Tony Blackburn is back on BBC Radio 2, our radio station of choice. I am very pleased about this. He’s on for an hour on Friday nights at 7pm and on Saturday mornings between 6 and 8am, broadcasting live. For the latter he has taken over the “Sounds of the 60s” slot from Brian Matthew… Continue reading Tony Blackburn
The term “quadratic equation” might provoke fear in anyone who didn’t enjoy maths at school. I did enjoy maths at school, more so than my brother or sister, and over the years have used some straightforward multiplications to try and take some of the fear out of quadratic equations. It started with my older brother,… Continue reading Fun with quadratic equations
Yesterday I noted how a replacement vehicle that was supplied by our garage earlier this month came with barely enough fuel for our needs. It got me thinking about the other two occasions when I have nearly run out of petrol. The last time was when we bought our current car, in 2008. It has… Continue reading More about running out of petrol
In the 1980s there were six different pubs called The Blue Posts in Central London, all within a mile of Piccadilly Circus. I discovered the first, in Rupert Street, one Saturday afternoon. I had arranged to meet an old school-friend to see a movie at one of the big theatres on Leicester Square around 3pm… Continue reading The Blue Posts
With a week to go till Christmas here are three pieces from “1000 Memories”, available as a Kindle book here (UK) or here (US). Christmas at Goodbans Goodbans was our local department store, on the High Road. It seemed big, but it wasn’t, not compared to a proper department store like Derry & Toms. The… Continue reading Pre-Christmas Memories
As a teenager I went to many gigs at the Hammersmith Odeon, and even went to a couple before turning 13. It was the largest cinema in the UK at the time (around 3,500 seats) and the scene of many childhood visits to the pictures, like those recalled in this piece. By the time I… Continue reading Front row seats at the Hammersmith Odeon
The current Pope, Francis I, has not visited the UK. His two immediate predecessors did, John Paul II in 1982 and Benedict XVI in 2010. I was able to attend outdoor masses celebrated by both of them, the first at an airport in Coventry and the second in a park near Birmingham. John Paul II’s… Continue reading Pope Sandwiches
We learn from our mistakes, or so we’re told. I must have made plenty of mistakes at primary school, writing letters the wrong way round, or mis-spelling words like “special”, but I don’t remember any of that, and any evidence of these things is long gone. There are two things that I recall getting wrong… Continue reading Things I got wrong at primary school
When my brother got married, in Spain in the 1980s, there were still substantial savings to be made at duty free stores when flying to Europe. A few of us travelled from Gatwick to Alicante and bought two bottles of duty-free Veuve Cliquot champagne in a rather attractive (and heavily discounted) gift set. It was,… Continue reading “When my brother was at Cambridge he drank this [Veuve Cliquot] every day”
Windows 10 is taking up more of my time, at home and at work, than when I wrote about it in this piece. Microsoft tell us that this is the last-numbered version of the operating system. There will be no Windows 11. The word that I use most often to describe this new version is… Continue reading Word of the week: busy
The Compartments 