For reasons that I do not want to go into right now I have been the long-term custodian of lots of stuff that is not mine: other people’s stuff. By long-term I mean 15 years or more. Some of the people who acquired this stuff in the first place have never attempted to reclaim it,… Continue reading What it costs to fill a box, and what it’s worth now
Here we are, a fortnight before Christmas Day. ‘Tis the season to send out cards. Friends and family have been messaging to confirm address details for me, and for other members of my family. They have been messaging via WhatsApp, which is probably how I will communicate my seasonal greetings to them. I have already… Continue reading What not to write in Christmas cards
Before setting up this Blog in 2015 I drafted hundreds of versions of pieces that eventually appeared here. I can trace some of these drafts back to 2006. That was when I started my daily habit of trying to write (or type, if you prefer) at least a thousand words of something every day. The… Continue reading “It’s not a switch, it’s a dial”
Jo Brand has some good jokes. Like me, she became a parent in her 40s and more than once I have heard her say the following, about what happens when you have two very young children in the house. People stop visiting you. Not because you’re boring and all you want to do is talk… Continue reading “… in my opinion”
There have been 207 “Word of the week” pieces on this Blog so far. From 1 February 2016, when I decided to post them exclusively on Mondays, there was an unbroken run of 24 weeks each featuring a word that was either in the news or relevant to what I was doing or reading at… Continue reading Word of the week: allotment
Back in 2016, in this piece, I offered advice about where to get shamrock in Central London on St Patrick’s Day: St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Soho Square. In recent years this advice probably did not apply (lockdown and all that) but this year it has, once again, been valid. But there has been a… Continue reading The price of shamrock in 2023
You might be familiar with the quote that begins “Try everything once except …” It is attributed to the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. You could always come up with suggestions of your own to complete the sentence. The original advice was “Try everything once … except Morris dancing and incest”, and I am happy to… Continue reading “I tried it once and I didn’t like it”
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
The historian Norman Stone died recently, aged 78. If you met him, or knew of him, or know his work, you will probably have an opinion, or multiple opinions, about him, and/or his work. If not, you could read this obituary from the Guardian and be left with an entirely unflattering impression. I learnt of… Continue reading Norman Stone RIP, and the two things I learnt at college
In January 2016, a few weeks after this Blog was set up, I wrote this piece, “You always have time to pee”. It brought together two things (a story that was in the news and a personal memory) to illustrate what we have tried to teach our children throughout their young lives: there is always… Continue reading “You always have time to pee” revisited
The Compartments 