A few people I know observed Dry January: giving up alcohol for the first month of the year. In some cases they did it to make up for overdoing things in December. I did not follow their example, but I decided not to spend money on alcohol if possible. If anyone wanted to buy me… Continue reading A tale of two pints (ESB and Lucky Saint)
My subject is memory. Occasionally names or concepts fail to come to mind when I want them to. Sometimes I have struggled to remember the names of actresses, like the one who played Bubble in “Absolutely Fabulous” and the woman who played Cassie in the original UK series of “House of Cards”. Similarly, about five… Continue reading Word of the week: Spiegelhalter
A year ago this week the actor and comedian Tony Slattery died. I wrote this piece about him the day we heard the news, recalling how he was a schoolfriend of my brother’s, and a family friend for many years after that. I have written many thousands of words about him since them, not finalized… Continue reading The champagne had turned to vinegar
In 1997, after nearly 10 years off the booze, I started drinking again. The chronology and the reasoning behind all this are in this piece on my Compartments menu. It was also the year that my mother died. On Christmas Day 1997, before the big lunch, I had a few drinks at the local Parish… Continue reading Drinks in a bar on Christmas Day, first time since 2019
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)
Here is the latest collection of photos related to “The 4-Ring Man”, an idea originally covered in this piece from 2018. We are dealing here with what remains when you drink a pint of beer (usually Guinness), along with examples of how we deal with empty crisp packets. Below are links to six other pieces… Continue reading The 4-Ring Man, in pictures (Part 7, November 2022–June 2023)
“All I Have To Do Is Dream” was a 1958 #1 here in the UK for The Everly Brothers, a double A side with “Claudette”. I added it to my repertoire in September 2021. I can tell you the exact date without having to check anywhere else: Saturday 11 September 2021, or the 20th anniversary… Continue reading Repertoire: “All I Have To Do Is Dream” and my reasons for playing it
The Compartments 