From this clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgGmYeAm0jk&feature=youtu.beRead more... )

I've just been looking at one of those posts where people give a list of "100 best novels" and say how many they've read. Typically, people seem to be embarrassed if they've read less than half of them. The list I've just seen is full of books I've heard of as "classics", or even worse "modern classics". I've read about seven of them and I'm happy ( Read more... )

Middle son got his GCSE results yesterday - about half a dozen A*s and As, one C (in RS), and the rest Bs, eleven passes altogether iirc. To get into Sixth Form he needed six A* - C, including Bs in English and Maths and Bs in all his A-level subjects. The B in English was the only one we had any concerns about, and he definitely was a bit nervous ( Read more... )

Or, what makes a competitor stop competing ( Read more... )

My son has been received confirmation of his university first-year accommodation. He’s been allocated a single en-suite room in a self-catering Residence, which he’s very pleased about, as am I. However, I've been looking through his Accommodation Agreement (£100 deposit - guess who paid?) and all I can say is, I’m glad I went to university before ( Read more... )

Middle son and I have been rewatching last year's Olympics Opening Ceremony on BBC3 - until the sound and picture both completely fell apart at 8:35, that is. It's still completely unwatchable 30 minutes later, which is really making me angry. What the hell is the point of all this "progress" if all it means is that the television takes pre-War ( Read more... )

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... for how to make everything better.

Some ramblings that have been wandering around my brain for five or ten years, finally nudged onto paper screen by a comment from halotolerant (thank you, Halo ( Read more... )

When I was at school they didn’t teach us anything about World War II; it was still too recent to be considered “history”. So for many years most of what I knew about Sir Winston Churchill came from watching his State Funeral when I was eight years old ( Read more... )

I've been surprised and interested to see how many politicians have been saying positive things about Mrs Thatcher. The outpourings of bile about how terrible she was have, of course, come as less of a surprise. So I thought I'd just put a few thoughts on record, because I can't help but think that many of the people hating her aren't old enough to ( Read more... )

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( Here be spoilers... )