Our local minicab office has had a refurb. It had lain empty for a year or two but now the single-storey pair of rooms attached to a nearby house has been done up. It doesn’t appear to be open yet, but I hope it will be soon. At the start of 2016 I wrote this piece predicting that I would not be signing up for the ride-hailing… Continue reading Word of the week: statioons
In the late 1970s my mother made a household change that affected all five of us (my father and her; my brother and sister and me: the three of us were teenagers at the time). She replaced our traditional bedding of sheets and blankets with duvets and duvet covers. Although this switch was made during the summer, I caught a cold within a week of sleeping… Continue reading In praise of duvet covers
Here are the questions and answers from the Christmas “All Stars” edition of ITV quiz show “Tenable” ,shown on 26 December 2019. Team name: It’s Behind You, captained by the lovely Debbie McGee. I finally got around to watching it today, Friday27 August 2021. The format here is the same as other pieces about “Tenable”… Continue reading “Tenable” All Stars Panto Special questions and answers [It’s Behind You]
Most weeks there are news stories about the chronic health problems and deaths of sporting legends. This week we learnt that former England cricket captain Ted Dexter had died, and that former Middlesbrough, Leeds and England footballer Alan Peacock was diagnosed with dementia in 2018. Like Denis Law, who announced his dementia diagnosis earlier this month, he wanted to raise awareness of the issue. I have supported Leeds United since childhood, and the roll call of former… Continue reading Football in the afterlife, and a Leeds United starting XI
Here are the questions and answers from the third “All Stars” edition of ITV quiz show “Tenable” ,repeated in December 2019. Team name: The Party Animals, captained by John Sargent. I finally got around to watching it today, Thursday 26 August 2021. It was listed as S3Ep63 on my multi-channel box. The format here is… Continue reading “Tenable” All Stars Episode 3 questions and answers [The Party Animals]
I have had the same phone number all my life. It reflects the fact that I still have the same dialling code, and the same postcode, that I had when I was growing up. We rarely use this number (our landline as it is now called) and we get very few calls on it. One evening last month the phone (the… Continue reading A Telephone Tie-break
ITV continue to broadcast repeats from the first series of their quiz show “Tenable”, first shown in the last two months of 2016. Questions and answers from Episodes 11-15 were recorded in this piece from last year, and the shows were repeated again earlier this month. On Monday and Tuesday of last week the following… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Series 1 Episode 19 (repeated again Tuesday 24 August 2021)
In recent years, things have changed at many of our local green spaces. In parks, commons and the grounds of local landmarks, designated areas have been left to grow wild. For decades these spaces were weeded, mown and kept tidy. Now they are deliberately left uncultivated for much of the spring and summer. In some cases these… Continue reading Head-high weeds, just like when I was a child
ITV continue to broadcast repeats from the first series of their quiz show “Tenable”, first shown in the last two months of 2016. Questions and answers from Episodes 11-15 were recorded in this piece from last year, and the shows were repeated again earlier this month. On Monday and Tuesday of last week the following… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Series 1 Episode 18 (repeated again Monday 23 August 2021)
Rabona is a word I have been meaning to write about for several months. I had never heard it before March 2021, but it has entered into the vocabulary of football-watchers, taking its place with Panenka. I could try and describe both techniques, but will use a couple of Wikipedia entries instead. As you can read here, “the Rabona is the technique of kicking the football where the kicking leg is crossed behind the… Continue reading Word of the week: Rabona
The Compartments 