Say what now? What is an ingot? Bed, board and stabling for up to ten horses. What is a pekinese? A quadripedal spoilt brat. Probably. What is gumbo? Hmmmm. Afraid I’m stuck on this one. What is crème fraiche? Sounds like some of that foreign muck. What is a patisserie? An Irish daytime TV soap…
From August 2014, on the art of masterly inactivity. I can’t help it, I’m an analyst “Procrastination. What have you been putting off doing? Why?” We’ve talked about this before on this blog, albeit from a different perspective. So you could consider this as an update. A belated one, obviously. If – no, let’s be fair, when – I’m…
From this day in 2014, a meditation on boredom… Shoot Me Now This one’s just too good to miss…(cracks knuckles; hunches over keyboard; ticks tags for ‘rants’ and ‘grumpy old man’). “(YAWN): What bores you?” Firstly, let’s be clear about what we actually mean by ‘boredom’. My first stab at finding a dictionary definition came…
General knowledge ignorance….. Which monarch famously said: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king” Queen Anne – the one who had to be buried in a square coffin. What is the rarest blood type in humans? Vampire – because there’s…
Words of…..er, wisdom? “I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right” Keir Starmer “My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I forgot to do” Hugh Hefner “My diet plan: make all of my friends cupcakes, the fatter they get, the thinner I look” Meghan Markle “My wallet is like an…
This post was originally published on 2 August 2014, about two years into what I euphemistically call my blogging career (and definitely not ‘journey’). Here I muse on how things are/were going blogwise. Simon Schama’s Swampy Suck Oh, hi there. I thought that might get your attention… Today’s instalment of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’…
Who said that? I want to break free Ghislaine Maxwell No more the fool Charlie Chaplin Food, glorious food Mr. Creosote The Princess Diaries The (only a) Duchess of Sussex The name of the game …is football: NOT soccer. You can’t hurry love I’m sorry, this has never happened before. Kiss me Kate Meghan Markle…
This was originally posted on 27 July 2015. For the uninitiated, it is a parody (but an affectionate one) of a long-running column in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’. I haven’t looked at a copy of The Eye in years so I don’t know whether Dave Spart still features. What I will say, though,…
This was originally published on 7 July 2015 and is another example of me trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I am getting older. Never mind my generation, what about yours? I got on a bus recently. Let me tell you, my life is one long party. I had a suitcase, so, wanting to…
Well now – this time I’m going all the way back to 2013 for this week’s flashback. Given the subject, you could maybe describe it as ‘Primal deadhead’. You may notice also that I hadn’t (and still haven’t) got to grips with WordPress’ spacing rules. An update seems appropriate here too. The relevant number has…
the only deadhead in the hameau 