to them; it was not sophisticated at all.

Then on a long weekend holiday to Berlin, having heard about the new phenomenon of blogging over the previous months, I found a little hosting company in Scotland called Blog-City and I penned my first blog on the 8^th of December 2003.

Blog - A cliché too many - Introduction!

Blog-City is now defunct, but it was a labour of love moving almost 1,500 blogs to its current location at http://akinblog.nl.

Blog - Brick by heavy brick

Thanks

Ten years down the line with over 2,200 blogs of stories, opinions, tales and silliness, I find I have a body of amazing work that I can be very proud of.

And so goes the tale of how I got into writing and how it has become a way of life, of expression, a form of therapy and a joy of fulfilment. Yet, as I write, I know there are many more stories seeking the right level of inspiration and drive to be written – a book, they say, I must write, eventually.

I express my deepest gratitude to the many readers, browsers, commenters and sharers who have come to my blog and found something to interest, inform, annoy or infuriate them – I would not have it any other way.

To the next decade of useful writing, let the fun begin.

Through the years

Blog - 9 years of blogging but I forgot

Blog - 8 Years from the First Blog

Blog - Imagine having blogged for 7 years

Blog - 6 Hurrahs to Blogging

Blog - Five years of blogging - Remember the children

Blog - 4 years of blogging - Thanks!

Blog - Read My Blog Themes

Blogging: Facing the shame of my bad writing

As an experiment, I am counting the number of times I edit this blog after I first clicked the Publish button: 6

I am still learning to write

I have to admit I have a problem too many ideas course through my active mind and with that the desire to tap at my keyboard and produce a blog. I have been doing this for a long time; I am in my tenth year of blogging.

When I first started blogging, I passed my copy through a grammar and writing style checker to ascertain the readability of what I have written and found that it consistently registered too high on the scale for it to cater to a broad reading audience.

Checking grammar and readability

The grammar checker became a moderating influence as I tried to make my thoughts easier to access and thus easier to read. Shorter paragraphs, shorter sentences, and sentences I could read back to myself without pausing to understand why I wrote that way, captioning and much else came into my writing.

Still, I end up doing a poor job of it; the ideas are generally sound but riddled with errors. These errors are rarely of the spelling kind but of the grammatical context, writing style and readability kind.

The strange thing is I have not been able to bring the kind of rigour I give to business writing to blogging as if it is a mind-set thing and hence my problem compounded.

I can return

I find safety and refuge in my blog, I am able to constantly review, edit, correct, rephrase, and refine what I have written without the need for an intermediary, because it is my space.

I carry my shame constantly reminded that though my mother tongue is English and I pride myself in the ability to express myself excellently, I am still a very bad writer.

Inspiration and review

What I have noticed with my writing is that the flow of inspiration is quite different from context of review. Somehow, I have found that if I lose the first draft of anything I have written I am usually unable to recreate that flow of inspiration again.

I do feel that loss deeply and that is why I prefer to create my blogs on an offline editor, because each time I have done it on an online editor, I have lost everything. This happened only a few days ago – I have not been able to reproduce that inspirational burst since then.

Mind apart

I say to people, when I have my fingers to the keyboard, I am like a man possessed; my fingers trying to keep up with the torrent of phraseology churning in my mind, much of which is fully formed in my mind but my fingers rarely keeping up with it.

My senses then fail to spot what I have left out; between what I was thinking and what I eventually wrote; my sight deceived into thinking they are the same.

Reading to my hearing

At one time, I took to reading my draft blogs out to myself as an editing process; I still do that for my most important pieces. Nevertheless, I am quite impatient because my newly crafted blog feels like bread just taken out of the oven, the aroma, the warmth, the softness and everything that makes freshly baked bread enraptures you, you want some of it, there and then.

Therefore, you finish the blog, give it a scant review, annotate it, caption it, format it and publish it, satisfied that the job is done. Hours, days, weeks, months or even years later, you go back to read that blog and palm to face embarrassment – Did I really write that?

In the heat of the moment, I did, but because it is my blog, I can review, edit, correct, update and constantly do that for the lifetime of the blog – a blog is never finished – it is a living document and that is because, I am really a bad writer.

Readability Statistics

I enabled the grammar and style checker for this blog, but it was not used for this section of the blog. Between the first attempt at writing this blog, and what you can read now, I improved on the readability but lost some of the literary and artistic license I take in how I write. I guess that is what really makes me a bad writer.

