Earlier this month I wrote this piece about The Elephant Parade, an event that took place exactly 10 years ago here in London. Streets, parks, squares and indoor spaces were populated by life-size models of baby elephants, painted by a variety of artists. It captured our imagination, and I took photographs of all 250+ elephants.… Continue reading More Elephant Pictures, and reflections on photo albums
Last week’s Album of the week was “The Wheat Album” by The Rutles. It prompted memories of “The White Album”, as the Beatles’ self-titled 1968 release is usually called. I planned to make Jay-Z’s similarly-named 2003 release “The Black Album” my latest Album of the week, having bought a copy from a local charity shop… Continue reading Album of the week: #6 “Shadows in the Night” (Bob Dylan), not “The Black Album” (Jay-Z)
As mentioned in this piece last week I have decided to follow the example of the new Master of Jesus College Cambridge and select an Album of the Week. I started with “Pin-Ups” by David Bowie and have followed it with “entertainment!” by Gang of Four. It was their first album, released on EMI here… Continue reading Album of the week: #2 “entertainment!” (Gang of Four)
Every now and then on this Blog I reflect on subscriptions, most recently in this piece about Netflix (June 2019). As predicted, at the end of our free trial month we continued to subscribe to the service, and still do. Unlike some of the services that I have subscribed to, for month after month without… Continue reading Word of the week: Prime
Reflections on hiring bikes in West London; there are over 1,500 words in this piece. These days the streets and pavements of London are awash with hire bikes. It began at some point earlier this century with the arrival of docking stations placed throughout the centre of town, home to extremely robust (and surprisingly heavy)… Continue reading Word of the week: Mobike
I have a touch of writer’s cramp. I have just typed that sentence, and am typing this one too, because the Speech Recognition feature of Windows 10 has interpreted the phrase “I have writer’s cramp” in the following ways: I have written square Only when writer’s cramp I can wreck it’s a I her writings… Continue reading Writer’s Cramp, and more about Voice Recognition
In January 2016, a few weeks after this Blog was set up, I wrote this piece, “You always have time to pee”. It brought together two things (a story that was in the news and a personal memory) to illustrate what we have tried to teach our children throughout their young lives: there is always… Continue reading “You always have time to pee” revisited
Back in 2016 I had some phone troubles which resulted in me acquiring a new Windows Phone. It was during that brief period when such things were branded as Microsoft rather than Nokia devices. I wrote about it here, explaining why I had initially resisted installing WhatsApp, and why I would not be installing it… Continue reading A tentative return to WhatsApp
The website for BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” has changed. Back in 2016 I referred to “the indispensable ‘Desert Island Discs’ archive” in this piece and included a link to it. That link no longer works. It used to direct you to a page where you could search through every episode of the show… Continue reading “Desert Island Discs” and an unwanted technical change
Our car stereo has a button with the letters “TA” on it. It allows you to control whether Traffic Announcements interrupt what you’re listening to (radio or CD in our case). You might be familiar with the concept. The first time I encountered it in action, back in the 1990s, in a different car, was… Continue reading “Temporary traffic lights on the Redbridge Roundabout”
