O tempora o mores

“21st century citizen. Do you belong in this day and age? If you do, explain why – and if you don’t, when in human history would you rather be?” A bit tricky this one, because there’s good and bad today, and there was certainly both good and bad in the old days. In the interests of…

Mass hysteria outbreak likely to prove temporary

By Jean Le Bidon, Chief Investigative Reporter, ‘Le Quotidien de Faire-le-Dodo (87)’ A number of residents have recently contacted Le Quotidien, reporting increasingly strange behaviour by members of the English expatriate community. “it’s very odd” said Jean-Claude Gazole, cashier at the Trop-Cher-Essence petrol station on the old Limoges road, “but lately I’ve seen a lot of the rosbif flying…

Nil by mouth? No thanks

“If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill – no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation – would you do it?” Taking the superficially easy option without due regard to the longer-term implications is a bit like peeing yourself. It feels okay for about five seconds, but after…

The next big thing

“What will the next must-have technological innovation be?” Recently I saw something on Twitter that gives an interesting insight into perceptions of technological process. It’s pretty self-explanatory, albeit a little depressing: On this basis, I’m fine with TV (as long as it’s in black and white and the set, which is the size of a small car, takes ten…

Mr. Personality

“INTJ: Do parties and crowds fill you with energy, or send you scurrying for peace and quiet?” The basic question contained in this latest ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ – do I like peace and quiet? – was so simple to answer (we live in a small hamlet that we refer to as Tranquility Base:…

Keyhole surgery

“..What are the six impossible things you believe in?..” My initial reaction when I saw this latest of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ was something along the lines of “List! Yay!” However, having thought long and hard about this, the truth is that I’m really struggling to come up with half a dozen impossible things…

Why this blog?

Yet another personal blog site: one of the infinite number of monkeys tapping away at their infinite number of keyboards. What’s the point? George Orwell asserted that – putting aside the need to earn a living (which happily is not applicable here) – there are four great motives for writing: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical…