Nina Simone's gumOn Thursday 1 July, 1999, Dr Nina Simone gave a rare performance as part of Nick Cave's Meltdown Festival. After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took Dr Simone's piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel and put it in a Tower Records bag. The gum remained with him for 20 years; a sacred totem, his creative muse, a conduit that would eventually take Ellis back to his childhood and his relationship

Every day his security tell him they're crackpots

a chance to be older as happily and healthily as we possibly can

And when a hidden letter is found

With its raw

Sonya was heading for the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific secrets from a nuclear physicist

to immigration from Pakistan

But out of mind isn't out of sight

In this broad and readable book

at Christmastime

sea battles and a quest for buried treasure begins with the passing of an old sea captain

Fifty years ago

Immersing himself in the rural culture of his remote Spanish community