If you follow the game of cricket, you will be familiar with the idea of a nightwatchman, a batsman who comes in at the fall of a wicket in the last few overs of a day’s play. The nightwatchman’s role is to take the pressure off the other batsman: face as many balls as possible,… Continue reading Word of the week: nighthawk
In the million-plus words that appear on this Blog, all of them still freely available whenever you want to read them, there has been no mention of either of the UK’s two most recent prime ministers. Until now. The current prime minister, less than a week into the job, is Rishi Sunak, who either believes… Continue reading Leeds United FC and Liz Truss
As a family we have started to watch “3rd Rock from the Sun” on More4, Channel 4’s free streaming service. It calls itself “the world’s biggest free streaming service”. I caught most episodes of this US sitcom when they were first broadcast, from 1996 onwards, and again on one of the comedy channels from around… Continue reading “Contains some outdated humour”
The current UK prime minister is Boris Johnson, still, hanging in there until the election of the new leader of the Tory Party, who will become his successor in 10 Downing Street. That’s how it works these days, and the results should be in on 5 September. There are reports that Johnson is getting booed… Continue reading Word of the week: ponce
This Blog is not a place for up-to-the-minute news analysis. There is a category called “In the news” and browsing through articles that have been categorized that way you will find more mentions of recently deceased sportsmen and pop stars than, say, current political developments. When this Blog began, in late 2015, the UK prime… Continue reading What the Daily Record said
Here’s a photo of my vinyl copy of the current UK #1, and the picture sleeve that it came in. As you can see, it’s “Running up That Hill” by Kate Bush, an old-fashioned 7” single. The picture shows her using a bow and arrow. The song first entered the UK charts in August 1985… Continue reading The current UK #1, on vinyl
A few months ago I wrote this piece about Southend-on-Sea, the UK’s 70th city (the 52nd in England). Since then a further 8 places have been granted city status, taking the total to 78 (55 in England). For the first time, there is a city that is part of a British Overseas Territory, not within… Continue reading 8 more UK cities
You might have heard the old joke about a man walking into a chip shop and ordering two portions of cod and chips in the usual way: “Cod and chips twice, please”. The man behind the counter says, “All right mate, I heard you the first time”. This joke came to mind recently while taking… Continue reading Battersea Power Station Station
Last autumn I wrote about the Scottish musician Colin Tully, whose death was reported in the Guardian’s “Other Lives” pages. I quoted the online description of this section of the paper: “Obituaries pages traditionally describe and celebrate the lives of the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is another type of life that… Continue reading “A drugs bust ended his career as the furry Wellington” [Robin Le Mesurier RIP]
Most of the time this Blog does not deal with the leading stories of the day. You have many thousands of other places to read about them. For the last 19 days there has only been one significant news story in Europe: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There, I’ve said it. If I were living… Continue reading Word of the week: Kyiv
The Compartments 