Web Monitor
16:10 UK time, Monday, 1 February 2010
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Today in Web Monitor: wasted youth, Stephen Fry's failed hiatus and what happens when the restaurant critic eats on the High Street.
• In an interview where he reveals his least favourite author, younger writers as a waste of time:
"But it's a fantastically uneconomical way of reading, to read your youngers. No-one knows if they are any good. Only time knows that."
It turns out he cringes at his own early work, which was, Web Monitor understands, much-feted at the time:
"I tried to read The Rachel Papers [Amis's first novel] recently, to reacquaint myself with what it is like to be 20 or 19, and I couldn't read it. I knew it quite well so I knew all the good bits, the not bad bits, but as a structure and as a... the craft is pitiful."
• with his self-imposed microblogging hiatus. He promised to take a Twitter holiday to work on his memoirs, since when he has tweeted over 40 times. Most recently, promising he is just "popping up again quickly", he is pointing his followers to concerning the government's file-sharing plans.
• Most restaurant reviewers visit places where Web Monitor wouldn't be able to afford the starters. around fast food outlets. He is unsurprisingly downbeat about most, but the Japanese noodle chain Wagamamas almost gets a compliment. Mr Self seems perturbed at his near-magnanimity:
"Sometimes I think my ideal meal out is being served a slice of white bread by an aggressive anaesthetist in an operating theatre."
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