The Readability Statistics of my very first draft 

The Readability Statistics after 20 minutes of editing the first draft.

 

I think there is much room for improvement.

Thought Picnic: The Questions That Challenge My Writing

Must I?

The urge to write but the absence of drive to type in the words that occupy my thoughts in waves of angst and debate sometimes haunts me.

As if there is an agenda and a deadline to meet, I find myself counting the days since I last put something on my blog realising it is not really the absence of things to write about but some involuntary decision to leave some issues to incubate to hatch into something more engrossing or when the whole idea seems incomplete, it is not ready for sharing.

It does?

Meanwhile, when I do get to post a tweet or two on Twitter, some of those thoughts attaching themselves to some personality, event or idea finds expression which could well trigger some debate and in that one does get some fulfilment.

However, the blog still remains in my view the compendium of thought, allowing acuity, application and purpose, ensuring the complete train of thought is properly given the rigour it deserves.

He was?

Having attended a book launch on Saturday or better still a launch of books that featured Nkem Ivara’s Closer Than A Brother [On Kindle] and Victor Ehikhamenor’s Excuse Me! [In Paperback and On Kindle] along with recitals by poets I only just learnt of at the meeting, Inua Ellams & Afam Akeh, I almost fancied myself a writer until I realised I am probably not as cut out for that level of genius that gives words the ability to excite spontaneous laughter and deep thought – blogs will suffice.

Interestingly, amongst the writers was a man whose mellifluously caustic and acerbic wit in his review of many books is worthy of a Pulitzer and much else – he says he is a reader, but there are many who want to read his opinions of many issues so whilst he reads, he must by all means write too. We know him as Pa Ikhide on Twitter and this is where he blogs.

And them?

By the time I knew what was going on, I was meeting @chemelumadu, @ChikaUnigwe, @RGAMeyer, @ChiomaChuka, @IkeAnya who was the compère, my cousin, then some names that had to get away for another event were in the audience apart from some Nigerian High Commission bigwigs who later joined us to make a table of 16 at a Thai restaurant afterwards.

As the life form of blogs go, I have gone from the lethargy of writing to name-dropping and thoughts of other blogs I could write about so many things that happened from the week past until today, but we’ll end here – the keyboard has a way of tapping into my subconscious and that’s me back in flow.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Restricted to time zones

I list travel as one of my hobbies, and surely, I do enjoy travelling. For a while, I was so scared of flying, considering I have been in planes a good few hundred times since I was 4.

I confess I have not travelled out of 4 time zones in total, but those zones encompass the whole of Western and Central Europe bordering on Eastern Europe and the whole wide and diverse continent of Mother Africa.

The nearest I have been to Africa in about 16 years is the Canary Islands and that itself was an experience, for a long time I had not seen palm trees grow out of the ground, then colourful lizards, one of which had a forked tail, though I never got to take a decent picture of that seemingly baby dragon.

I am no longer scared of flying; at least I believe the pilot and crew just want to get back home, as much as I do.

Why should I trust train drivers any better, even though you can easily find me in a private First Class compartment embarking on a 6 hour journey with all the comfort I can muster.

Travel and destination

My travel is just as important as my destination, so spare no expense. I am European as I might be. I am no backpacking hippie doing a 6-month jaunt to Goa. Just not my style.

One thing about train travel is that it offers a kind of privacy away from the mundane environment of routine home comforts, one can also get some work done.

Beyond that, it is the new experiences that affect me most. For years, I had semi-skimmed milk with my cornflakes till I had breakfast in Prague with whole milk - the bouquet, the taste, the wonder of things unadulterated - I never went back to that tasteless half-milk stuff, it only contains 2% less fat than the real deal.

I remember the Israelites were promised a land flowing with milk and honey - there was nothing half about it. So also, I would rather go without than substitute margarine for good old Danish butter.

Read and enjoy

This time, on my way to Berlin, I had to stop over in Hannover where I found a 24-hour newsagent. I thought I would read something different, so I picked up the Spectator.

I was almost an embarrassment on the train, as I guffawed, smirked, smiled and laughed; the writing is brilliant, comical, stylistic and yet addresses serious topics in an easily accessible tone. If you find yourself agreeing to disagree, you are not at a point of throwing the magazine in the next available bin.

Another travel titbit for me. As I remember JFK when he visited Berlin, a Berliner is hardly a resident of Berlin but a sugared doughnut.