Here’s a theory for you. The ideal dietary regime for you is linked to your blood type. If your blood type is O you should follow a high protein diet (and eat meat); if your blood type is A you should follow a high carbohydrate diet (and be vegetarian). It’s a theory, I must emphasize… Continue reading Eat right for your type
I have just started reading “Shakespeare’s Local” by Pete Brown. It’s about the George, a pub near London Bridge that can trace its history back 600 years. It’s more about beer and London history than about Shakespeare, but it seemed appropriate to start reading a book with Shakespeare in its title as we approach the… Continue reading Backing up
SPOILER ALERT: This article reveals the winner of the 2015-16 series of “University Challenge” (the final was broadcast on Monday 18 April 2016). If you don’t want to know who won, stop reading now. The show will be on the BBC iPlayer until around 18 May, so you can watch it here.
Poof: I think that’s how it’s spelt, though it might be puff. It’s a word people used in the 1970s to describe a homosexual, along with its 2-syllable alternative “poofter”. People used it in a similar way to how we use the word “wuss” these days. A kid doesn’t want to dive off the low… Continue reading Word of the Week: poof
There is no hierarchy of misery. Bad things happen. There is no linear relationship between the things that happen to people and how they cope with them. The worst thing that ever happened to you is the worst thing that ever happened to you. Losing a parent in your 30s or 40s can affect you… Continue reading The hierarchy of misery
Ten years ago I set up a wormery in the garden. Back then there were newspaper articles every few months advising us on how easy it was. You didn’t even need a garden. One journalist set up their wormery on the balcony of their flat, another kept one indoors. The principle is simple: a plastic… Continue reading Wormeries
Last month (March’s “Coincidence Corner”) I quoted something from Andy Miller’s “The Year of Reading Dangerously (How Fifty Books Saved My Life)”, his wife’s advice on how to read “Middlemarch”: “Just do what I did. Read fifty pages a day and leave it at that.” Since quoting those words I haven’t even found time to… Continue reading So much for fifty pages a day
Don’t tell me what you’re going to do, just do it. Afterwards tell me what you did, and if there’s time tell me how you did it. Over the years, most people who have told me that they are writing a book, or have “just started” a book, or are going to write a book… Continue reading Don’t tell me what you’re going to do
In the late 1990s I delivered several months’ worth of training sessions to civil servants, training sessions that combined computer use with tips about publishing and printing. The delegates were about to start using their computers in a way that would save time and money in a clearly quantifiable way. This doesn’t happen with every… Continue reading Hyphens, En Dashes and Em Dashes
This has been a family catchphrase since the 1980s. It is, of course, factually incorrect. You do not drive better when you have had a few drinks. The driving instructor who taught my brother to drive in the late 1970s was unavailable to teach me to drive in the mid-1980s. He had lost his licence… Continue reading “I drive better when I’ve had a few drinks”
The Compartments 