So, it happened! I had it spot on. I said it wouldn't go the distance, I said it would end before the ninth round, I said there would be a knockout in rounds 6 -9. So all good there then. However, I picked the wrong fighter! The undercard lived up to all its hype. All the british guys fought and won well. At 22.00 the main event started. Groves came in to a fan fare of a tune I'd never heard before. But it was pumping and so was the stadium...

Searching for Sugar Man BBC 4 9pm, director Malik Bendjelloul (R.I.P.) This is one of those programmes that make you believe in Jesus. Jesus Rodriguez that is. He was a 1970s guitar playing, singer that wrote his own songs and was described by record producer as ‘way beyond a musical artist’ and above Bob Dylan. He brought out two albums in the early seventies. Both didn’t do as well at the producers hoped. His record company let him go and...

Writing a novel: it can feel like tackling an old jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing, or building a spider-web backwards, with an eye to making yourself the biggest knot possible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rwm3r I never miss the Champions League Final. I never miss Wallander. When the whistle blew I didn’t know what to do. I decided to be a man and get drunk and boo the telly and watch the fitba. Later, in recrimination at missing the Wallander episode of ‘Missing’ I watched it on catch-up. I’m at that age now when I can say I love Wallander. He’s the kind of detective that gets drunk and leaves his gun in the...

Less than a week to go till Froch / Groves 2. I was there in Manchester for the first one and I’ll be at Wembley on Saturday for the re-match. To say I’m looking forward to it would be a massive under-statement! The hype is beginning to build. Every night this week there will a “behind the scenes” programme on Sky helping to increase the tension. Sky expect this to be their biggest pay per view boxing event EVER. It seems cheap to me at £17. I...

We were searchers. I grew from primary playground certainties and the landmarks of World Cup victory, Buzz Aldrin first man on the moon and Sandie Shaw winning for England with Puppet on a String. Then followed the paralysis of adolescent social withdrawal. At 15 I only felt human and accepted in my Saturday job at Clark's bakery, away from pressures of home and school. Then what? Looking back the era seems rougher, more violent than today. At...

The Champions League final is always a disappointment and this was no exception. Much was made of Atletico Madrid losing the final to Bayern Munich, after a reply, forty years ago. Little was said about how they cynically hacked and butchered Celtic’s Quality Street Kids and took turns booting Jimmy Johnstone up in the air at Celtic Park to help qualify for that final. Watch it on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDElMvVdOK4 . That’s...

The Quiet Government Men. Chris Cauwood 98,000 words 300pp Taylor, member of a failed disaster team, flees the rising sea flooding a panic stricken England. Hurricanes, a super storm christened Noah, cause huge disruption and destruction. He is rescued and recruited by a mysterious organisation, ESO, the so-called Earth Survival Organisation. ESO is prepared, has been preparing for years, and moves in to oversee the rescue and recovery. Taylor...

This week I thought I’d share an addictive little competition being hosted by The César Egido Serrano Foundation. The Spanish Museum of Words is offering 20,000$ to the best 100 word story on any subject. The best part is there’s no fee to enter – so if you took a cue from last week and have been practicing writing cell phone novels, this should be no problem. Have a look and give it a shot! I also stumbled upon the British Library’s new online...

For me the gold standard of war novels remains All Quiet on the Western Front . We are the first generation not to be involved in a World War (if you exclude global warming, a war we’ve already lost). Klay reminds us the job of soldiers, in Iraq and Afghanistan, is to kill people. He gets inside the character’s heads. That everything in Iraq is fucked up is given. That the infantrymen (and is largely working-class men) doing the fucking up are...