I was told by a restaurant critic that a sure way of increasing visits to a website is to mention Gordon Ramsay. Hence today's title. I'll let you know if it works.

My career has been blessed by the colleagues I have worked with and for. Perhaps one of the most important times was in the eighties working at Oxford University Press in various roles with Robin Denniston as my boss. He is the son of Alastair Denniston who was a key figure in British intelligence during the war and has recently published a biography of his father entitled Thirty Secret Years which I wrote about a little while ago. Robin has also published some fascinating extracts from his childhood diaries in the Daily Telegraph. Robin is in the middle of the front row.

Now, for publishing historians and current and former Macmillan employees this link opens up a treasury of nostalgia. The team working in the Macmillan Archive in Basingstoke, with the help of Macmillan India, have digitised all back issues of Macmillan News (the Charkinblog of its time?) and these are now searchable and deliverable as pdfs. Random browsing throws up gems even for non-Macmillan people. Give it a try. I wish OUP would digitise and make available Robin Denniston's (see above) newsletter from the olden days.

I'm off to Johannesburg tomorrow if I can find a way to Heathrow through the Chelsea and Arsenal fans (witnessing what might be the decider for the soccer premiership title) who will be blocking the streets near my home at just the time I need to leave. A few weeks ago I wrote that Macmillan South Africa was participating fully in black empowerment. We have now announced an imaginative scheme to establish a virtual training campus for South African teachers. I have been sent photos of the launch event. Most of them are very high-quality shots of the distinguished speakers but I thought this picture more entertainingly sums up the spirit of modern South Africa.