Our friends from Worthing came up for the day today. As usual, for a Saturday, we had “Pick of the Pops” playing live on the radio (1-3pm, BBC Radio 2). I have noted elsewhere that I can usually work out what was #1 before the chart rundown at the end of each hour. The second… Continue reading UK #1 hit singles containing girls’ names
Many years ago Woody Allen made a comment about how American teenagers spend all their time with their headphones on, and their lives would be complete if they could grow a third ear to allow them to speak to their friends on the phone at the same time. This was back in the 1980s or… Continue reading A third eye or a third ear
On our way back to London yesterday from our holiday in South Devon we planned to make two stops, Exeter and Stonehenge. The latter didn’t work as planned but we stopped in Exeter for lunch, at a pub within sight of the cathedral. None of us had been to the city before. Every visit to… Continue reading Holiday notes: Exeter and Stonehenge
While we’re on holiday in Devon during this first week of the Rio Olympics, here’s another Olympic memory from “1000 Memories”, available as a Kindle book here (UK) or here (US). Massacre I walked down to the end of North Great George’s Street with Aunt Margaret. She was going to have a drink in the… Continue reading Olympic Memories: Munich 1972
Beer, I have learnt this week, is a town in Devon. It was the starting-point earlier today for a coastal walk, which involved cliffs, steep hills and fields. We had to enter some of these fields through those wooden gates that you have to climb over, stiles as they’re called. Before today none of the… Continue reading Holiday notes: Beer
While we’re on holiday in Devon during this first week of the Rio Olympics, here’s an Olympic memory from “1000 Memories”, available as a Kindle book here (UK) or here (US). Mexico 1968 I thought that he was dying. I thought that the man on the television was dying. He had collapsed beside the running… Continue reading Olympic Memories: Mexico 1968
As someone who still uses cash for many purchases I always have change in my pockets. I stopped carrying a wallet some years ago and use the following method to organize notes and coins in the back pockets of my jeans. Larger notes (£10 and £20) go in the left pocket, along with coins that… Continue reading 2 2’s and a 1
On Father’s Day earlier this summer my family gave me, among other things, a guidebook to South Devon, in preparation for our holiday this month. I flicked through it that same afternoon and noted Kents Cavern, a cave complex near Babbacombe, as a place to visit. Bones have been discovered here that provide the oldest… Continue reading Holiday notes: Kents Cavern
I am a middle child: older brother, younger sister, me in the middle. What do you think about that? What does it mean to you? It probably depends on your own circumstances: whether you had siblings and, if so, how many, and the order in which you were born. Many of the families we knew… Continue reading On being in the middle
What do you know about Gilbert Scott, if anything? I can trace my knowledge of him (or rather them) to a conversation in the 1980s with a college friend who was studying architecture. He told me about two Gilbert Scotts, both architects, and both noted for creating things that you almost certainly know about. We… Continue reading Gilbert Scott
The Compartments 