My 12 year old son has started swearing. He uses “the F word”, as I will euphemistically call it in this opening paragraph, although it’s spelt out in full further down. As I wrote earlier this year my daughter, who is now 10, has been exposed to plenty of swearing at football matches, but fortunately… Continue reading A joke about children swearing (contains rude words)
Are there people from your past that you no longer hang out with, friends or even family members who are no longer part of your life? There are a few people from my past that I now actively avoid, troublemakers and malcontents who would bring unwelcome uncertainty and, quite possibly, danger into my life. If… Continue reading Some sweet advice
For the last few months most of our local streets – not just side streets, but main routes, used by buses and trucks – have had their speed limits reduced to 20mph. When was this announced? I don’t recall anything, locally or nationally, announcing the change. I can understand the new speed limit being imposed… Continue reading Everywhere has gone 20
My current commute takes me to central London every weekday, either to St James’s Park or to Westminster in London Underground’s Zone 1. Our local station is where Zone 2 meets Zone 3. During peak times (7am-10am and 4pm- 7pm) the one-way fare is £2.90. Off-peak the fare is £2.40. My preferred working hours are… Continue reading A guaranteed way to save money
Before we were married my wife and I played a lot of Scrabble. That’s not a euphemism. We really did play “The World’s Leading Word Game” hundreds of times. That’s how it’s described on the box that I’m looking at right now, made by Spear’s Games sometime in the 1970s. The Deluxe Scrabble set that… Continue reading Word of the week: Sequoia
Back in August we made a brief trip to Exeter Cathedral as we returned to London from our holiday in Devon. Last month I wrote about Westminster Abbey in this piece about Edward the Confessor. Such visits always prompt thoughts of other large churches (cathedrals, abbeys, minsters), the ones that I have visited and the… Continue reading Cathedrals and Missions
Last week was a bad one in so many ways. I won’t add to the millions of words that have been written about political events but will instead draw your attention to a connection between Leonard Cohen and Sir Jimmy Young, who both died last week, on 7 November. May they rest in peace. They… Continue reading A bad week for people born on 21 September
30 years ago this week I was at the Dublin Film Festival. As the saying goes (and it’s a saying that I never use), “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt”. I still have it, as you can see here: As I noted in this piece, some people are much more organized than I am,… Continue reading This t-shirt is 30 years old
This earlier piece, “Never travelling light”, describes how I have always carried too much stuff around with me, in bags and pockets, ever since schooldays. I have lugged things from place to place that were never used, and most of the pockets in my coats and jackets have holes in them. This character trait was… Continue reading “Do you have a nappy I could borrow?”
The current Pope, Francis I, has not visited the UK. His two immediate predecessors did, John Paul II in 1982 and Benedict XVI in 2010. I was able to attend outdoor masses celebrated by both of them, the first at an airport in Coventry and the second in a park near Birmingham. John Paul II’s… Continue reading Pope Sandwiches
