When I was a boy I went to school with boys in an environment where the cutting comment and the snide remark were regarded as the highest form of wit, or even art. Also when I was a boy, I could not dance. Which put me in a very dangerous place in relation to snide …
Valentines Day. The day for the loved-up and the loving. The day when hope and longing coalesce in an inescapable, incandescent burst of desire. The loveliest, sappiest, soppiest, most intolerable day of the year. On Valentine’s Day we talk about true love but half the time we don’t know whether it’s true or not - …
January is awful. It’s cold. It’s miserable. And above all it’s dark. It’s a month when I don’t see daylight at home between Sunday afternoon and Saturday morning. It’s a month when my students get ill and don’t come to class. It’s a month when the next month is February, which, to be perfectly frank, …
Like many of us, I imagine, I’ve chosen to season any residual Christmas jollity still hanging around in the New Year with a healthy dose of relentless misery. I’m speaking, of course of, Andrew Davies’ brilliant adaptation of Victor Hugo’s crushingly grim Les Misérables. So far it’s been a grindingly joyless miracle of latent and …
Good morning, Paddy, and a happy Boxing Day to you all. I’m delighted to meet you although, to be honest, the circumstances could be better. I’d really rather be in bed right now and yet, somehow, here I am, like Good King Wenceslaus, looking out on the Feast of Stephen. The trouble with the day …
Two things happened on Monday. One was that men came to deliver our new washing machine. And the other was that Stan Lee, the Father of Superheroes, passed away at 95. I’m not comparing the gravity of these events, but bear with me… Our washing machine lives in the cellar. But the washing machine men …
My daughter Esther is not one to waste words. We were talking recently and I made a passing comment on the joys of being in the full flowering of middle age, which, at 54, despite my longing still to be young, is exactly what I am. Esther raised an eyebrow and coughed. 'What?' I said. …
On Monday night, Arsenal scored one of the loveliest goals I’ve ever seen. And I say Arsenal, not Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, because practically the entire side made it: a team of specialists contributing to a sublime whole. I work with specialists. Universities are full of them. Not one of them has a right foot like Aubameyang’s …
When I was young I used to run cross-country. I was part of a great team. We won races. We took home trophies. I was not, however, a great runner. I was the makeweight in a team full of talent. My brother Bill, on the other hand, was a proper sportsman. He played cricket and …
A couple of weeks ago I had to use up my last couple of days of annual leave so I went up to the Lake District to camp and walk by myself. There were two reasons for going. One was for the sublime pleasure of those hills in Autumn. But the other was that I …