The Lucky Sod

Chris Loxley, a secondary school teacher in Essex, plans to put aside unnessary distractions in order to complete a new assignment:

"Friends, family and personal grooming will be neglected as I struggle to read every novel [on the Man Booker longlist] before 8 September, and I am sure the withdrawal symptoms will be horrifying to witness, as I push away comics, Doctor Who, Playstation, television, DVDs and the internet."

He'll be keeping "a video diary" for a BBC Four programme entitled Bookered Out, and there will be regular entries on his online diary - the URL of which the article omits to mention.