Last autumn, in among the millions of words written and broadcast after the US Presidential Election, there was a quote about green bananas. I searched for it a week or two later but couldn’t find it. Now, several months after the event, I have tried again and found it on this Newsweek page from 7… Continue reading Green Bananas
I drive a French car. I have always driven French cars. So did my mother. Back in the 1970s, before I was old enough to drive, she bought her first car from the long-gone Fred Guy garage in King Street Hammersmith. It was a two-year-old Renault 6, which was replaced by a new Renault 6… Continue reading They really can’t get the parts
How are your Sunday evenings? Is there a routine built around returning to school or work the following morning? Does the TV schedule play a significant part in your Sunday nights? In our household, there are two series that take up our time on Sunday evenings: the “Strictly Come Dancing” results show during the autumn, right through to… Continue reading The new Sunday evening routine
Here’s the first part of my favourite joke from recent years: “Why did the vegan cross the road?” I was asked this by a very polite, well-brought up woman in her 30s, who I have known since she was 3. Immediately after asking me the question she looked worried and said, “Oh, you’re not a vegan are you?”, as… Continue reading Vegans and Oxbridge Graduates
Here’s a catchphrase I first heard in the 1990s and use from time to time: “You want to take more water with it”. You might need to change the pronoun and verb forms as appropriate. I can pinpoint the date and place where I first heard it: St Patrick’s Day 1993, near our local church.… Continue reading “You want to take more water with it”
Until this week I had had the same dentist for 25 years. He is now cutting back his hours, moving towards retirement and taking on only private work. If I wanted to continue with him as my dentist, I would have to go private, not on the NHS. 25 years is, by a long way,… Continue reading A New Dentist
Last October I wrote this piece about air mail letters, or aerogrammes as they are also known. I had just learnt that they have not been available in the UK since 2012. I was planning to send pre-Christmas greetings to a handful of friends overseas but figured that the extra steps of finding air mail paper and envelopes, and having to sort out… Continue reading More about aerogrammes, and an example
Happy Pi Day to you, belatedly. I write these words in the last hour of 14 March here in the UK, or 3/14 in US notation. Out there in California, Oregon and everywhere else in the Pacific time zone, you still have many hours to celebrate. For the first time ever, my children and I… Continue reading “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course…”
Here in the UK today is one of the two dates in the calendar for new car registrations. For the 20th year in a row licence plates issued on 1 March (standard issue, not “cherished” or customized plates) reflect the year of registration in a straightforward way. The conventional format is for two letters, then… Continue reading 21 today, reflections on vehicle licence plates
Back in November, in this piece about the word “whitewash”, I wrote about the pool table that we bought for my son’s 16th birthday. I set it up that evening and we have played at least three games on it every day since then. Most days we play at least six games, and sometimes (at weekends, or in the Christmas holidays) we… Continue reading 500 games of pool
