There are no castles in Tooting Bec.

I suppose the most substantial building in my nano-quarter of the universe is St Anselm’s Church. Twice daily, its bells ring out the Angelus and give me an informal time-check. I like this. I can shut my eyes and pretend to be in Italy, and it beats the pips on Radio 4 every time. The bells are heard better from the garden than from the street, where so often the traffic drowns them out.

One of the great scholars of his time, Anselm was abbot of Bec, and after the Norman Conquest the Abbey was given the land around Totinges, as Tooting is listed in the Domesday Book. Like Lanfranc before him, Anselm made the cross-channel journey from Bec to Canterbury, and succeeded him as Archbishop in 1093. I don’t know if any miracles were worked through him, but seventy years later Thomas à Becket proposed Anselm for canonization.

Back to The Castle

Enough local history for now. A long time ago, before I became a geezer, I read or misread Kafka like many young men. And probably I identified with Gregor Samsa or Joseph K in some bitter and twisted way. But as I get older, even though I’ve long forgotten the details of the book, it’s the spirit or shadow of The Castle that endures. When they were younger, I suspected that spirit was working through my kids: “[so-and-so] is in The Castle” became shorthand for feeling utterly helpless against the power of illogic, ‘left-fieldness’ and the remorseless, invincible unreason that children are so good at. Lately – in a more classical, Kafkaesque way – I’ve seen the summer evening shadow of The Castle’s battlements make plans for future work less clear. And speaking of work …

I still haven’t read all my stories yet

Because I had other stuff to do, honest. And it’s the school holidays. I’m reading all our ‘New Writing’ submissions on Kindle. Aside from the obvious advantages – portability, not having to print them out or stare at my laptop all day – I hope it will make me a gentler, fairer reader. Since all stories will look the same, I will no longer throw a script across the room enraged by its reader-hostile spacing and text width or passive-aggressive typeface, missing, who knows, a hidden gem in the process. Nor will I be briefly seduced by a story simply because it is laid out with Faber-like authority. What Kindle won’t do is a) read them for me and b) make judgments. Because our submissions come from good sources, there’s a general level of competence which means few stories are weeded out in the first pass: there are no demented ramblings from a confused Satanist in Milton Keynes or archaic prose from a retired colonel in Winchelsea to put aside quickly and quietly. So what do I look for? I only know when I’ve found it. And when I’ve found it, I know. There isn’t a eureka moment, just a sensation of deep peace as I read, possibly tinged with relief. In the end, it’s about finding stories we like and believe we can bring to life on the airwaves. And about voice: the feeling that the story we’re reading or listening to could only be written by this person, warts and all.

This last bit is about cricket

But even here the shadow of The Castle is lengthening across the square. For a number of years now I’ve managed my son’s cricket team. This summer they’ve moved on from junior cricket into the adult game, but there’s one last competition left for us to regroup and challenge for. We’ve progressed serenely through the early rounds, mostly because of a tactical innovation called not playing. Not playing cricket still involves picking a team, planning strategies and batting orders, and the groundsman still prepares a pitch. But on the day of the game your opponents call to say they can’t get a team together and you stand your team down and apologise to the groundsman for his wasted efforts. Then you report the ‘result’ to the organisers, who inform you who you are drawn to play or not play against in the next round. Because of the need to finish the competition before September, no-one is unduly concerned that your progress has been less than triumphant. What matters is the remorseless completion of the cup draw. Playing cricket is but one means to this end – others include the tossing of a coin or, for all I know, playing the opposition coach at bar billiards. I stress that my lads are very good players, and more than capable of getting this far by conventional means. And next week, we will definitely take the field …

Unless it rains. I’m off to find my copy of The Castle now and put it in my kitbag.