Mr Nobody, a creation of the peerless Roger Hargreaves, is to return to print in a new adventure in which he will meet Mr Happy. Here he is in the original story of 1985:

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you must go and buy these books immediately. They are wonderful.

Although Roger Hargreaves died in 1988, his son Adam, also an illustrator, recently discovered Mr Nobody in his father’s archives and is bringing out a new story at the beginning of March.

In the original story, Mr Nobody was described as ‘somebody who sort of was, but wasn’t!’, and was unable to remember where he was from, who he is, or what he should be doing. Hopefully Mr Happy will help him out. I’ve very excited.

I like reading diaries and letters, especially those of people that I think have had influential or amusing lives — Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man is a well-thumbed favourite of mine, to name just one. Part of the thrill for me has always been the sense of privacy a diary or a letter has; it wasn’t written with a reader in mind.

(Incidentally, I found this image on Compfight. Can’t recommend that search engine highly enough).

I always thought you had to actually buy a book to get your hands on this kind of thing, but no. There are now a number of famous diaries available in blog format (mostly facilitated by Project Gutenberg) which have been cunningly set up so that you can read the entries day by day as accurately as the modern calendar allows.

The Diary Junction blog has to be the first port of call for any diary enthusiast. They post intermittently on the musings of individuals as disparate as Neville Chamberlain and John Lennon and Linda McCartney. It makes for interesting reading, especially for those who are fed up of being credit crunched from every angle as soon as they boot up of a morning.

You can find a more comprehensive listing of historical diaries elsewhere, but I thought I’d highlight a couple of my favourites here.

Topping the chart has to be Samuel Pepys. Not only is he one of the most entertaining diarists of all time, but Phil Gyford, who runs the site has put a great deal of thought into it, including an archive, a search facility and a series of articles on the issues raised by Pepys’ entries.

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This letter of complaint, sent to Richard Branson by a Virgin Atlantic customer, has made me laugh today.

The traveller in question was so appalled by the inflight food and entertainment provided for him, he chose to complain to the boss.

What is so endearingly hilarious about this is that he doesn’t just pour hate upon Branson (as many would in his place). Rather, he appeals to him as an equal, addressing by his first name and claiming to be a big fan of the Virgin brand, despite his awful ordeal.

I particularly liked the way he took the trouble to illustrate his complaint with various pictures he presumably took on his phone. These two are my favourite:

He called this one the ‘crime-scene cookie’, and commented that

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast.

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Winnie-the-Pooh, bear, savant, hero of this blog, is to return in an ‘authorised’ sequel to the original A. A. Milne stories.

It will be written by David Benedictus, illustrated by Mark Burgess, and published on the 5th October this year.

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