20 November 2021 is Joe Biden’s 79th birthday. As noted in this piece from January (“Presidential calculations: dates and ages”), he is the oldest person to hold the office of US President. During my research for that piece, I spent rather a lot of time looking at other information related to holders of the office including the Chinese Years that they were born in,… Continue reading A Scorpio Horse in the White House
I use the word “disproportionately” a lot, or so it seems to me. A search for the word on this Blog shows that it has only appeared in 10 of the 1,000+ posts published so far, a disproportionately small percentage: 99.9% of the posts do not contain it at all, and this is the first… Continue reading Word of the week: disproportionately
As a family we enjoy a wide range of savoury snacks. We have baskets full of, but not limited to, various flavours of crisps (“potato chips” to our American friends), pretzels of different sizes, mini-poppadums, prawn crackers, Quavers, Wotsits, mini-Cheddars and salted popcorn. My children take a packet or two of snacks to school with them… Continue reading The great Twiglet shortage of ’21
When our corner of West London is mentioned in the news on TV it is often described as a “leafy suburb”. This time of year, that leafiness is very much in evidence. The local streets are covered with the leaves falling from two specific types of tree: London plane, and lime trees. My knowledge of… Continue reading Autumn Leaves
My son has a dose of the shingles. I’m not sure how he got it. It’s not the kind of thing that normally affects someone of his age (he’ll be 17 next week). So far nobody else in the family has caught it. I have had shingles twice in my life, once in my 20s… Continue reading Word of the week: shingles
The phrase “panic buying” has been back in the news in recent weeks. During the first lockdown, in the spring of 2020, the phrase was used often to describe the amount of toilet roll people were buying. Supermarket shelves across the globe were emptied of the stuff. Eventually some of the shops here in the… Continue reading Panic Buying
In a couple of recent posts on this Blog I have been revisiting some of the first gigs that I attended. As mentioned in this one (“More about 1970s gigs, and a correction”), I have created a list of the first 38 that I went to, from November 1974 to late December 1977. It appears at the end of this piece, along with photos… Continue reading My first 38 gigs listed (1974-77)
Here’s another news story that passed me by in 2019: the capital city of African nation Burundi has changed. It is now Gitega, which was the seat of the Kingdom of Burundi until it was abolished in 1966. The former capital, Bujumbura, is still the economic capital and centre of commerce. Like many other facts… Continue reading Word of the week: Gitega
My recent memories of a gig by Cado Belle at the Music Machine, recorded here, have prompted me to make a list of the first 30 gigs that I attended. The first dozen or so are as fixed in my memory as my 8 Times Table. They’ve been there for 40 years and haven’t gone anywhere yet. I could recall them, in order, without any difficulty, but I… Continue reading More about 1970s gigs, and a correction
In addition to its daily Obituaries page, the Guardian publishes a series called “Other Lives” two or three times a week. It is introduced online as follows: “Obituaries pages traditionally describe and celebrate the lives of the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is another type of life that deserves noticing: people less in the… Continue reading Colin Tully RIP and Cado Belle at the Music Machine
The Compartments 