Since late last year I have limited the number of pieces that mention Leeds United, the team that I have followed since childhood, to two or three per month. These pieces have been recording the team’s efforts to return to the top tier of English football for the first time since 2004. Based on how… Continue reading Twists and turns
A couple of months ago, in this piece, I wrote about the sitcom “Friends” and its regular place in our family viewing, even though the last episode of the show aired in 2004. As predicted, the weekday broadcasts on Channel 5 reached the last ever episode (the end of Series 10) before February was out.… Continue reading Word of the week: hibachi
Today is the 23rd day of Lent. We are halfway through. In various pieces over the last three years I have referred to the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, when it occurred: on 14 February last year (the first time since 1945 that it had fallen on Valentine’s Day), on 1 March 2017, and… Continue reading Halfway through Lent, 2019
An entire Saturday and Sunday without witnessing a minute of live sport on TV: this is a rarity for us. From England’s game on Friday night (a 5-0 win at home to the Czech Republic) until the second half of this evening’s 5-1 win in Macedonia, I spent nearly 72 hours without seeing a kick,… Continue reading Two sporting hat-tricks, one good and one bad
At various times in the last six months I have posted weekly updates about the ITV quiz show “Tenable”. For the most recent of these pieces (shows broadcast in the week ending 8 March 2019), please click here. That piece contains links to previous weeks, going back to week ending 1 February 2019. There are… Continue reading Raw “Tenable” data, February-March 2018
Another city, another 50 people murdered by some nutter. This time the city was Christchurch New Zealand, the people who were targeted were Muslim, killed in mosques while praying last Friday (15 March). The person who murdered them will, and should, remain nameless. Back in 2016, soon after a mass shooting in Orlando Florida, I… Continue reading What Jacinda Ardern said
At the start of the month, in this piece, I wrote about taking out a monthly subscription to a nearby gym, a fitness centre attached to a publicly-run swimming pool. It costs less than a quarter of what I was paying to a privately-run gym earlier in this decade. One reason for joining the private… Continue reading Swimming, and New York City cab drivers
Last summer, during the FIFA World Cup Finals in Russia, I wrote this piece about Lionel Messi, the Barcelona and Argentina footballer. I observed that in several hundreds of hours spent watching Messi and his rival Ronaldo playing for their respective clubs on TV I had never seen Messi score a goal in live play.… Continue reading Lionel Messi: the hoodoo is over
As former Home Secretary Amber Rudd learnt last week, “coloured” is not an acceptable word to describe people of black and minority ethnic background. It is not acceptable here in the UK in 2019, and has not been for many decades, assuming it ever was. I have encountered many people over the years who had… Continue reading Word of the week: coloured
Have you noticed how some people in public life respond to a question by asking their own questions, and answering them, without any input from anyone else? Some British MPs do it. I have given up watching the BBC1 show “Question Time” in recent years but watched it regularly at the start of this decade.… Continue reading Am I the kind of person who will ask a question, answer it, and then do it again repeatedly?
The Compartments 