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Alexandra Fuller produced in 2002 one of finest books I have read in the past decade, if not ever. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, a memoir of growing up with feckless but charming settler parents in white Rhodesia as it became Zimbabwe, evoked place and people and pain with spare but exquisite prose. Three of Fuller’s siblings died young, one – in the book’s most compelling but almost unbearable section – drowning in a duck pond while in the care of the young Alexandra. It is one of those books that convince you that some writers have a God-given gift for words which the rest of us jealously labour away to approach but never quite equal. The “closed circle” of the title is not only the name of a think-tank-within-a-think-tank, set up by Paul and named after an elite club at school.

It’s also a fitting description of a tangled narrative that begins and ends with a discussion between two adolescents in a revolving restaurant.Don’t read The Closed Circle until you’ve read The Rotters’ Club, but make sure you have both by your bed the next time you take a sickie or a holiday.. The Iraq war is “ill-advised and dangerous”, and although Paul Trotter knows this he still votes for it. It’s his sister who seems to speak for the writer – and many of his readers – when she worries that: “It’s only a matter of time before something worse happens. Something huge…”In a novel this richly drawn, it’s easy to forgive the odd instance of automatic phrasing (the inevitably “crepuscular gloom”) and the occasional clunky piece of character development. (See if you’re convinced that one character’s ruthless lampooning of the Pusey-Hamiltons in The Rotters’ Club was really a subtle panegyric.)It’s easy, because Coe has succeeded in accomplishing that rare feat: a pair of novels that combine the addictive quality of the best soap operas with a basic cultural integrity.

Chester nearly made a dream start when full-back Darren Edmondson crossed from the right for Stuart Drummond to head over. Then Michael Branch made a piercing diagonal run from the right before scuffing his shot from just outside the area.After a week of intense coaching from Aizlewood, Chester’s defence looked more solid, but Jon Parkin almost gave Macclesfield the lead with a neat right-foot shot which hit Wayne Brown’s left-hand post. Rush could have stayed in the comfort zone as Liverpool’s striker coach under Rafael Benitez, but jumped at the chance of replacing his former Anfield team-mate Mark Wright at the Deva Stadium.In the intervening years, Chester have moved home – the current ground replacing Sealand Road, where Rush served his apprenticeship – and survived a couple of financial crises. Twenty-five years after making his debut for Chester City, Ian Rush made a winning return to the home of his alma mater as manager of the Coca-Cola League’s bottom club. “I am the boss, an authoritarian one,” he said at the time.Hitzfeld has not been a boss since May, when Bayern decided to replace him with Felix Magath.

He is understood to be keen to prove himself in the English Premiership, although his prospects of being given a chance to do so at Newcastle depend on what Steve Bruce decides during a weekend of contemplation in Portugal.Despite last week declaring his intention “to see the job through” with Birmingham City, the native Tynesider is believed to be torn by Newcastle’s continued pursuit of him. “But, knowing that lot up the road, we could well be jumping up and down in the next few days. That’s just the way it is with Newcastle.”Personally, I’d like Martin O’Neill as the next manager I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy I’d love to see him at the club. In the Premiership, the Toon finished 11th, 11th, fourth and third, the last accompanied by a welcome foray into the Champions’ League. But last season inflicted a heavy toll on Robson’s management graph.