Last weekend my daughter (who celebrated her 12th birthday earlier this month) asked me what a philanthropist was. Before answering the question I asked her where she’d come across the word. It was on a web page about Katie Piper who, sadly, was voted off “Strictly Come Dancing” that evening. We were rooting for her… Continue reading Word of the week: philanthropist
A wet mid-October day here in West London. The weather has prompted numerous pieces on this Blog in recent months, including observations about the snow in early March and the summer’s heatwave. Here’s another one. Three weeks ago, in late September, we had a mini-heatwave, with temperatures hitting 27 degrees centigrade (80 Fahrenheit). One weekday… Continue reading Soaking up the sun
You know how to use a pencil. Most of the pencils that you have encountered were probably HB. They are most common type. You probably also know that the H and B indicate, respectively Hard and Black. 4H indicates a much harder drawing implement than HB (and it’s lighter in shade), and 4B is much… Continue reading 2B
In this piece from February 2016 I summarized the three levels of expertise that apply to practical skills, skills like speaking another language or playing a musical instrument. I categorized these three levels of expertise as “nothing, something and everything”. The first of these applies when you have no familiarity with a task. I offered… Continue reading Word of the week: transpose
Back in July, on the day that the FIFA World Cup and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships ended, I speculated that the summer of sport had pretty much come to an end. I was wrong. There have been weekends since then when we have watched more sport on more screens than ever before. It kicked off… Continue reading The summer of sport really does come to an end
Over the last two weekends we have watched, as a family, the most recent pair of James Bond movies, “Skyfall” (2012) and “Spectre” (2015). They were broadcast on ITV2 (lots of ad-breaks), we recorded them on our multi-channel box and watched each of them within 24 hours of recording. The children, aged 11 and 13,… Continue reading James Bond and me
You may be familiar with the expression “Every day is a school day”. It’s a phrase that I am fond of, having come across it numerous times in pieces by writers I admire, most recently this piece in the New Statesman by Nicholas Lezard. I have not used it on these pages until now. This… Continue reading How to deal with a dead cat
The school holidays are upon us. My 11-year-old daughter has finished primary school, something that has been anticipated in various posts throughout the academic year, like this one about her most recent sports day. In September she starts at secondary school (senior school, or High School if you prefer). The last three terms have mainly… Continue reading Things you should know before you go to secondary school
Well, that’s it for another year, or four. Earlier today the Wimbledon Tennis Championships came to an end, on schedule thanks to this year’s heatwave. The Football World Cup was all over by 6pm UK time, France beating Croatia 4-2 in the Final. And in their All-Ireland Hurling Quarter-Final Kilkenny lost to Limerick, so my… Continue reading The summer of sport comes to an end, mostly
My school career lasted exactly 40 terms. There were 6 years (or 18 terms) of primary education, then 7 years (21 terms) of secondary, and a final term after A-Levels for Oxbridge exams. I missed plenty of school days through minor illnesses, at least a few days per term with colds or even the odd… Continue reading The full extent of my truant behaviour: three lessons
The Compartments 