Just over a year ago I wrote this piece, “33 months of 5-a-side”, reporting that I had continued to play football at least once a month for nearly three years. For a while, in the spring of 2022, I was playing twice a week. By last summer I was only playing once a month. As… Continue reading Word of the week: Symbolic
Earlier this summer, for many reasons, I cancelled my subscriptions to all the sports channels. The most important of these many reasons was time: I didn’t want to spend untold hours watching live cricket in daylight hours or baseball late into the night just because I could. Our main justification for subscribing to sports channels… Continue reading Sports Channels and Smoking, an Analogy
Every now and then I read about a number that seems significant and think that I should write about it, a “Number of the week” piece to sit alongside the 200+ “Word of the week” posts that you can find elsewhere on this Blog. I see that I have never done so. This is my… Continue reading Number of the week: 15.5
Every now and then this Blog becomes almost inactive. It still receives tens of thousands of views per month. I still use it as my Exobrain, but I go through weeks or months without posting anything new. The last three months have been like that, since this piece shortly after Tony Slattery died in mid-January.… Continue reading A long overdue catch-up (April 2025)
Sad news today. The actor and comedian Tony Slattery has died aged 65. He was a schoolfriend of my brother’s, and a family friend for many years after that. He has been mentioned a few times on this site. The handful of references to him on other pages can give you a sense of our… Continue reading Tony Slattery RIP
Happy New Year to you. 2025 is a square number, 45 squared to be exact. The last time that I wrote about the mathematical properties of a New Year was in 2017, the most recent year that was prime. 2027 is the next time that the year will be a prime number. The last year… Continue reading 2025 is a square number
My children are now past the age when they might need Fake IDs to get served in bars. I wrote about their first experiences of buying alcoholic drinks in this piece last month. Two years ago, when he turned 18, my son bought me a pint of London Pride on his birthday. In October my… Continue reading Fake IDs
My daughter turned 18 last month. I mentioned it in this piece about Berlin. When my son turned 18 two years ago we took a symbolic trip to a nearby pub for him to buy a pint of beer for the first time. It was a pint of London Pride, for me. He had lemonade.… Continue reading Buying your dad a pint for the first time
My daughter returned last night from a school trip to Berlin. A week earlier she celebrated her 18th birthday. She was only away for three nights, but it felt like longer. She had a cold the weekend before she left, and I have had one for the last few days, but had recovered enough to… Continue reading Berlin Memories
I have been researching managers of Premier League, initially to find out how many English managers there are in the top flight of English football. The answer to that one, currently, is three: Eddie Howe (Newcastle United), Sean Dyche (Everton) and Gary O’Neil (Wolves). I have looked into this idea before, most recently in this… Continue reading “It’s a young man’s game”
The Compartments 