I once asked if a friend, a teacher from Huddersfield, could cook for him so that she could put it on her CV – "cooked for Alan Rickman" (it made sen… - Katharine Viner

Viner likes to deny it but there are antisemites on the daily's staff and she has not had the courage to face them down. For years now I have made a point of sending her a back channel email each time the Guardian has published another outrage. It will be a joy to know that I'm not a part of that anymore.

The second low point, I remember very clearly, was on February 9. I was way behind schedule, so took a day's holiday from work with the aim of reading three novels - one each in the morning, afternoon and evening. The first book was Anne Tyler's fabulous The Amateur Marriage, which was about mistakes and regret and which I found deeply affecting. I cried in my local cafe. The second book was Julie Myerson's Something Might Happen, a superb but cruel book about terrible things. I sobbed the entire time I was reading it. This was in a different cafe. That evening, at home, I read Stella Duffy's devastating novel about terminal cancer and death, and how it is worse to die than be left behind, and, well, I could hardly walk. The trouble with really good novels is that they make you engage, make you experience the emotions of the characters as if they were your own. It was a terrible day, and yet these remained three favourites for me throughout the judging process.

Say no to the mutilation of your flesh with knives, vacuum suction and poison, and that means you are irresponsible.