Sad news last month, as reported here on the BBC website: Melanie Panayiotou, George Michael’s older sister, died at Christmas, three years after her rather more famous brother. That BBC News article quotes a statement released through the family’s lawyer John Reid, “We would simply ask that the family’s privacy be respected at this very… Continue reading Chatting to George Michael’s sister at a Wham! video shoot
Here are the questions and answers for the current series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”, episodes broadcast between Monday 13 and Friday 17 January 2020, Series 4 Episodes 36-40 (S4Ep36, S4Ep37 and so on). The format here is the same as in earlier pieces such as this one from last week: a list of the… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 17 January 2020 (Series 4, Episodes 36-40)
Following on from this piece from April 2019, here is a round-up of the “3-in-10” questions from this year’s editions of Pop Master. As I’m sure you know, Pop Master is the mid-morning quiz on the Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2, and the final challenge for the winning contestant is this: in 10… Continue reading Pop Master: the “3-in-10” questions, 2020
Here are the questions and answers for the current series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”, episodes broadcast between Monday 6 and Friday 10 January 2020, Series 4 Episodes 31-35 (S4Ep31, S4Ep32 and so on). The format here is the same as in earlier pieces such as this one from last November: a list of the… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 10 January 2020 (Series 4, Episodes 31-35)
Leeds United begin the 2020s top of the league. The league in this case is the Championship, the second tier of English football. Here, for the sixth month in a row on this Blog, is a screenshot taken from the BBC website confirming the current state of things. As you can see, Leeds are ahead… Continue reading Leeds United, top of the table for the fourth decade in a row
New Year’s Eve 2019. Tomorrow we begin a whole new decade, the 20s, or the 2020s. I don’t recall thinking too much about decades coming to an end on previoius New Year’s Eve’s. We made a big deal of 31 December 1999, but that was the end of a millennium, not just the end of… Continue reading End-of-the-decade memories, and some calculations
Pho, as you may know, is a Vietnamese dish, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary website as “a type of soup … usually containing noodles (= long, thin strips made from flour, water, and often egg) and small pieces of meat”. Pho is also the name of a chain of restaurants here in the UK, describing… Continue reading Word of the week: pho
On Boxing Day 2016 my brother and I went on a local pub crawl. It was something we had talked about doing when we were teenagers, but never got around to it. You can read about it here. On Boxing Day 2017 we went on another crawl (as noted in this piece), but we didn’t… Continue reading The Brentford FC pub crawl, postponed
Merry Christmas to you. For the first time since this Blog was set up, over four years ago, I am drafting words on a Christmas morning. The children (aged 13 and 15) have opened all their presents. BBC adaptations of Julia Donaldson books have been playing in the background (“Stick Man”, followed by “Zog”) and… Continue reading Christmas Day, the new New Year’s Eve
Following on from this piece at the start of the year and this one from August, here’s another set of photos showing what remains after a pint of beer and a packet of crisps have been dealt with. They were taken at various bars in London. The concept of “The 4-Ring Man” was originally covered… Continue reading The 4-Ring Man, in pictures (Part 3, Oct-Dec 2019)
The Compartments 