Earlier this month I wrote about Saul Bellow’s 1976 memoir “To Jerusalem and Back”, noting that I would “mention it again soon on these pages”. The phrase that prompted me to write that earlier piece, and which can be found on page 108 of my “Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics” edition, was “Now that the reading… Continue reading Word of the week: marginalia
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
We are half-way through the latest series of “Strictly Come Dancing”. As noted before on this Blog, this BBC1 show is the most-watched TV programme here in the UK, and constitutes a large part of our family viewing. Most Saturday evenings the four of us are gathered in the living-room for the live show, and… Continue reading Word of the week: spoiler
Earlier this month Cardinal John Henry Newman was canonized in Rome. The ceremony took place on Sunday 13 October, the Feast of St Edward the Confessor. I wasn’t there, but I was at the mass in September 2010 when Newman was beatified. It was the first such mass on English soil for many hundreds of… Continue reading Word of the week: Newman
As you may know, McCarthy is one of the more numerous Irish surnames. According to this page on the Irish Genealogy website, detailing the 20 most common surnames in Ireland from an 1890 study, it was 13th on the list. There have been plenty of prominent McCarthy’s in living memory, including Mick (past and current… Continue reading Word of the week: McCarthy
Early in 2016, I wrote this piece about words and phrases that seem to crop up regularly in prize-winning fiction. One of them was antimacassar, “a piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease or hair-oil – macassar was used as a hair oil in Victorian and Edwardian… Continue reading Word of the week: antimacassar
The new Trivia Season has begun. The three TV quiz formats that will reach their conclusions next spring are back on our screens: “University Challenge” began in July, “Mastermind” in August and “Only Connect” a week ago, on the first Monday in September. Once again “Only Connect” precedes “University Challenge” in an hour’s worth of… Continue reading Word of the week: amanuensis
We are back from our holiday in Spain, well looked after throughout our stay by my brother, who has lived there for most of his adult life. In fact, he has lived there for well over half of his entire life. It is nearly 36 years since he left London to set up home there.… Continue reading Word of the week: sunburn
If you were in the UK in the 1970s and spent any time watching TV on a Saturday night you will have seen a musical act containing the word “Swingle”, “The Swingle Singers” perhaps, or “Swingle II”. They would appear on shows like “The Two Ronnies”, performing a cappella versions of, well, I can’t remember… Continue reading Word of the week: Swingle
The EHIC, or “European Health Insurance Card”, entitles those of us who live in the UK to “reduced cost (or sometimes free) state-provided healthcare where treatment becomes medically necessary during a temporary visit to other countries of the European Economic Area or Switzerland”. I quote directly from the letter that accompanied our new cards when… Continue reading Word of the week: EHIC
The Compartments 