Background balls.

I’ve been thinking about football a lot the in last few days, for obvious reasons. It started when I realised that I didn’t care too much that Italy had beaten Turkey 3-0. I was also crammed with indifference when Wales clawed back a goal to draw with that font of perpetual footballing mundanity, Switzerland. I […]

For name’s sake.

For someone who doesn’t like them all that much I seem to spend more time than I should thinking about The Sussexeses. Like gout, piles or thrush they seem to flare up every so often, causing pain and discomfort and then, when their work is done and they’ve made very sure you haven’t forgotten about […]

Land of grass and water.

Well, that little heatwave was little indeed. A few days in shorts and a few nights throwing off the duvet, and then yesterday it was back to being a car wash. Wifey caught the meteorological zeitgeist perfectly late Thursday afternoon as she methodically tied cushions to the garden chairs in preparation for an endless summer. […]

Kids catch up.

When it comes to education, particularly since yesterday, there are rather a lot of people I’d rather not be. I’d rather not be a not smart kid, for a start (I know that calling kids thick, dim or stupid is frowned upon these days, though some of the alternative labels used today are fooling no-one, […]

An ode to Spring.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, or that as I grow older and less tolerant of some things I grow more tolerant of others, as a way of balance, but whatever the reason is I’ve become mildly addicted to ‘Springwatch’ on the BBC. It’s not my first time watching this kind of […]

Silly boys in God’s playground.

I get asked all the time. It can actually get quite annoying. People will stop me on the street and ask me what it’s all about, and sometimes I just don’t know what to say. “What about Israel, eh?”, that’s the kind of question I get. “Did you see what the Israelis did the other […]

Bench Markle.

In a way I am grateful to Meghan Markle, sorry, Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, because thanks to her I can now at least say that I am not the worst writer in the world. She’s only gone and written a kids book, has the people’s Duchess. Another string to her fluffy bow. Come on […]

Park it.

I have never been to Bromley. I wouldn’t quite say that quite qualifies as an achievement, but in an odd way it is something to be mildly proud of. Why go to Bromley? What emptiness can a soul bear that Bromley could ever possibly fill? It is an absolute given that there are many better […]

Caterpillar Fury.

You may recall that the moustachioed soul sweat monster Edwin Starr addressed the problem in as early as 1970 as he manfully proposed: “Caterpillars, huh, yeah. What are they good for? Absolutely nothing, huh.”, thus ruthlessly exposing an issue that had hitherto been on absolutely nobody’s agenda. Naturally the global lepidopterologist community leapt (no pun […]

At 3pm, this afternoon.

“Thanks for that Jenny, looks like great funeral weather for this afternoon. Welcome back, I’m Matthew Colon, and let us take you straight over to Windsor for a, well, a guided tour if you like of what we can expect to see as the day unfolds, a day when a nation mourns the death of […]