I am a reluctant user of WhatsApp, as has been mentioned more than once in these pages. I am a member of two WhatsApp groups, and am the only link between the two of them: one (which has gone very quiet in recent months) contains cousins on my father’s side; the other consists of half a dozen friends from college. Late last year there… Continue reading Word of the week: Brutalism
Another month, another variant. A year after we first heard of the COVID-19 strain of Coronavirus, which has transformed all our daily lives, news emerges of another variant, from South Africa. This follows on from the UK variant announced late last year. Here in the UK, over 100,000 people have died in the last year… Continue reading Word of the week: variant
The town of Crawley, in West Sussex, has been in the news over the last few days. Their local football club, Crawley Town FC, hosted Leeds United in the FA Cup Third Round yesterday and won comfortably, 3-0. Leeds are three divisions and 62 league places above yesterday’s opponents, but it didn’t look that way,… Continue reading Word of the week: Crawley
Following on from our Christmas Eve viewing (“Casablanca”) we settled down on New Year’s Eve to watch another film that won the Oscar for Best Picture: “Rocky”. My wife is a big fan of the “Rocky” movies but the only ones we had watched together were 21st century additions to the franchise, “Rocky Balboa” and… Continue reading Word of the week: Rocky
My 14 year old daughter suggested that we watch a film on Christmas Eve. Much of our TV viewing involves live sport, quiz shows and “Strictly Come Dancing”, and series like “Friends”, “Big Bang Theory” and “Modern Family” on Netflix, but over the years we have made an effort to watch films on Christmas Eve… Continue reading Word of the week: Casablanca
Yesterday, in the All-Ireland Hurling Final, Limerick beat Waterford comfortably to win their second title in three years. It was the first time in its history that the final has been played in December. It was also the first time that these two counties, from the province of Munster, had met in the final. Waterford last won… Continue reading Word of the week: Waterford
Over the last week there has been much debate here in the UK about the meaning of the phrase “a substantial meal”. A second period of lockdown in England (during which most people seemed to go about their day-to-day business much as before) has been followed by a return to a system of “tiers” that… Continue reading Word of the week: substantial
You are probably familiar with the three main definitions of the word “whitewash”. As listed on the Cambridge Dictionary website they are: “a white liquid that is a mixture of lime or powdered chalk and water, used for making walls or ceilings white”; “an attempt to stop people finding out the true facts about a… Continue reading Word of the week: whitewash
Back in September, in this piece, I wrote about how much I was enjoying US sitcom “Modern Family”, a show that had passed us by as a family throughout its 11 seasons. Its final episodes were broadcast in May 2020, and we were catching up, through Netflix initially, and then (for series 8-11) on DVD.… Continue reading Word of the week: pilot
“Word Perfect” is a book by Susie Dent published recently here in the UK. Unfortunately the initial print-run was based on an early version of the text and was full of typographical errors. As you can read in this piece from the Guardian (“Susie Dent ‘gutted’ after new book Word Perfect printed with host of… Continue reading Word of the week: WordPerfect
The Compartments 