After a mild winter, the life cycle of the flora that surrounds us here at Tranquility Base is already well advanced. The forsythia is budding, the Narcissi are in bloom, the air is filled with birdsong. And the grass needs cutting. This year, we have a new weapon in the unending war against nature. I’ve cranked up the shock…
My passport went off for renewal last week. Naturally, the application process entailed getting some new identity photos. Or, as it’s also known, a reality check. Compared to ten years ago I’m rather paler (the Abu Dhabi tan has long faded) and the face fungus is still a comparatively recent addition. Otherwise, not too bad really: a little more…
Today, ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ wants to know: “What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?” Well, let’s get the pedantry out of the way first, shall we? By definition, a luxury is something you can live without: ‘a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living…
“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…
“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…
“Call me, maybe. Describe your relationship with your phone. Is it your life-line, a buzzing nuisance or something in between?” I’ve never been a great fan of voice communication, and perhaps least of all by means of a telephonic device. As a child I was so cripplingly shy that to make an outgoing call was…
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…
It’s all the fault of WordPress. And Brian out of ‘New Tricks’. Although this blog site is unashamedly more of an ego trip than a sales pitch, I confess to sometimes feeling that it might be nice if my finely-polished aphorisms attracted an audience that extended a little beyond duty-bound immediate family and kind friends…
the only deadhead in the hameau 