Back in 2016, in this piece, I offered advice about where to get shamrock in Central London on St Patrick’s Day: St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Soho Square. In recent years this advice probably did not apply (lockdown and all that) but this year it has, once again, been valid. But there has been a… Continue reading The price of shamrock in 2023
Well, this is a treat: Theatricalia.com, “a database of past and future theatre productions.”, a kind of IMDb for UK theatre. It lists actors, directors, productions and places, and has provided me with information that I hadn’t been able to find elsewhere. It doesn’t appear to be as complete as IMDb, which has been owned… Continue reading Word of the week: Theatricalia
I have been thinking recently of the two members of my family who made it past their 90th birthdays. My mother’s sister died in 2019, aged 91. I wrote this piece, about decompression, on the way to her funeral in Dun Laoghaire. My oldest relative by marriage, who we knew as Uncle Mido, was married… Continue reading “Better’n steak, boy, better’n steak”
You might well have heard of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). You might have read, and understood, his major work, “The Critique of Pure Reason”. I tried to, as part of a political philosophy paper at university, but most of what I wrote in that week’s essay came from HJ Paton’s book “The Moral… Continue reading Word of the Week: Kant
Here is the latest collection of photos related to “The 4-Ring Man”, an idea originally covered in this piece from 2018. We are dealing here with what remains when you drink a pint of beer (usually Guinness), along with examples of how we deal with empty crisp packets. Below are links to five other pieces… Continue reading The 4-Ring Man, in pictures (Part 6, July 2022–November 2022)
Just over two years ago, in this piece, I wrote about English managers in the Premier League (the top division in English football). At the time there were 8 English managers in the league, and I found it worthy of note that the 7 teams at the bottom of the table were all managed by… Continue reading English Managers in the Premier League, revisited
The BBC Radio 2 mid-morning quiz Pop Master has been mentioned many times on this Blog. There are pieces that list all the questions for an entire week (such as this one from 2021) and pieces that summarize my scores and only list the Bonus questions and the ones that I got wrong (such as… Continue reading Pop Master: 1,000 maximum scores
If you follow the game of cricket, you will be familiar with the idea of a nightwatchman, a batsman who comes in at the fall of a wicket in the last few overs of a day’s play. The nightwatchman’s role is to take the pressure off the other batsman: face as many balls as possible,… Continue reading Word of the week: nighthawk
Over the last couple of years I have caught up regularly with a handful of guys I was at school with over 50 years ago. There have been meals out, nights on the beer, weekly games of football. Some of my old classmates have come to see my monthly live performances at a local pub.… Continue reading Unfriending Dead People
Last month I posted this piece about the dozen Oscar-winners that I have seen perform on stage (11 in London, one in Stratford-on-Avon). To jog my memory before drafting it I “spent a few hours … going through all the theatre programmes that I have collected over the last 50 years”. I then put the… Continue reading 50 years’ worth of theatre programmes
The Compartments 