Who’s Who invites its contributors to list their recreations. Some responses are unusual:

Charles Causley: “Playing the piano with expression.”

John Faulkner: “Intricacies and wildernesses.”

John Fowles: “Mainly Sabine.”

Bevis Hillier: “Awarding marks out of ten for suburban front gardens.”

James Kirkup: “Standing in shafts of sunlight.” (In old age he changed this to “Standing in shafts of moonlight.”)

Edward Lucie-Smith: “Walking the dog; malice.”

Frederic Raphael: “Painting things white.”

Constant Hendrick de Waal: “Remaining (so far as possible) unaware of current events.”

Keith Waterhouse: “Lunch.”

Roy Worskett: “Looking and listening in disbelief.”

In 1897 George Bernard Shaw listed his recreations as “cycling and showing off.” In 1980 Sir Harold Hobson listed “Bridge; recollecting in regretful tranquillity the magical things and people I may never see again — the Grand Véfour, Lasserre, Beaumanière; Proust’s Grand Hotel at Balbec (Cabourg); Sunday afternoon teas at the Ritz; the theatrical bookshop in St Germain-des-Prés; the Prado; Edwige Feuillère, Madeleine Renauld, Jean-Louis Barrault, François Perier; collecting from ephemera of the Belle Epoque the cartoons of Steinlen; and always and inexhaustibly talking to my wife.”

(Via John Julius Norwich, More Christmas Crackers, 1990.)