Flashback Friday 21 November 2025

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’. For those unfamiliar with the programme, it was an American talk show that ran from 1994 to 2019. It’s basic format was that James Lipton, the host, would interview a single guest…

Flashback Friday 14 November 2025

From ten years ago, and inspired – for want of a better word – by a prompt included in WordPress’ Writing 101 course that invited us to ‘reinvent the letter format’. This is as close as it’s going to get. An Open Letter To My Passport Photo Dear self, Well, I wouldn’t go so far as…

Fandango’s Flashback Friday 26 September 2025

From 2013, a report on my first year of retirement… 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…

The people’s choice

Bloganuary Day 20: easy – or is it? What is your favourite photo you’ve ever taken? Now, this one shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, given that photography is my (only proper) hobby. Why,I even have another blogging site dedicated to it. Feel free to have a rummage. It’s not quite so straightforward, however.…

Excuses? No sirree. Reasons, reasons

‘Where have you been?’ you’re almost certainly not wondering. Look, I know it’s been over a month since my last post, but it’s not for the want of trying. Let me assure you, I haven’t been idle. Although not for the want of trying. So here are ten perfectly good reasons – not excuses, oh dear…

Too much information

For one who has turned self-effacement into an art form, ‘doing’ this blog doesn’t come naturally, especially when – inevitably – little autobiographical details emerge from time to time. Nonetheless, today I’m going to lift the veil just a little bit more. Rest assured that absolutely no self-aggrandisement is intended. I’d frankly rather pull out my own teeth than start vanity publishing.…

What’s the bloody point (and click)?

What is it with ‘selfies’? Why do so many people feel the need to remind themselves constantly of what they look like? Personally, that couple of minutes twice a day looking in the bathroom mirror while brushing my teeth is more than sufficient for me to keep the old memory banks topped up, self-image wise. I’m pretty sure I’d…

Lucky me

Today is my 40th wedding anniversary. So how appropriate that ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ should come up, on this particular date, with an invitation to “Describe what it feels like to…see a stunning piece of art”. I’m afraid I couldn’t even begin to describe what it feels like to see this stunning masterpiece of nature…

Take two

“Run outside. Take a picture of the first thing you see. Run inside. Take a picture of the second thing you see. Write about the connection between these two random objects, people or scenes.” Well, I did warn you that some of these ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ were bonkers. Normally, I would just ignore…