There used to be mice in our house. Sitting at the kitchen table late in the evening I would occasionally see them scurrying across the floor and then disappearing through impossibly small gaps in the skirting. Once, they went into my bag and ate some chocolate. But mostly they kept themselves to themselves and stayed …
When I was a little boy, my parents threw a party. This being the early 70s, and my parents being sophisticated, modern people, this involved many small bowls of salted peanuts. Because in the 70s, along with cheese and pineapple on sticks, the salted peanut gave any social gathering a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, an indefinable air …
Sports fans have long memories and, to be honest, an occasionally overdeveloped sense of justice and injustice. It’s one of the reasons that non-sports fans find us so insufferable. Ancient games are analysed and reanalysed, the question of who deserved what, or didn’t deserve anything, endlessly picked apart: Leeds United deserved to win the 1975 …
On Monday, I rebuilt my bike. It’s a twice-yearly ritual and one of my most satisfying. Stripping it down to the bare frame, every part laid out on the kitchen table from the bottom bracket to the brake blocks, everything examined and inspected, cleaned and polished, is a ruminative, meditative exercise. It’s the moment when …
I woke up tired this morning. On Friday, I went to see my Dad in hospital, where he’s stuck with a bout of pneumonia, and then had supper with my Mum. On Saturday I saw some very old friends, sat around, sang, laughed a lot and went busking. My children showed up as if by …
I’ve been back from my holiday less than 24 hours and, weirdly, I’m already having trouble remembering exactly what happened. I know that sounds ridiculous but it’s really hard to get an overall sense of the thing. We stayed with our friend Isa and her family in Laramie, Wyoming, but instead of a sweeping cinematic …
Yesterday, my holiday began. I didn’t get up early. I didn’t ride my bike to Victoria. I didn’t catch the bus to Oxford. I lay in bed till 8 o’clock. I had coffee. I watered the pots in the garden, ate some sultana bran, sat at the kitchen table and all was well. And then …
Singleness, paradoxically, is not a single thing. There are varieties of singleness. Once upon a time in the olden days, for example, everybody seemed to have an unmarried maiden aunt. My maiden aunt was Auntie Grace. Grace Moore was born when Queen Victoria was still alive and lived to be 93. Once, many years ago, …
Some families are born of Kings: Danny Dyer’s, for example. Some are born of D-Day heroes. Mine, on the other hand, is born of ditch-diggers and shoemakers. Nevertheless, even ordinary families have their legends. And there's a legend in our family that I ruined my brother’s life. But this isn't a story about me tying …
My house is full of boys and I have nowhere to go. There are only three of them, but they are an uncontainable, terrifyingly extensive physical presence. My stepsons, Sam and Linus are 6’2” and 6’4”. My boy Silas, all wiry climber’s limbs and freakishly long fingers, is no bigger than me, but no less …