The current pope is a bit of a ‘rebel’. All terms being relative. He’s considering lifting the celibacy laws for priests. Which, as considerations go, is (no pun here) fucking humongous! Because its always been a given that priests of a Catholic flavour be celibate. At least outwardly. But in South America their church simply – Read More-
My life changed when Peter Cook and Dudley Moore invented shower gel. It was nineteen seventy-something and they introduced the ‘green bat’ hanging in the bathroom. And why was it special? Why was it so revolutionary? Because it hung upside down. Like a bat. So it didn’t need a shelf, it didn’t need a receptacle, – Read More-
About 20 years ago I won second prize in a short story competition. Won a fiver. Was hardly the Booker. My story was called ‘The last God’ and it was a ‘Noir’ type detective story, all Mickey Spillane and smouldering babes in pencil skirts and chain-smoking PIs who cross the line between legal and dubious – Read More-
What happened to the Morinho honeymoon? When Jose came to Spurs and we won and we looked pretty and confident and dangerous and swept aside all who came before us… for at least 2 weeks? And we were promised trophies in the first couple of years (before it all turns to shit). And then it – Read More-
Being a lifelong feminist, having burned my bra in 1972 and ripped as many others from as many women as I could to ‘enlighten’ them, back in the day, I like to keep abreast (ha, ha, haaaa…) of the rules. And it ain’t easy. As feminism morphed almost seamlessly into post-feminism, without even a chip – Read More-
When the Ukrainian jet went down four hours after the Iranian air strike I thought: ‘hmmmm’. That was all. That was it. Just: ‘hmmmm’. Everyone did, at some conscious or unconscious level. Because we’re humans (speaking for myself here) and we have a natural knee-jerk against any form of ‘coincidence’. And when there’s missiles flying – Read More-
OMG!!! Meg and Haz are ‘leaving’!!! They’re going!!! It’s like they’re contestants on ‘Love Palace’ and they’ve both been voted off!!! And I’m distraught. Devastated. Don’t know if or how I’ll ever get over this. It is THAT catastrophic for ME, personally. And there’s even talk of ‘un-royaling’ them if they move to Canada to – Read More-
I like food. As one somewhat predictable mate has said for the last 40 years “I seldom eat anything else”. Ha, ha. And the expression ‘you are what you eat’ has never been more appropriate. People now define themselves by their diets. Ok, normally its fairly silly people, but it happens to such an extent – Read More-
I’ve been in Fleet Street for 35 years. It’s changed. Used to have newspapers and lawyers, back in the day, now it has lawyers and lawyers. And bankers. Accountants have always been there too but you generally don’t notice them as they skulk around bookishly. The only remaining newspaper thing there is the Dundee Courier, – Read More-
I had a horrible thought whilst watching the news on tv last night. That we are probably closer to a ‘big war’ than we have been in my lifetime, other than the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was 7 and didn’t know the effects of a 1000 megaton bomb from a hole in the ground. – Read More-