The other day I passed Button Snap cottage, former home of Charles Lamb. It was a glorious Summer day and I’d taken the afternoon off to go for a proper long walk out into the countryside. Outside the cottage is a relief (a kind of cameo in an oval, about three feet high) of the early 19th century essayist, together with a little sign telling the world who this sensitive, slightly dandyish figure was. (He was a pal of, and rather overshadowed by, Wordsworth, Coleridge and

Much of life is about doing quite mundane, sometimes repetitious things well enough. This seems an inescapable truth. Yet a life full to the brim of such things would seem appallingly unfulfilled. We need passion, excitement, intensity, excellence, difference too. I’m intrigued by how people fail to balance these things (and, to be honest, how I have failed to achieve this balance in the past). I look back and see individuals hurl themselves off the deep end. One danger

Rayna has this belief that everyone has the chance to do great things, but many people miss it. As a writer, I find this a fascinating thought. And as a human being, a very attractive one. I don’t mean everyone has the chance to be Prime Minister or win an Olympic gold medal. Greatness can be totally hidden – someone is tempted to do a bad thing, but resists. Or it can appear minor, just the chance to do something kind. This might still change someone's life. Or, over ti

Returning there (to play Pokémon Go with my daughter!), I find myself captivated by its spirit. This is what I’d say to someone arriving there to study: Be the very best you can be. Find a passion and excel at it. It doesn’t matter how obscure, just throw yourself into it and master it, become the world’s leading expert on it if you can and if it delights you enough. And do so with total pride. Don’t let anyone put you off, by laughter, by puritanism, by inverted snobbery (