Dear Spotify,

Re your Mikado advertisement

there is no such word as 'mischeevious'.

Please tell your voice-over chap to get a grip on himself.

Yours, &c.

Favourite footnotes: 7

This was written in response to a request from BBC Radio for a new poem. It has not been broadcast.

- Wendy Cope, 'The Poet's Song' (a poem about the second-rate poetry you hear commissioned for the radio), in Serious Concerns

Jarvis reads The Moomins

A new tune: one part expectation, two parts Spring sadness.

- Tove Jansson on the great delight of walking alone, and liking it

Books I've actually finished lately: 51

Men went to Catterick with the dawn,
Their ardours shortened their lives.

- Y Gododdin, c. 7th century

Note to poets/song-writers

Avoid using brand names in your verses (and/or choruses).

It dates them - in both senses - in the worst cases to before the time of their release.

To wit:

Filmstar, an elegant sir in a Terylene shirt...

- Suede, 'Filmstar'

and some song I heard on Radio1 this morning that referred to 'American Apparel underwear'... (the first 16 words of which were 'hey').

Utter bollocks

SIMON GARFIELD: I'm not one for writing my emotions down in e-mails, partly because I think it's odd writing on a keyboard, y'know, how much you love someone... I think you still want to send love-letters - that's the reason we don't send condolence e-mails...
CLAIRE ARMITSTEAD: But Hemingway was writing on a typewriter; he didn't write in handwriting.
SIMON GARFIELD: Oh, yeah, but it's still that human connection.

- theguardianpodcasts

The Isherwood section is worse.

Five essays on Sebald

to be found starting here, on BBC iPlayer.