Back in 2018 I wrote this piece (“An 80-year-old punk”) about Jet Black, drummer in punk-era band The Stranglers. He had just celebrated his 80th birthday. I mentioned that he was older than Neil Sedaka, Judy Collins and Ringo Starr. Ringo, drummer in The Beatles (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that) has… Continue reading An 80-year-old Beatle
You might remember a story about the devil going down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind, he was way behind, and he was looking to make a deal. He came across a young boy (name of Johnny) playing the violin (“sawing on a fiddle and playing it hot”).… Continue reading Charlie Daniels RIP
Arugula is the Italian word for the salad leaf known here in the UK as rocket. Arugula, rather than rocket, is also used in the USA to describe this “cruciferous annual plant”. I thought that this was standard general knowledge but maybe it’s not. A few weeks ago, some friends of the family arranged an… Continue reading Word of the week: arugula
Here, for the 12th successive month on this Blog, is a screenshot taken from the BBC website that shows Leeds United, the team that I have supported since childhood, top of the Championship, the second tier of English football. When I posted the most recent of these pieces (here, last Saturday) I wrote, “If Leeds… Continue reading Top of the table for a 12th successive month
Live football is back on TV, live league action from the top two divisions of English football. Liverpool have won the Premier League, the top tier, with seven games to spare. My attention is focused on the Championship, the next level down. I type these words shortly before the 3pm kick-off from Elland Road, Leeds… Continue reading “As it stands…”
Back in April I posted three pieces, each of which listed a week’s worth of questions from Pop Master, the mid-morning quiz hosted by Ken Bruce on weekdays on BBC Radio 2. The most recent of the pieces, for week ending 17 April 2020, is here, and contains links to its predecessors. Before April I… Continue reading A surfeit of Pop Master
Earlier this month I wrote this piece about The Elephant Parade, an event that took place exactly 10 years ago here in London. Streets, parks, squares and indoor spaces were populated by life-size models of baby elephants, painted by a variety of artists. It captured our imagination, and I took photographs of all 250+ elephants.… Continue reading More Elephant Pictures, and reflections on photo albums
If you grew up watching Hollywood films from the 1950s and 60s, as I did, you will be familiar with the actor Gregory Peck. You might have seen him in any or all of the following: “The Guns of Navarone”, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (for which he won an Oscar, as the lawyer Atticus Finch),… Continue reading Gregory Peck and my father
Many phrases have entered common usage since Coronavirus began to dominate the headlines back in March: “social distancing”, “track and trace”, “immuno-compromised”. A phrase that has been around for many years but has only registered with me in the last few months, when reading articles about Coronavirus, is the “thousand-yard stare”. I first encountered it… Continue reading “Thousand-yard stares”
Back in 2017 I posted this piece about Dead Pubs of West London. It was based on a round of questions that I had set five years earlier for a Quiz Night at the primary school that my children attended. It featured photographs of buildings in this part of town. Most of them had either… Continue reading Dead Pubs update (June 2020)
The Compartments 