Diligent readers of this Blog will know that yesterday, 21 September, was my birthday. In this piece from 2017 I listed a dozen or more people who were also born on that date. You can add Joe “PE with Joe” Wicks to the list. He was born in 1986. In terms of star sign and… Continue reading “It never rains on my birthday”
As noted from time to time on this Blog, our TV viewing as a family consists mainly of sport, quiz shows and comedy series. Last week, although it was the week the children went back to school, at least two of us watched every minute of the latest series of “Who wants to be a… Continue reading “Modern Family”, and reflections on sitcoms
Like many people, I buy the daily paper far less often than I used to. Sales of most UK titles have halved in the last 10 years, a decline that cannot be attributed to mortality rates alone. I buy The Guardian on Fridays and Saturdays, and no longer buy a Sunday paper. I am back… Continue reading “Bar snack? (9)” and why I no longer do cryptic crosswords
Live sport has been back on our TV screens for many weeks now. Before that, for over two months at the height of lockdown here in the UK, there was no top-level sporting action available. I even cancelled my subscription sports channels, a rare display of proactive behaviour, as I noted in this piece in March.… Continue reading Word of the week: Ronnie!
Last Saturday evening I watched the 1977 film “The Spy Who Loved Me”, Roger Moore’s third outing as James Bond. ITV have been showing Bond movies at weekends throughout this summer. I have caught an hour or more of several of these screenings but had not watched any of them all the way through. I… Continue reading Drinking with Bryan Marshall
This time last year, while on holiday in Spain, I was bitten repeatedly by insects. It prompted this piece (Holiday notes: sun, sea, sand, and insect bites) which includes some photos showing the after-effects of insect bites on my skin. It came with a warning, in case you are squeamish about such things. I have,… Continue reading Insect bites (August 2020 update)
If you watch TV regularly, you are probably familiar with “Gogglebox”, a show that was first broadcast here in the UK in 2013. It has become a recent addition to our family viewing thanks to a series of celebrity editions that have just finished airing on Channel 4 on Friday nights. The original version of… Continue reading Word of the week: “Gogglebox”
Here, for the 12th successive month on this Blog, is a screenshot taken from the BBC website that shows Leeds United, the team that I have supported since childhood, top of the Championship, the second tier of English football. When I posted the most recent of these pieces (here, last Saturday) I wrote, “If Leeds… Continue reading Top of the table for a 12th successive month
If you grew up watching Hollywood films from the 1950s and 60s, as I did, you will be familiar with the actor Gregory Peck. You might have seen him in any or all of the following: “The Guns of Navarone”, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (for which he won an Oscar, as the lawyer Atticus Finch),… Continue reading Gregory Peck and my father
Here in the UK, we have been living in lockdown for nearly seven weeks. There is no live sport on TV. The BBC and ITV are raiding their archives. We have had snooker classics on BBC, and ITV are about to show the entire Euro 96 tournament (football) on one channel or another. Yesterday the… Continue reading “The world’s a big place”
