In recent months I have been paid to host quizzes in pubs around West London. The pay isn’t great, but I’d rather host a quiz than spend the evening taking part in one. I have been asked to host a fundraising quiz in the coming weeks and my recent experiences mean that I could even… Continue reading Oven-ready quiz rounds: Introduction
How long is a generation? A quick search will provide a range of answers. This Wikipedia page suggests 20 to 30 years, with the following definition: A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, “the average period, generally considered… Continue reading Generations, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler
Happy New Year to you. May 2024 be a better year for you than 2023 was. During the last two festive seasons my son and I both had Covid in the days after Christmas, as you can read in this piece from 2022 and this one from 2021. We have escaped it this time round.… Continue reading A Covid-Free Start to 2024
Any keen quizzers will almost certainly have come across the following question: If you write out every number as a word, which is the first (and only) one to have all of its letters in alphabetical order? In case you don’t know the answer, you can work it out for yourself by starting with one,… Continue reading Word of the week: Forty
I have been using laptops for most of my computing needs for over 15 years. Before that I always had desktops: keyboard, mouse, tower, screen. Although I am right-handed I ended up using a mouse with my left hand. I had some issues with my right shoulder about 20 years ago, linked to how I… Continue reading A dodgy touchpad
Here’s something I wrote way back February 2016, which still applies today: I often recall these last two lines from the first poem in Ted Hughes’s “Birthday Letters”, “Fulbright Scholars”: At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh By my ignorance of the simplest things I am way past 25 but dumbfounded almost daily by my ignorance… Continue reading Word of the week: Session
You are probably familiar with the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation”, the idea that you are within six steps, or “six handshakes”, of everyone else on earth. When I first came across the idea I realized that my quickest route to the 7.9 billion other people on the planet is through the church hierarchy.… Continue reading Musical degrees of separation
Here we are, a fortnight before Christmas Day. ‘Tis the season to send out cards. Friends and family have been messaging to confirm address details for me, and for other members of my family. They have been messaging via WhatsApp, which is probably how I will communicate my seasonal greetings to them. I have already… Continue reading What not to write in Christmas cards
An Irish bar in West London. Early evening. We have just heard that Shane McGowan (singer, songwriter, founder of The Pogues) has died. A friend wants to raise a glass to him. My son and I meet him, and one of his neighbours. We have met before, many times, here and in places like this.… Continue reading That Steve McQueen quote from “The Magnificent Seven”
Some time ago I wrote about my “Computer Museum”, a collection of hardware stretching back for 35 years. I have got rid of most of it. It all took up so much space. I backed up all the files as well as I could and learnt how to remove all the hard drives. They are… Continue reading My first 40 years, in Lyrics
The Compartments 