Geoff Nicholson, Blog Entry 11/26:

In writing the book there was never any problem finding enough information about walking and walkers. The problem was always more about what to leave out than what to include. I'm happy to stand by the decisions I made. But every now and then I find a new snippet of information and I'm disappointed that it's too late to include it in the book.

For instance I just saw an interview with Richard Branson, in Parade magazine. They asked, "Are Americans too afraid of taking risks?" And Branson replied, "People do need to be a bit braver. When I was 4 years old, my mother dropped me out of the car to walk three miles to my grandmother's house-to find my own way." Wha?

I would love to have been a fly on the wall of granny's house when young Richard walked in the door: I'm assuming he did walk in the door, though the interview doesn't actually say so. I wonder what kind of celebrations they had.

My other recent discovery, on just reading Bran Stoker's "Dracula" - for the first time I'm ashamed to admit - is that an awful lot of trouble starts because Lucy Westenra, who is quite the sexy minx, goes sleep walking, that's when Dracula gets her, bites her in the neck and turns her into one of his vampires. A lesson learned there.

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Geoff Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking, Pedestrianism, Riverhead, Penguin Books