Whether David Beckham really bleated about not getting his K doesn't worry me, the honours list is too full of jobsworths anyway - a career minded civil servant once said to me that, if he didn't tell the truth or rape the typist (this was the sexist 60s), he'd end up in the honours list. He didn't, so I wonder which he did! What does rile me, ( Read more... )

Today I have been to a funeral. Today is February 6, the anniversary of the 1958 Munich ( Read more... )

According toventa I am the cruellest mother on the planet. Not only did I not need any eggs separating over the Christmas weekend with her newly-acquired sucky goldfish, but I wouldn't let her caramelise the custard/cauliflower/mince pies/anything else with her new cook's blowtorch. I'm not sure the house insurance covers blowtorch-related incidents ( Read more... )

So the great Mr Paxman thinks Britain's elderlies are "everywhere, cluttering up the place and doing nothing". Get out into the real world, Mr P, outside the hype of politics and the Beeb, and look behind the counters of charity shops, in the cars of hospital/hospice volunteer drivers, at those helping with activities at day centres, running fund ( Read more... )

Making marmalade this afternoon, I switched on Radio 4 for company. Economics students were protesting at their course content in (mainly) Manchester because it hadn't coped with the 2008 financial hoo-hah and its causes ( Read more... )

Trudging home from our local shops through the rain today, I passed a parked silver van which announced,under the company name, "dispensing solutions with real passion". Very laudable, I'm sure, but what does the firm do ?

Forget all you ever heard about grumpy village pub landlords giving strangers the cold shoulder and step forward the (fairly new) landlord of Ye Olde Forge Valley Inn at West Ayton, near Scarborough. After a fruitless search of the village for a guitar maker's workshop, we fell in there for sustenance. The steak pie was a proper, top and bottom ( Read more... )

"I know, you're going to complain about box sets," said Venta as we strode across Richmond Park on Sunday. I wasn't, I protested, though I do personally say "boxed set"; what I was wondering was when "critique" became a substitute verb for "criticise". It's used of, say, works of art. Is it because "criticise" now has too negative a connotation, and the ( Read more... )

She has a daughter called Simone ("isn't her mum like Simone's mum?"; a husband called Gordon ("excuse me, but are you Gordon's wife?") worked in a local shop ("you work in that shop on the estate") and went on an organised trip to the Holy Land about three years ago, ("my friend and I are sure you were on Peter's trip ( Read more... )

Imagine a middle-aged, slightly overweight and not very stylish woman, accused by a young, handsome male colleague of inappropriate touching. You can't, can you? Because, by and large, it doesn't happen. If it did, perhaps men would be aware of the sense of invasion, revulsion and even fear such incidents bring to women.
( fight back )