And so we finally drag ourselves across the finishing line, with the last of WordPress’ ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ – the end of a journey my enthusiasm for which, I have to admit, has fallen off somewhat over the past couple of months, as evidenced by the recent scarcity of related posts. Which you…
According to the infallible oracle that we call ‘the internet’, you are statistically most likely to have a tattoo if you are (a) female and (b) in the 30-39 age group. Being a male and – in my head at any rate – only in my early twenties (although my birth certificate implacably adds about forty years to…
Gastropods are not for me. There’s enough food in my world not to have to resort to dragging a lump of snot out of a shell and eating it. I mean, have you seen what a whelk actually looks like? However, there is one type of ‘snail’ that’s got me bang to rights with this latest instalment of…
Today’s instalment of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ wants us to write “using regional slang, your dialect or your accent”. What, you mean like this? Scouse was the dialect of my upbringing so will always be with me. It’s dead gear, ‘onest, but that post is probably enough to be going on with. Instead, it seemed…
The secret’s in the timing: cooking is just like comedy really. Well, it certainly is when I try it. When it comes to eating, I like to think I have fairly broad and reasonably adventurous tastes (although there are some gastronomic lines I will not cross). As such, I’m struggling to respond to this, latest, of…
It’s not on the way to anywhere, so there’s very little in the way of passing traffic, and not much happens. So this blog is indeed just like Tranquility Base, the deeply rural French hamlet where we live. Nonetheless, occasionally an unsuspecting browser does seem to stumble across it, metaphorically pop their head round the…
My light spends most of its time under a firmly nailed-down bushel. This strikes me as perfectly rational: there is little to be gained and much to be lost from wanton self-aggrandisement – mostly in terms of respect, and particularly self-respect. But then ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ bowls me this googly (or throws me this…
Confidential: Draft script for infomercial. Do NOT show to client under any circumstances* Fade up studio lights to presenter seated in high-backed leather armchair. [I’m thinking I M Jolly here, people. No chance of getting James Earl Jones, I suppose] Hello there. Now, if you’re watching this channel at this time of night, then the chances are…
It’s all perfectly logical, I suppose. Sixty is the new forty, orange is the new black (although I have no idea what that actually means). Everything is the new something*. At this point you’re probably thinking – assuming you haven’t already clicked away in your restless search for that new cat video – ‘What the hell…
The latest of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ invites us to “write a post in the style of (or simply inspired by) a favourite author”. However, rather than lay ourselves open to charges of plagiarism (and, even worse, doubtless poorly-executed plagiarism at that) we decided instead on a departure from the normal diet of self-obsessed twaddle. So today for the first…
the only deadhead in the hameau 