It is one of the cheering things about being retired that no-one will ever try to rope one in to some ghastly 'team-bonding exercise'.
And while, in strict privacy or with a few trusted friends, trampolining might be quite fun, the thought of undertaking it with work colleagues - blud thikkt with cold.
Staff days out spur the growth of trampoline ( Read more... )

There is an article in today's Observer New Review section in which Gay Talese is interviewed - and, really, I've seen so much across the internetz of recent weeks about his book about the creepy voyeur hotel-owner, and the increasingly problematic veridicality of same, that I don't particularly advocate for reading it - but there was one thing ( Read more... )

I daresay most people that may be reading this will probably have heard about the really dire projected Peeple app: which lets people rate people. Any ol' people rate any ol' people they know, where 'know' means they have their mobile phone number.
Apart from the whole UGH factor of treating people like businesses or gadgets...
There is a good ( Read more... )

I.e.
13 Little Things That Can Make a Man Fall Hard for You*
Good tips for making sure that the kind of man who likes this sort of infantilising/dog-training approach to relationships stays far far away - do the opposite.
Quite apart from, what on earth does the woman get back from all this?
Also, I think the compiler has missed one important ( Read more... )

20 Genuinely Awesome Date Ideas

- that would have had me nervously backing away even in my salad days.

What is wrong with meal and a movie, really?

***

Further to my post on Friday, I was very amused by Stephen Collins' cartoon in yesterday's Guardian Weekend in which the daffodils speak back to Wordsworth - 'ogling us up with your poety eyes...'. ( Read more... )

The paper is infested with either Christmas presents &/or Christmas foodie stuff, or Looking Back At the Top Whatevers of the past year, which never seem to include the things I thought were the Top Whatevers, should they even be Whatevers that I am interested in in the first place.

However:

I was massively incensed by this: Danny Alexander, ( Read more... )

Oh, dear.

The Mitfords evening at Sutton House Hackney

Okay, I will concede that I'd quite like to see the film Nancy Mitford 1904-1973: A Portrait by Her Sisters, but not embedded in an evening which seems to get a) the sisterly dynamics and b) the political tensions really rather wrong.

I mean, if you'd managed to get all the sisters into the ( Read more... )

O dear John Banville - meet Mr Codfish:
Could the affair in the new novel have been narrated from Mrs Gray's point of view? "I don't think so because I've never understood women. Never will, don't want to. I'm in love with all of them, always have been fascinated by them. Not just for sex but because they always do the unexpected - at least I don't ( Read more... )

Okay, while one may be somewhat creeped out by the increasing girlywurlyness of clothes, toys, etc on offer for very young girls, in my childhood days I suspect I was as given as anyone to the occasional desire for frill and sparkly and so on (even though this was very much not a style that suited me).

So, with a nod to my inner 7-year-old, I will ( Read more... )

No, no, no! The kedgeree that made the Empire great did not include tomatoes!!!

The horror! The horror!

Brought to you by what were the catering staff thinking of, which was apparently Jamie Oliver's disgusting addition of tomatoes to a dish that is already thoroughly excellent without them.

Yes, it's a dish for which there are numerous variations ( Read more... )