September 2010

Old Hall Chapel

Sunday, 12 September 2010

Today was the last of the Open Heritage Days and, as I did last year, I joined the walk to Dukinfield Old Hall Chapel which is inaccessible at any other time of the year because it sits in the middle of Bardsley Construction’s secure business premises.

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Tread the Boards Gently

Saturday, 11 September 2010

In an age when no new building is designed to have a useful life beyond a couple of decades, it is all the more sad when others that where built to last are left to fall into ruin. Such is the case with the Theatre Royal in Hyde which I was able to visit today [...]

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Green-eyed Monster

Friday, 10 September 2010

Our daughter has finished her teaching stint in Cape Town and has been joined by a good friend for a tour of South Africa. So far, she has been on safari, getting close to a baby giraffe and a pride of lions (not at the same time) and dined on ostrich kebabs and wildebeest steaks. [...]

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H is for Hyde

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

This is a continuation of last week’s post, moving from the village of Gee Cross to the town of Hyde that it is now part of. Hyde is one of the towns in the far north east of Cheshire known as the panhandle because of the way it sticks out, surrounded by the counties of [...]

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Give us a Clue

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Front page of the Daily Mail today on the Juicy Jeni affair: “What turned this public schoolgirl into Rooney’s £1,200 a night escort?” I think they’ll find 1,200 answers to that question in their own headline. Plus the 80,000 more rumoured to have been paid by the media for the her story.

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Chippie on his Shoulder

Monday, 6 September 2010

I don’t have a lot of time for Bernie Ecclestone as a rule. I like to think it’s because he is rich and brash, a bully and a midget who looks silly alongside girlfriends who are a foot taller and fifty years younger than him. But I suspect that it’s jealousy pure and simple. I [...]

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Could Do Better

Sunday, 5 September 2010

One of the exams we never took too seriously at school was general studies. No-one really saw the point of it and it was treated frivolously, the idea being to come up with the funniest wrong answers you could think of. For that reason, I take compilations of ‘the things children say’ with a pinch [...]

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ECDL Desirable, Not Essential

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Further to my post about Tony Blair yesterday, I haven’t been able to read any of his memoirs as yet because a) I haven’t bought it and b) I’m busy working my way through Decline and Fall. Published at the same time, Chris Mullin’s diaries might not be the absolute inside track, but is probably [...]

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Goodbye Mr Chips

Friday, 3 September 2010

It came as something of a surprise to hear of Cyril Smith’s death today. Not that he should have succumbed at the age of 82, but the reverse really. How had he lived to such a good age when we’re told that obesity is the curse that will put us into an early grave?

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