The Babu has made a career out of doing a lot of nothing, but this week the sordid business of earning a living threatens to catch up with him. New posts will be thin on the ground until Thursday, when the Babu intends to resume his habitual slothfulness and will resume blogging in the fashion of the punkahwallas of yore with one toe doing the mousework while he lolls around. His apologies--in the interim, he recommends new fiction by William Boyd, carried in The Guardian.