Last week, just before the half-term holidays began, my 11-year-old daughter passed her Cycling Proficiency Test. She has proved that she is capable of riding a bicycle on the streets of West London. It’s a test that I never took in my childhood. I switched schools just before my 9th birthday and my new school… Continue reading Cycling Proficiency
Last night, for the fourth year in a row, we watched a large chunk of the Eurovision Song Contest as a family, the four of us all in the same room for the first 18 performances. My children’s experience of the contest is similar to my own at their ages. Aged 8 or 9 you… Continue reading Eurovision 2018
We have been experiencing extremes of weather here in London over the last month. Three weeks ago we had the hottest April days on record. Two weekends ago it was unseasonably cold, down to 5 degrees centigrade on the last Saturday of April. Last weekend the temperatures were their highest ever for a May Day… Continue reading Fab ice lollies and childhood rules
The remote control for our multi-channel box no longer works properly. The big buttons that allow you to access menus and recordings still work. So do the small buttons in the centre (play, record, pause, stop), and so do the numbered buttons from 0 to 9, so we can easily switch channels (46 for Challenge,… Continue reading Unable to fast-forward
Here’s a theory for you, if you’re a fan of modern music, and if you’re the kind of person who has favourite bands or artists. It works for me, see if it works for you. When you have a favourite artist or band (examples for me include Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan) it… Continue reading Favourite songs and favourite artists, a theory
Recently we dug out our old poster showing the flags of the world. It’s titled “World of Flags”. I bought it four years ago, ostensibly for the children (who were aged 7 and 9 at the time), but really for me, having realized that I could only recognize, with confidence, 20 or 30 of them.… Continue reading “World of Flags”
This post is over 3 years old. Thanks for stopping by. Please follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ReillySJ) You’re probably familiar with the nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. There’s a version here with the usual first verse sung repeatedly, and then “in the round”. It has been viewed nearly 74 million times. The words… Continue reading “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, and a few extra verses
You’ll know about the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, the words that are used to represent the 26 letters of the English alphabet. It starts with Alpha, Bravo and Charlie for A, B and C. You might know the remaining 23 words already. If so, you have either deliberately set out to learn them or you have… Continue reading The NATO Phonetic Alphabet
In the late 1990s the former footballer Ian Wright hosted a chat-show called “Friday Night’s All Wright”, on ITV. (It was on Friday nights, understandably.) He was a great player, and back then he was Arsenal’s top goal-scorer of all time (Thierry Henry overtook him in 2005). I have positive memories of the show. Wright… Continue reading “Get the Nike [Adidas, Reebok] out my face, man”
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.” That’s how the saying goes. When I first heard this phrase it was attributed to the comedian Billy Connolly. It has also been attributed to the Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin, the explorer Ranulph Fiennes and the fell-walker Alfred Wainwright, as I noted in… Continue reading “There’s no such thing as bad weather”
The Compartments 