You know what Nazis are, right? You can picture Adolf Hitler, can’t you? Me too. But most people under 30, especially outside Europe, don’t know what Nazis are. It’s likely that more than half of the world’s population right now have no idea who Hitler was and what the Nazi party did between 1933 and… Continue reading Universal Knowledge: Nazis
My 9 year old daughter has become a keen follower of football. She has been to two of the last three Arsenal home games and has become fascinated with the chants sung throughout the game. For anyone who feels that musicals are unrealistic, just visit a top division football match. Actions on the pitch will… Continue reading Football Chants and Musicals (contains rude words)
Time to upload my first picture to this Blog, my front row ticket to David Bowie’s Earls Court gig, 30 June 1978. Millions of words have already been spoken and written about David Bowie since his death earlier this week. Like most people of my background and age I have been affected by the news… Continue reading David Bowie RIP
About five years ago, on a Saturday in January, a friend and her daughter came to lunch. The Weekend Guardian that day had a feature called something like “Those we have lost”, pictures and stories of people who had died in the previous year. Our friend commented on how many of the deaths had passed… Continue reading “Alive or dead?” (a January question)
You remember Goldilocks. She turned up at the Three Bears’ house, ate their porridge, sat in their chairs, tried to sleep in each of their beds. I like the way that Goldilocks has now become an adjective. We live on a Goldilocks planet. Earth is a Goldilocks planet. Scientists are looking for other Goldilocks planets… Continue reading Word of the week: Goldilocks
Most people join a gym in January. This year I’ll be cancelling my membership. I joined just over five years ago, took out family membership (for me and our two children). At the time the children were 4 and 6. The gym has a family changing room, a kids’ pool and a 25-metre pool. I… Continue reading January is my month for cancelling gym membership
Technology sucks. I realize that I’m asking for trouble writing this phrase, in an environment that relies on technology. As I have written before on these pages none of these words would exist without electricity. Nothing here has been committed to paper. But throughout the last 7 years I have found dozens of occasions to… Continue reading Technology Sucks (January 2016)
As I wrote last month, (Writing, typing, “The Shining” and the Cargo Cult) I write (or type) at least a thousand words per day at least five days per week. If I carry on till the end of this month (January 2016) I will have been doing this for over ten years. Before last month… Continue reading The writer’s equivalent of stage fright
“Delilah”. You know the song, probably from Tom Jones’s version. You might recall the Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s recording from 1975 as well (it was mentioned in a question on Ken Bruce’s Pop Master quiz this morning). There’s a recording on YouTube here in case you need to refresh your memory. Literal versus Inferential I… Continue reading At the end of the song “Delilah” is she alive or dead?
My wife and still have all of our vinyl albums, accumulated in our childhoods in the 1960s and 1970s, and when we were more grown up in the 1980s. There are even a few from the 1990s. Neither of us was a great vinyl collector, and there is some doubling up here and there (multiple… Continue reading “I’ve got it on vinyl”
The Compartments 