February 2012

G is for Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. The Age of Discovery gave us the names of many great European explorers who opened up Africa, the Americas and Asia, but their discoveries often owed more to luck than judgement. [...]

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Is this a joke?

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

I’ve posted before about my mild obsession with the What are you wearing? feature in the Sunday Times. I haven’t quite worked out if it is for real or whether it is simply a platform for narcissists, exhibitionists and self-publicists. I could post about this every week which would be boring, but sometimes I just [...]

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Inspect a Gadget*

Monday, 27 February 2012

I’ve always been a fan of technology and gadgets, but I’m not sure why since technology and gadgets don’t seem to be great fans of mine. In fact, whenever I read the words ‘simple to install’ or ‘three easy clicks’, I think to myself: ‘Ah yes, but you haven’t come across Mr Parrot before.’

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Get Real, Get Drunk

Sunday, 26 February 2012

There is quite a lot of television that blips my grumpiness radar, but the very worst has to be show business awards programmes. I really don’t see the point. For the most part, they consist of people wearing dinner jackets or long frocks strutting on red carpets and smiling condescendingly for cameras. Next they’re grinning [...]

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Call Me Madame

Saturday, 25 February 2012

A word to the wise. If you’re planning to visit to France any time in the near future, be careful not to refer to any young ladies, or old ones for that matter, as Mademoiselle – it’s been banned. I’m sure that Mademoiselle will be missed (geddit?), but the equivalent of Miss has been deemed [...]

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Consenseless Politics

Friday, 24 February 2012

People have been quite shocked by the fisticuffs that broke out in the Strangers Bar in the House of Commons the other night at chucking out time. But this sort of behaviour is much more common in the Commons than you might imagine, as this extract from yesterday’s Hansard illustrates:

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It never rains, but…

Thursday, 23 February 2012

No, this is not a diatribe about the south moaning about their ‘drought’ while it seems to have done nothing but rain here in the verdant north of England. It’s more to do with the way life’s hiccups seem to hit you all at one go. It started when I arranged to meet an old [...]

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F is for Charles Fey

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. Where would Las Vegas be without the fruit machine, the invention of car mechanic Charles Fey? Charles was born Augustus Fey in Vöhringen, Bavaria, in 1862, the youngest of sixteen children. [...]

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Homeland

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

They say there are three telltale signs of ageing: the first that you can no longer eat pizza after sundown, second that you invariably go ‘oof!’ every time you sit in an armchair. And I can’t remember what the third one is. It is those memory lapses that will do for me yet. I often [...]

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