There are three phrases that people use on quiz shows frequently. They all prompt me to shout, or at least mutter, at the TV. The first is, “I wouldn’t have got that in a million years”. I always point out that a million years is a really long time. If you uttered every combination of… Continue reading “Never in a million years”
A tale of two priests. The things that you say and do, and the responses that you get. [There are 1350 words in this piece.] Do you feel, generally, that you can predict the kind of response that you will get to the things that you say and do? Or is there usually a level… Continue reading “He’s got a lot to say for himself, hasn’t he?”
An Irish bar in West London. Early evening. We have just heard that Shane McGowan (singer, songwriter, founder of The Pogues) has died. A friend wants to raise a glass to him. My son and I meet him, and one of his neighbours. We have met before, many times, here and in places like this.… Continue reading That Steve McQueen quote from “The Magnificent Seven”
Back in 2016, in this piece about Veuve Cliquot champagne, I mentioned my brother’s “ex-brother-in-law” Paco, a source of many anecdotes over the years. None of these anecdotes painted him in a good light. Brother-in-law might not be the right way to describe how the two of them were connected: my brother’s wife and Paco’s… Continue reading “Tell your father … that I killed this rabbit”
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 are some news stories that clearly made a big impression on people. When I was growing up we would only have leaf tea, brewed up in a pot. Right up until the 1980s we never used teabags. My father always said that the stuff that they put in teabags was only the sweepings from… Continue reading The sweepings from the factory floor
I return to the subject of favourite lines from the movies, and am surprised to find that I have not written about this for over two years. The most recent piece, “Get this boy a bib”, was about “Westworld” (the original 1973 release). Last night my children and I watched “Groundhog Day” again. It’s a… Continue reading “Sometimes people just die”
4 April 1980, 43 years ago today, was a Good Friday. My mother and I took our usual trip to Woolworth’s for Easter eggs, and a local bakery for hot cross buns. Attempting to cross the High Road, I was hit by a car and thrown several feet into the air. I wrote about it… Continue reading “You won’t get much for 50p”
I have been thinking recently of the two members of my family who made it past their 90th birthdays. My mother’s sister died in 2019, aged 91. I wrote this piece, about decompression, on the way to her funeral in Dun Laoghaire. My oldest relative by marriage, who we knew as Uncle Mido, was married… Continue reading “Better’n steak, boy, better’n steak”
Just over 30 years ago, in the autumn of 1992, the #1 single in the UK was “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen. The chorus, as you may recall, includes words that sound like “Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode, ‘e’s Ebeneezer Goode”. Or, if you prefer, “E’s are good, E’s are good, ‘e’s Ebeneezer Goode”. The E… Continue reading Got any salmon?
The Compartments 