Ah, Michael - a confession from me...

I spent four years living in Sudbury Hill, just off Harrow-on-the-Hill in North West London, while working in Broadcasting House. So my daily commute in those days was (a) walk down Greenford Road to Sudbury Hill tube station (b) Piccadilly Line to Green Park (c) Victoria Line to Oxford Circus (d) walk up Regent Street to the Beeb.

I set myself the (un)enviable task of reading the whole of "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" in the original French - just to pass the time - and succeeded in completing it before we left London for Brighton in 1976. Was it seven volumes... can't remember. But I recall constantly thumbing through my pocket French-English dictionary on the tube train!

How's that for masochism? I certainly can see why many people give up at "Swann's Way".

Why did I do it? Because it was there.