This summer, when it was really hot, I bought a hat for Brian Eno. He was about to go on stage at Greenbelt Festival to talk to my friend Martin Wroe, when Martin sagely observed that it was indeed really hot, and that Mr Eno might like a hat. So, since I was in the …
You know, people thank God for all kinds of things. For their health; for their cats; for the scraps of batter at the chip shop. I understand these. But I’ve always been a bit bemused that people want to thank God it’s Friday. That Friday Feeling is surely a myth because Friday always seems to …
On Tuesday this week, I rode my bike the five miles from home to the bus without stopping, never once taking my feet off the pedals to touch the ground. This is a thing. My route takes me through 27 sets of traffic lights at junctions and six more sets at pedestrian crossings. There are …
Things fall apart. We have been stripping wallpaper in our house and have discovered that in many places it is all paper and no wall. Some of the old paper is very pretty, but when the paper is holding up the wall, it’s time to get a new wall. I cannot plaster a wall, so …
There are many things I am not good at. I am a terrible guitarist. I cannot draw. I am barely numerate. But of all the things I do badly, the one at which I suck the most is undoubtedly cricket. Now, I grew up watching my Dad play cricket and I longed to be good …
Once upon a time, I went to watch my son Silas play lacrosse. Afterwards, as I stopped to put on a jumper, I took off my glasses and put them on the roof of the car. Now driving is pretty much the only thing I can do without glasses. So, I drove. I remembered, of …
I drove across South London with my son Silas last night. I did not distinguish myself on the journey. Before we had got through Brixton it had become apparent to me that everyone else out driving that evening was an idiot; was thoughtless; was incompetent; was to be derided. I’m a terrible judge and cars …
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 the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is this little, seventeenth-century Dutch painting, A View of Scheveningen Sands, painted by Hendrick van Anthonissen in 1641. Hendrick van Anthonissen, View of Scheveningen Sands, oil on panel, 1641 (prior to conservation); Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. (c) The Fitzwilliam Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. In 2014, …
One of my worst characteristics as a boy was that my intense desire to start things was never matched by my capacity to concentrate long enough to finish them. My childhood was littered with half-made models, the detritus of hobbies hastily begun and then dropped as soon as the next shiny, interesting thing came into …