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…
This is what happened when I rocked up for my first day in a new job in a new country – and a new culture. It happened in September 2002 and I made sure I was well away when I wrote this from a safe distance in October 2013. Brave New World My instructions were…
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…
“Men who do their work intelligently and earnestly have an aversion to those who want to make it important” – Proust: ‘Time Regained’ (Le Temps Retrouvé) – – – – – – – – – – – #!linerWeds 20 January 2021
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…
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…
‘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…
Nowadays, with all-pervasive social media and the universal availability of the tools to produce it, seeing and hearing yourself is a commonplace, However, it was not always thus. The first time I saw myself on ‘video’ – although back in 1964 it was called film – I was standing around aimlessly playing in a school cricket…
Back before the advent of blogging, I would sometimes give an idle thought to writing a book about my experiences in the investment industry. It wouldn’t be fiction because, trust me, you couldn’t make this stuff up, and there’s certainly no shortage of humorous, not to say surreal, material in that strange world I left,…
There are very few things I’d claim to know more than most about. This rather limits – to put it mildly – the range of possible responses to this recent Daily Prompt: “Take a complicated subject you know more about than most people, and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.”…
the only deadhead in the hameau 