Back in February I wrote, here, about time spent reviewing some of my “small data” from 2007. There were tens of thousands of words drafted in password-protected documents, and hundreds of photos taken on our first digital camera. Reviewing them for the first time in many years occupied several hours of my time. One of… Continue reading Fiona Jones MP and different kinds of normal
Last year, and the year before that, a few of us went on a Boxing Day pub crawl. This piece from 2016, and this follow-up from 2017, explain the reasons and the routes taken. The core group for each event consisted of me, my brother (who lives in Spain and most years only spends Christmas… Continue reading No Boxing Day pub crawl in 2018
Back in September I wrote this piece about “The Clock”, Christian Marclay’s installation at Tate Modern here in London. As I noted, using words from the Tate’s website, it is “a montage of thousands of film and television images of clocks, edited together so they show the actual time. It is a thrilling journey through… Continue reading Beaten by “The Clock”
Every year my old college produces its Annual Record. As the name suggests, it’s a publication reviewing the previous twelve months of college life. The 2018 edition arrived in the post two days ago. I had been looking forward to it and couldn’t remember exactly what time of year it usually arrives. Like many items… Continue reading Annual Record
In the Catholic Church, November is the month of the dead. It begins with the Feast of All Saints (“all the saints, known and unknown”). The Feast of All Souls (“all the faithful departed”) follows on 2 November, and for the rest of the month a daily mass is offered for the dead. Services take… Continue reading Knowing where the bodies are buried
The October half-term holiday, a welcome break for the children after a tiring few weeks back at school. Yesterday, soon after my son woke at 11am, I offered him a few options for how we could spend the afternoon: Kew Gardens maybe, or one of the museums, or how about a trip to Tate Modern… Continue reading The price of a pint: a few milestones
A wet mid-October day here in West London. The weather has prompted numerous pieces on this Blog in recent months, including observations about the snow in early March and the summer’s heatwave. Here’s another one. Three weeks ago, in late September, we had a mini-heatwave, with temperatures hitting 27 degrees centigrade (80 Fahrenheit). One weekday… Continue reading Soaking up the sun
According to this piece in yesterday’s Guardian, “The stricken cakes and café chain Patisserie Valerie is teetering close to collapse after admitting it needed ‘an immediate injection of capital’ to survive.” My immediate thought was that, at the prices they charge, any customer buying half-a-dozen pastries and a couple of large hot chocolates would inject… Continue reading Patisserie Valerie
The Hopper Fare was introduced here in London back in 2016. It allowed you to make two bus journeys for the price of one, as long as the second journey started within an hour of the first. This was a simple, easily understood change to the fares system. It saved people money. From what I… Continue reading Word of the week: Hopper
You know how to use a pencil. Most of the pencils that you have encountered were probably HB. They are most common type. You probably also know that the H and B indicate, respectively Hard and Black. 4H indicates a much harder drawing implement than HB (and it’s lighter in shade), and 4B is much… Continue reading 2B
The Compartments 