18 months ago I wrote this piece reflecting on the cost of a new charger for a Mac Book Pro, and the price of phone calls to Ireland from a landline. Both charges were far higher than I expected. Returning to the theme of how much things cost, I would like to report on something… Continue reading The price of things (May 2019, motor insurance)
Yesterday, 10 April, was the 22nd anniversary of my mother’s death. I wrote this piece in 2016 about how we usually commemorate the anniversary (“a mass for her intention and a day spent doing very little”) and this follow-up in 2017. Last year I did not write about the anniversary itself, but wrote this piece… Continue reading Two More Anniversary Days
Today, for the first time since 1975, I watched the Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race from the bandstands by Dukes Meadows. I have seen the boats pass by from many different vantage points over the last 43 years, always on the north side of the river, but never from here. Back in 1975 Cambridge (the… Continue reading Boat Race memories
Since late last year I have limited the number of pieces that mention Leeds United, the team that I have followed since childhood, to two or three per month. These pieces have been recording the team’s efforts to return to the top tier of English football for the first time since 2004. Based on how… Continue reading Twists and turns
Today is the 23rd day of Lent. We are halfway through. In various pieces over the last three years I have referred to the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, when it occurred: on 14 February last year (the first time since 1945 that it had fallen on Valentine’s Day), on 1 March 2017, and… Continue reading Halfway through Lent, 2019
At the start of the month, in this piece, I wrote about taking out a monthly subscription to a nearby gym, a fitness centre attached to a publicly-run swimming pool. It costs less than a quarter of what I was paying to a privately-run gym earlier in this decade. One reason for joining the private… Continue reading Swimming, and New York City cab drivers
Here’s a phrase that I heard for the first time last month: “Summer bodies are made in spring”. I caught just a minute or two of Zoe Ball’s Breakfast Show on Radio 2 one morning and that seemed to be the lesson of the day. There might have been a more detailed chat with someone… Continue reading “Summer bodies are made in spring”
Last month, for the fourth time in my life, I travelled from our corner of West London to Southampton for a family funeral. The service took place in the same cemetery chapel as each of the other three. The four departed members of that side of my family are buried close together, a husband and… Continue reading Southampton: four decades, four funerals, no weddings
This piece, from 6 months ago, recalls something my father taught us when we were children. It compared contours on Ordnance Survey-style maps (which show how steep a gradient is) with the rings left behind when someone is drinking a pint of stout. It also describes the method my brother and I use to fold… Continue reading The 4-Ring Man, in pictures
Here’s a word that was completely unknown to me 24 hours ago: aquafaba. As this definition on the Oxford Dictionaries website tells us, it’s “water in which chickpeas or other pulses have been cooked, used as a substitute for egg whites, particularly in vegan cooking.” Its origin is very recent (2015), “from Latin aqua ‘water’… Continue reading Word of the week: aquafaba
The Compartments 