I instruct all of you to go and buy the September issue of the Literary Review. Already the finest periodical for bibliomanes everywhere, it has, this month, chosen to improve its standing yet further by printing my review of Graham McCann's new Terry-Thomas biography Bounder and Mark Simpson's book about Alastair Sim.

I'm having to choose my words very carefully here, but in the cases of the two seaside piers that have 'gone on fire' in the last few weeks, is the fact that they both changed hands recently significant in any way?