Of mice and me

“Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie…” But enough about me. We are dealing here with matters of greater moment: nothing less than the perpetual battle for global domination between homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom. Well, alright then: me versus mice. In retrospect, I’m amazed that I wasn’t traumatized for life by my…

Inside The Actors’ Studio

Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt asks us to answer the ten standard questions that James Lipton asks his guests on ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio.’ Well, that’s a programme I used to like, and lists are usually good for a bit of introspection, so here goes: What is your favourite word?‘Opulente’Some care is needed here to avoid…

The Mist Covered Mountain

It’s been said that everyone can remember where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Although it’s fifty years ago now, almost exactly, I certainly can. Even as an eleven-year old, less than three months out of primary school, I was aware that this was a momentous and tragic event. Of…

Brave New World

(Today’s Daily Prompt suggested we write about our first day at something.) This is what happened when I rocked up for my first day in a new job in a new country – and a new culture. My instructions were to sign in at the office at 8 a.m. and call someone to arrange a…

Veni Vide Grenier

Here in the middle of nowhere and its environs, the ‘Vide Grenier’ season is starting to wind down. Whereas on any given Sunday during the summer months there is at least one such event to be found within twenty minutes’ drive of Tranquility Base, now they are few and far between. This is as sure…

Designers’ trouble

Has any designer of a designer hotel ever actually bothered to stay in the designer hotel they designed? The reason I ask is that Sugar Magnolia and I have just spent a few nights in a designer hotel in Bordeaux (it actually called itself a ’boutique’, but the term is effectively interchangeable with ‘designer’) .…

Another year older…

My Countdown To An Event app – which is now functioning as a Countup – tells me that, as of 2 p.m. European Summer Time on September 27th, I have been retired for exactly one year. Not that I’d forgotten. It’s interesting to compare my daily timetable now with what it looked like twelve months…

Fandango’s Friday Flashback 12 September 2013Kit

Despite my well-documented inability to get to grips with technology (defined as basically anything invented since the Stone Age), I still have the inherent Y-chromosome marker for ‘kit’. Sadly, though, this thing I have going on with technology is a classic love/hate relationship. I love it, but it hates me. Gadgets, boys’ toys – call…