Just before my fifteenth birthday, I went to America with the Scouts. We were supposed to go to Iran for the World Jamboree but they had a revolution instead and so we ended up in Fort Worth, Texas. Like you do. It was a world of hitherto unknown pleasures. Baseball. Tacos. Rodeos. And there was …
A couple of weeks ago, for a miniature holiday, my partner Susie and I went to stay in a caravan at Ringstead Bay in Dorset, lent to us by my kind friend Vickey. It poured on the way down and when we stopped, mid-afternoon, at Tolpuddle, to pay homage to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported to …
A few months ago, a crack appeared in the ceiling at the bottom of our stairs. It was not a big crack and so, obviously, I did the Obvious Thing. I ignored it. Because that always works. Then, a few weeks ago, the crack started to widen. A Lot. And as it widened, the ceiling …
These last few months have been a time for sober reflection. By this, I don’t mean that I stare mournfully in the mirror every morning wondering why running versus beer is always a win for beer (although I do). Nor do I mean that over the past few months I have always been sober (for …
After my daughter Esther came back from Glastonbury last year, we went for a drink and she told me about her weekend. But because Esther is supernaturally organized, this did not mean stumbling through hazy recollections of half-remembered acts, but rather a list, compiled in real time, of everything she and her friends had seen, …
I was replanting my window boxes at the weekend. The pansies that had flourished in recent months had become leggy, so I pulled them out, added some fresh compost and started to plant the marigolds. Which is when I found the egg. Yes. The egg. As I parted the soil, there, nestled deep in the …
In all the strangeness of the last few weeks, it has taken me a surprisingly long time to realise that I have, in effect, been set free. I am furloughed from my job; I am not on the bus to Oxford; I am not obliged to be anywhere, to do anything or to talk to …
For a long time now, I have hoarded toothpaste. By this, I don’t mean that in these straitened times I have panic-bought huge stocks hoping to make a killing on the dental hygiene black market. Rather, I have kept my own tube of toothpaste hidden away in the bathroom cupboard, so I don’t have to …
I once told the following untruth. During a rambling conversation about football, I informed my boys that Queens Park Rangers FC was founded in by a group of west London pig butchers by appointment to the royal court, and that their original name was Queen’s Pork Rangers. Unbelievably, the tale passed muster. Now this is …
So, last week water started dripping through a light fitting in my kitchen ceiling. Now let me be clear: this was not flooding. Flooding is a whole other universe of properly terrible. This was just an annoyance. But it was very, very annoying indeed. Naturally, therefore, I behaved as any rational person would, faced with …