"The e-less text lets endless glee meet dejectedness." You can find literary criticism both lipogrammatic and univocalic in this glorious Oulipolian celebration of Georges Perec – one of several good links recently at ReadySteadyBook.

• On Facebook, the grammar police are fighting it out with the grammar police police.

• Is The Ugly American still relevant? You might start by asking how many people remember not only that it's a novel, but that the actual ugly bloke is the hero.

• There are now Kindle clones. That's success for you.

• Meanwhile, Scott Pack, sated with free biros, is moving on to bigger game. The classic story on this particular path of temptation, told in Hugh Cudlipp's Publish and Be Damned, concerns a leader-writer at the Daily Mirror in the 1930s who wrote a short piece on the beauty of roses, and saw his office overflow with posted petals. He followed up with a slightly longer piece on the beauty of banknotes. It didn't work.