Donald Clarke

• Computing Deaths Way off topic
• April 27, 2010, 16:15

  Ed Roberts, one of many people who could reasonably claim to have invented the PC, died at the start of the month, but news has only just reached Screenwriter Towers. Thirty-five years ago he marketed a kit for a …

• Way off topic
• February 16, 2010, 23:57

Excuse us another jaunt off-topic, but I have to recommend Mark Lawson’s new radio series on post-war American writers. It’s on BBC Radio 4 and it’s called — you’ve guessed it — Capturing America: Mark Lawson’s History of American Literature. …

• Television Way off topic
• December 21, 2009, 23:09

Armando Iannucci used to do an excellent routine in which — remembering his childhood — he’d impersonate a BBC continuity announcer detailing the array of delights set to be broadcast that evening. I can’t remember the exact details, but I …

• Rock 'n' pop. Way off topic
• November 24, 2009, 23:17

Have I got your attention? I’m fairly sure I believe this. I’m less sure I believe that the Shoppies version of Always on My Mind is better than the Pogues’ Fairy Tale of New York, but, nonetheless, it is a …

• Way off topic
• November 4, 2009, 19:02

Look, I just wanted to start a debate about the Sudetenland. I just want to start a debate about the disingenuous use of the phrase “I just want to start a debate”. I don’t know when this happened, but, at …