Shooting Parrots

Who Wants to be a Billionaire?

Monday, 20 June 2011

I should have mentioned that the best Father’s Day present for me this year was the return of my daughter after her prolonged stay in South Africa. She got back last Thursday and already it is like she has never been away. Her last few weeks were spent visiting the southern countries of the continent [...]

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The Last Minute

Sunday, 19 June 2011

I’ve read most of Jeff Abbott’s previous novels, all thrillers that have satisfied without being outstanding, but his latest offering, The Last Minute, is definitely a step above. It is as fast and furious as a Bourne film and indeed many of the action sequences are almost cinemagraphic in their pace and detail that you [...]

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Sheffield Beat Combo

Saturday, 18 June 2011

Many years ago, when pub jukeboxes actually contained vinyl discs, before they switched to digital and then disappeared entirely, you could stumble on previously unknown gems simply by pressing the wrong combination of letters and numbers, whether deliberately or the fault of a beery fog. One such I recall was a B-side by that Sheffield [...]

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Is this the way it should be?

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Yet more unrest in the public sector. This time it’s the teachers who are threatening to strike over plans to make them work longer, pay more and receive less from their pensions. And this afternoon we hear the results of the strike ballot by the Public and Commercial Services Union that could see three-quarters of [...]

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V is for Vernon Park

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Few things can be more pleasant on a summer’s day than a stroll around Vernon Park in Stockport, but I’m only guessing because we haven’t had too many pleasant summer days so far this year. Vernon Park was built by Stockport Corporation and opened on 20th September 1858 on land donated by George John Warren [...]

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Accidents Will Happen

Monday, 13 June 2011

I sometimes wonder if I’m fit to be let out on my own. Mrs P was away for one of her summers jollys in Anglesey this weekend so I took myself off to Stockport unaccompanied yesterday, an accident waiting to happen. It started off quite well as I arrived earlier than usual and it wasn’t [...]

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Altar of Bones

Sunday, 12 June 2011

“The most eagerly awaited conspiracy thriller of the year” claims the dust jacket of Altar of Bones, although it doesn’t specify by whom. The front cover also says that “everything you believe is wrong and everything you fear is real” so quite a lot to live up to, but at a fiver off at WH [...]

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U is for Uniform

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Uniform is the twenty-first code word in the phonetic alphabet for many international organisations, including NATO, the Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization. And CB radio enthusiasts. But the uniforms I have in mind are of the more traditional variety from the Latin uniformis meaning “one shape” and associated with the military, emergency [...]

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T is for Telford

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

The trouble with ignorance is that you seldom know what it is you don’t know, or so one of of my childhood teachers taught me. But this is excusable, he said, because no-one knows everything. True ignorance is when what you think you know turns out to be a no-no. (Are you keeping up at [...]

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