That quaint little expression, ‘football crazy’ used to mean obsessed with the game. Lovin’ every minute. Can’t get enough. Fab. Then they invented Spurs. And it became a bit more literal. Crazy as in less ‘wild!’ and more ‘insane’. Driven to distraction. Chewing the furniture. Banging heads against walls and screaming. Not in pain. The – Read More-
I’ve always been fascinated by gender differences. Which I’m not even sure is an allowable phrase to employ now. Between equality laws, diversity rules and anti-discrimination policies, merely observing any action within a gender context is totally unacceptable. Then you need to add in the 47 new ‘genders’ currently on offer and suddenly, former universals – Read More-
As you may recall, I have something of an ‘issue’ with Sir Kier and his entire government, concerning the repeated (ad nauseam, as they do all their annoying little catchphrases, as if we’re all goldfish who can’t remember the word ‘change’ from 22 seconds ago) use of the term ‘working people’. From the context it – Read More-
There’s so much more to being a government than just working out how to rob middle-class people until they bleed all over their rags, which is what we’ll all be wearing after next Wednesday. There’s more than just giving the trade unions whatever they want or making yet more promises to build houses and ‘make – Read More-
It’s all about perception and preconception. When we learn of someone/something, we use what evidence we can see or what we’ve heard to make immediate judgments and decisions. You see a bloke on the street coming towards you holding a big knife, you cross the road. But if he’s wearing a butchers outfit and is – Read More-
We decided to go the theatre on Sunday night. With ‘the kids’. Both our kids and their kids. Part of their cultural education for which I’m the main protagonist. Well, I’m in charge of culture, football and punching. Eclectic, innit. Anyway, Joey wanted to see Uncle Vanya, what with being a big Chekhov fan an’ – Read More-
About 3 weeks ago I was at a dinner party at some friends. Was lovely. One woman had just produced a ‘healthy eating’ cookery book, which is fab. We had a copy and actually ate some of the… errrr… pages. Well, the recipes, apparently. As pictured on those pages. All good, fab and quite delish. – Read More-
The difference between death and taxes is that you can die quickly. Painlessly. Whereas tax is slow, lingering, increasingly agonising and just when you think you’re cured, the ‘surgeon’ looks at the scans and says: “oh, I’ve just seen something here…” Ok, maybe the ‘accountant’ but we’re talking metaphors here. And accountants can only ever – Read More-
The Royal Society, the very old, venerated, distinguished and revered, scientific ‘national treasure’ (but literally so), has a new president. And, (shock warning, stay seated and find your ‘happy place’ before reading on), it is… a man! Why is it a shock? Because in all its years, dating all the way back to 1660, they’ve – Read More-
In 1970 Wishbone Ash arrived on the scene. A new rock band. Different. They had two lead guitarists. Who played at the same time. Sometimes simultaneously. Often almost battling. They sounded different to other bands. So we ‘adopted’ them. Chose them as the leaders of our air guitar play. Like a lot of rock bands – Read More-