Calon

I am taking a break from William Dalyrmple's Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan to read Owen Sheers' Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby as I am still walking on air since we won the Six Nations again.

Sheers was the 2012 WRU Artist in Residence (an unlikely but wonderful title). Calon documents a year spent at the heart of Welsh rugby; it is the inside story of a campaign that galvanised a nation and ended in Grand Slam success for the third time in 8 years, and I am in favour of it.

I will return to the Dalrymple; I have read every book he has ever published. I went to see him promoting White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in 18th-century India years ago and he endeared himself to me by giving his talk while drinking a pint and munching a packet of crisps despite having the poshest voice in the entire history of the world.

I also saw Owen Sheers at the very same event on the very same evening reading from The Dust Diaries his prose debut.

Spookiness abounds eh?