My Uncle Jimmy has been on my mind recently. I mentioned him in this piece about “The Gambler”. He died nearly 11 years ago, early in 2007. He was my mother’s brother, four years older than her, and had joined the Merchant Navy here in the UK after leaving Dublin. Our relationship was different from… Continue reading Uncle Jimmy and a trip to The Emperor
“Egregious” is a word that I have never heard in day-to-day conversation, or on the radio or on TV. I have seen it in print and didn’t know what it meant until looking it up last Friday. It came up in this Guardian piece about racism by the always excellent Gary Younge, in the following… Continue reading Word of the week: egregious
“The Gambler” is the title of an 1867 novel by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and a song written in the 1970s by Don Schlitz. “Gambler” (without the definite article) was a 1985 hit by Madonna. This piece is about the Don Schlitz song, made famous by country music superstar Kenny Rogers. Here in the UK… Continue reading “The Gambler”
The FA Cup 4th Round takes place this weekend. For the first time in all the years that my wife and I have been together neither of us is interested. Her team (Arsenal) and mine (Leeds United) were both knocked out three weekends ago in the 3rd Round, by teams from lower leagues (Nottingham Forest… Continue reading When your team is knocked out of the FA Cup
This earlier piece set the following challenge: How many countries can you think of which have the same number of letters as their capital cities? If you haven’t tried it yet, take a look at that earlier piece and give it a go. You’ll find some background information and a few tips. A reasonable level… Continue reading Countries and capital cities with the same number of letters (the answers)
Here’s a trivia challenge for you regarding countries and their capitals. How many countries can you think of which have the same number of letters as their capital cities? There’s a link to the answers at the end of this page, but first some tips and some background information. This is a different mental challenge… Continue reading Countries and capital cities with the same number of letters
Updating Windows 10 is not on any of my lists. If you’re a Windows 10 user may I ask how it’s working for you? Are you happy? I mentioned, in this piece from earlier this month, some issues of my own with a Windows 10 update. I had restarted my laptop, as recommended by both… Continue reading “Let’s cross this one off your list”
You are probably familiar with “Vogue”, Madonna’s worldwide hit from 1990. If not, here’s the official video from YouTube, which shows the accompanying dance moves. Vogue, as a verb, is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries website as, “Dance to music in such a way as to imitate the characteristic poses struck by a model on… Continue reading Word of the week: Vogue
This Blog now contains over 300,000 words. Most of them are in Blog Posts, like this one. Around 24,000 words are contained in Menu Items, which you can find at the top of this page. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” according to a quote attributed to Lao Tzu. I… Continue reading 300,000 words and counting: 25 months of The Compartments
My parents were both born in Ireland in the 1930s. They moved to London, separately, met here and were married in the 1950s. In the years that followed they had three children: my older brother, my younger sister, me in the middle. As the 1970s began the three of us were all at the same… Continue reading 1970s Date Nights
The Compartments 