Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s good to see you, but on balance I suppose I’m glad that you’re still around – even if you are a grumpy-looking old sod. If I think back to your 1975 iteration, your first as a grown-up, you were a grumpy-looking young sod. In…
There is a Grateful Dead song from the very early days called ‘The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)’. In all honesty, it’s not really a keeper and I suspect that much of its continuing appeal resides in its pretty cool title, plus the fact that it is Track 1, Side 1 of the band’s first…
Oh WordPress, you shouldn’t have got me started. A recent Daily Prompt asked about punctuation. In particular, it asked ‘do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without?’ Like it says on Wikipedia, punctuation is: “the use of spacing, conventional signs, and certain typographical…
Recently, I was wandering around a French stately home – as one does. According to the brochure, this imposing building has been in the same family for over 500 years, but it seems that it hasn’t always been a private residence. Admittedly, I shouldn’t have been handling the exhibits, but I was intrigued by an old…
From ten years ago, a stark warning of the dangers of leaving home for any length of time… The Unkindest Cut You may not even have noticed – and I wouldn’t pretend or presume that, in the great scheme of things, it makes any difference whether you have or not – but of late there’s not been…
Newer members of the growing expat community here in Faire-Le-Dodo (87) may have been nonplussed by the strange state of suspended animation that our commune appears to have settled into for the past few weeks. Please be reassured, this is perfectly normal. Indeed, the French have a word for it – août. That’s August to…
There are probably lots of things you’ve never done. Some of these you will never do: hopefully these will include the classic duo of incest and Morris dancing. Other, less reprehensible, things you may do and be glad of the fact. But there are others that you will do at some point and rather wish you…
Following the runaway success (25 views in only nine months) of last October’s guest post by legendary hardline activist Dave Spart, we’ve listened to the clamour of our public and invited him back to give us his unflinchingly austere analysis of the highly topical subject of summer holidays. Although, quite frankly, he owes us one. since we invited him…
“Granpa?” (yes, it’s that boy again), “What’s the meaning of existence?” I know my limitations. A question that has occupied the finest minds of Homo Sapiens – and, for all we know, other species as well (those dolphins are no slouches) – for thousands of years was hardly going to receive a definitive answer on the way to the…
Tuesday was a public holiday in France. Arguably, it was the public holiday: July 14th, the Fête Nationale. You may even think it was Bastille Day. Wrong. We were surprised to discover that French people don’t refer to it by that name and would quite likely have no idea what you were talking about if you…
the only deadhead in the hameau 