Most people who know me would agree that I’m of a generally calm, nay taciturn, mien. In Dad’s Army terms, I’m more Sergeant Wilson than Corporal Jones: So this latest offering in WordPress’ 365 Days of Writing Prompts held few fears for me when I first approached it: “In a crisis. Honestly evaluate the way…
Can I write a post about ice cream? Well, I can try. Do you want to read a post about ice cream? That, gentle reader, is entirely up to you. All I would say is that blogs, like ice cream, come in an ever-increasing variety of flavours and, also like ice cream, if you don’t…
Honestly, you wait weeks on end for a new post, and then they all come along together… It has to be said that waste management is pretty well organised here in France. As a matter of course everyone recycles their plastic, glass and paper into the relevant coloured bins at the local déchetterie – and…
Does it not strike you as odd that the expression ‘He’d be late for his own funeral’ is used as a criticism of somebody’s timekeeping? It mean, it’s hardly fair to criticise the stiff in question, since presumably by that stage all matters relating to punctuality will be out of their own hands and down…
‘I remember the good old days’ – grandson, age 9¼.
(‘Brainless Stupidity’ is a – very – occasional series of diatribes against state-of-the-art manifestations of bovine idiocy masquerading as aids to moden life. Previous targets have included been the Belgian way of buying fuel and Paypal’s bizarre procedures for identity verification.) This time, though, our egregiously cretinous example is the in-car navigation system more or…
Joseph Heller got it right: Last Tuesday lunchtime, much to my chagrin, my iPad wouldn’t open the BBC iPlayer page, thereby depriving Madame and me of the possibility of listening to the News Quiz while chowing down on our baguettes. Disappointing. Madame didn’t seem to have a problem with her iPad so, following my iron…
As a general rule, the one-word Daily Prompts that WordPress has been furnishing in recent months are way too cryptic for someone as devoid of imagination as yours truly. Today, though the word is ‘Sandwich’ and even I can rise to that bait. Who among us has never had a sandwich or – even more…
‘The Job Interview’ was a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary series that aired recently on British TV. It was excruciating, but I watched it because I do like a bit of schadenfreude. Nothing has made me happier about being retired than the thought that I’ll never again have to go through the toe-curling experience of interviewing for a…
Looking back over the increasingly sparse output on this blog, I see that it has become a minor tradition at this time of year to apologise for the paucity of recent output and to offer up some lame excuses for said shortcoming. Not that anybody gives a damn – but one is British after all,…
the only deadhead in the hameau 