Back in February I wrote, here, about time spent reviewing some of my “small data” from 2007. There were tens of thousands of words drafted in password-protected documents, and hundreds of photos taken on our first digital camera. Reviewing them for the first time in many years occupied several hours of my time. One of… Continue reading Fiona Jones MP and different kinds of normal
Last year, and the year before that, a few of us went on a Boxing Day pub crawl. This piece from 2016, and this follow-up from 2017, explain the reasons and the routes taken. The core group for each event consisted of me, my brother (who lives in Spain and most years only spends Christmas… Continue reading No Boxing Day pub crawl in 2018
Calabobos: it’s a Spanish word for a specific type of rain, rain that seems light, like drizzle, but will soak you. My brother told me the word over 20 years ago and I have never been able to remember it. He said that it equates with the phrase “fool soaker”. If you’re foolish enough to… Continue reading Word of the week: calabobos
We usually leave it late to buy our Christmas tree. For the second year running we did it on the Saturday before Christmas (23 December last year, 22 December this year), £15 for a healthy-looking 7-foot fir, or spruce, or whatever it is. I expected to pay more, but that’s all it was. One year,… Continue reading Supply and Demand, and Christmas Trees
A few little observations about English football, specifically about goal difference. Look away now if that’s not your kind of thing. This season I am spending even more time than usual studying football league tables, the Championship table in particular. Right now it shows my team, Leeds United, at the top, ahead of Norwich City… Continue reading Goal difference
Sometimes you hear two or three songs in succession that include the same word, not an obvious one like “love” or “baby”, but something unexpected. The first four songs in an episode of “Top of the Pops” shown on BBC4 last weekend all featured the word “fight”. The episode first aired on 6 November 1986,… Continue reading Word of the week: fight
Yesterday, Paul Gambaccini’s “Pick of the Pops” show on BBC Radio 2 featured the charts from this week in 1971 and 1988. Can you recall the Christmas #1s from those years? The answers appear below. It’s the kind of information that people of my generation (those of us who followed the charts closely) might retain… Continue reading Christmas #1s, and biting the dust at 52
Back in September I wrote this piece about “The Clock”, Christian Marclay’s installation at Tate Modern here in London. As I noted, using words from the Tate’s website, it is “a montage of thousands of film and television images of clocks, edited together so they show the actual time. It is a thrilling journey through… Continue reading Beaten by “The Clock”
Every year my old college produces its Annual Record. As the name suggests, it’s a publication reviewing the previous twelve months of college life. The 2018 edition arrived in the post two days ago. I had been looking forward to it and couldn’t remember exactly what time of year it usually arrives. Like many items… Continue reading Annual Record
Last Sunday this Blog celebrated its third birthday. Or rather, it didn’t. As on most Sundays in recent months I didn’t draft, review or finalize anything on the day in question. Although I’m generally okay with dates and anniversaries I think of 4 December as the date this Blog was created, but it was two… Continue reading Into a fourth year
The Compartments 