As a family we have started to watch “3rd Rock from the Sun” on More4, Channel 4’s free streaming service. It calls itself “the world’s biggest free streaming service”. I caught most episodes of this US sitcom when they were first broadcast, from 1996 onwards, and again on one of the comedy channels from around… Continue reading “Contains some outdated humour”
Earlier this month, 1966 was one of the featured years on an edition of BBC Radio 2’s “Pick of the Pops”. I’ll be specific: it was on Saturday 6 August, and the broadcast is available, here, until 6 September 2022. It’s well worth a listen. There are many highlights, including #1s by Small Faces (“All… Continue reading “Live my days, instead of counting my years”
The current UK prime minister is Boris Johnson, still, hanging in there until the election of the new leader of the Tory Party, who will become his successor in 10 Downing Street. That’s how it works these days, and the results should be in on 5 September. There are reports that Johnson is getting booed… Continue reading Word of the week: ponce
You may have heard the old expression, “The family that prays together stays together”. I had never heard of it when I came across this alternative take, the tagline to Roger Corman’s 1970 movie “Bloody Mama”: “The family that slays together stays together”. It was the kind of low-budget cult classic that played regularly at… Continue reading “The family that quizzes together …”
Loose threads, dead ends, unfinished stories. Welcome to my world, or more specifically welcome to the world of items on this Blog that need updating. The one that comes to mind right now is here (“Summer bodies are made in spring”). It recorded my first six weeks’ worth of trips to a local swimming pool,… Continue reading The £307 Swim
If you pass round Hogarth Roundabout here in West London, or drive over it on the rickety one-lane flyover, you might notice the Tesla showroom on the north side of the A4. It’s on the site of a long-gone pub, The Feathers, which gets a mention in this piece from 2017, along with many other… Continue reading 10 anagrams of tesla
When I was growing up, we had a medium-sized bookcase filled with children’s books but only a handful of novels aimed at adults. Most of the books we had were published by Ladybird or Puffin. I even managed to read a few of them: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and the other six… Continue reading “John Paul Sarter, the famous French extensionist …”
Earlier this month I was caught up in vivid memories of the summer of 1982, time spent on a building site in Ickenham and at the Renoir Cinema in Russell Square watching Fassbinder movies, as described here. I had intended to write about a rusty nail, and I return to the subject now. After our… Continue reading A rusty nail
Back in 2018 I reflected on the price of a pint of beer throughout my lifetime, in this piece. It included various milestones (50p, £1, £5 …) and concluded, “Clearly, the next barrier to be breached will be the £6 pint”. For the record, the £6 barrier has now been breached, many times. If you… Continue reading The £6 Pint
How visual are you? Can you picture things in the correct order, like colours of the rainbow, or Olympic rings? If so, congratulations. The rest of us have to make do with mnemonics and acronyms for this sort of information. For colours of the rainbow, I have always favoured the simple 7-letter word ROYGBIV (Red… Continue reading Word of the week: BRYBGR
The Compartments 