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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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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