I'm preparing for a short trip to London, which in itself is preparatory for a longer trip in June. This is my first time back to the UK since 1967-68, when I lived in Oxford as a student. It goes without saying that things have changed since the days when I had to feed sixpences into a gas meter to stay warm ( Read more... )

My very first paying job was as a telephone solicitor.  Consequently I am kind to them even now.  In these caller-ID days I just don't answer, but if I do I just say "no thanks, goodbye" as quickly as I can.  I don't understand the mean-spirited subset of my friends who enjoy faking out or tricking these people.  What do they gain ( Read more... )

To "trip the light fantastic" means to dance nimbly and lightly and it dates all the way back to Shakespeare.  So too bad Keith Reid had to go and throw a Spaniard in the works (to quote his compatriate) and change it to a light "fandango"!  Aargh?  This bugs me, but I am easily bugged ( Read more... )

One of the nicer ones


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My doctor said he'd never had a patient hand him a flash drive with a spreadsheet of their blood pressure log before.  Well he TOLD me to take it every day and keep a record of it, how was I supposed to do it? Good news: diuretic is working and I won't need a beta blocker.  More good news: I might be old, but I'm still cool.

Back when he was coherent, my father told me "nothing was the same after December 7, 1941. The whole world changed, and not for the better." Well, that was for his generation. He was 19 years old. For my generation, unsurprisingly, it was November 22, 1963. We didn't even have a television but we spent the weekend glued to a friend's TV. I ( Read more... )

I buy one of those page-a-day calendars every year.  FD and I consider that the Gold Standard of these is the Far Side, but they tend to sell out quickly and I tend to procrastinate -- sometimes until the half-off period long after the New Year.  So that's how I got stuck with the George Carlin calendar in late January.  You can just imagine the ( Read more... )

I live in the twenty-first century equivalent of Bedford Falls.  On days like today, I guess it's a Good Thing ( Read more... )

I wished a best mate happy birthday today and then I heard the year 1894 on tonight's Torchwood rerun and up came my paternal grandfather, for that was the date of his birth ( Read more... )

'Cuz I wrote a fan letter to the author of one of today's NY Times Op-Ed pieces and he replied to me.  Personally.