For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…