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…
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…
For one who has turned self-effacement into an art form, ‘doing’ this blog doesn’t come naturally, especially when – inevitably – little autobiographical details emerge from time to time. Nonetheless, today I’m going to lift the veil just a little bit more. Rest assured that absolutely no self-aggrandisement is intended. I’d frankly rather pull out my own teeth than start vanity publishing.…
Impelled by the desire to reassure my small but perfectly formed readership that I haven’t turned my toes up just yet, I thought I’d better do something. This isn’t so easy. I’m quite heavily reliant for inspiration on the daily prompts, but since most of those recently seem to have been recycled from last year’s…
Some people swear that “It’s impossible to eat badly in France”. Well it isn’t. It’s certainly possible to eat extremely well in France – often in the unlikeliest and unpromising places, which is part of the country’s great charm. But restaurant quality is as variable here as anywhere else. Contrary to the image that they try to…
Back before the advent of blogging, I would sometimes give an idle thought to writing a book about my experiences in the investment industry. It wouldn’t be fiction because, trust me, you couldn’t make this stuff up, and there’s certainly no shortage of humorous, not to say surreal, material in that strange world I left,…
the only deadhead in the hameau 