Early to rise, early to grump
Four times this week, I’ve woken from my deep and blissful slumber at 6.30am. And not just because one of the cats is aggressively scratching the door in an attempt to persuade me that it should be fed.
Each time I have reluctantly emerged disheveled and groggy from under the duvet (which I believe for legal [...]
The pipes of peace
I’ve said it before, but New York is a city packed full of people who just don’t know when to stop. As the old Chinese proverb says, “Start argument with New Yorker on Tuesday, kiss goodbye to weekend.” And if a New Yorker fails at something, expect them to keep trying until they’ve finally achieved [...]
Back to the future
If you’d have spoken to me on the morning of May 1 1997, I’d have been a nervous wreck. As Britain went to the polls, it felt like it was time for change. After all, Britain had been controlled by the Conservatives (largely Margaret Thatcher) for 18 years, and the country was crying out for [...]
Playing ball
Something strange has happened to me over the last six months. Something I always swore would never happen to me. Something vaguely shameful for a thoroughbred Brit whose very masculinity is defined by an overwhelming desire to eat pie, chips and gravy before watching a footballsoccer match.
Reader, I like baseball.
I have no idea how this [...]
Now that’s what I call autumn. Or fall.
I always loved autumnfall when I was a kid. Little Sis, The Cousins and I would regularly get taken to Delamere Forest by our grandparents to pick up chestnuts and pine cones from the forest floor, and tear about like loons to run off excess energy. More importantly, we got to eat our grandmother’s chicken [...]
Wherever I lay my hat
Everybody has a place where they feel most comfortable. A place that’s as soothing and becalming as your presence in the womb itself, providing you with a moment of sanity away from the world around you. An oasis of blessed relief, which at any given point would be the place you would instantly choose to [...]
The restorative powers of fat
While I am obviously a man of restraint and fine moral vigour, occasionally the desire to celebrate with a glass of two of chilled sherry can become a little too much for me. Unlike certain other of my friends, I’ve never been reduced to begging for cash in public or been forced to leave a [...]
Putting a price tag on health
After twelve straight hours in the ER last Friday, my friend was finally admitted to the hospital. I manfully stifled my laughter as he was put in a wheelchair and slowly wheeled around the medical corridors like an 85 year old war veteran by a man in maroon overalls. I wouldn’t normally have controlled myself [...]
General Hospital: a lesson in the difference between fact and fiction
Luckily enough, I’ve never had to spend much time in hospital. There was the time I fainted and fell back off my stool in a physics class at school, although walking in with a suspected fractured skull and walking out with a fractured thumb was frankly embarrassing. And when I was a toddler, I naively [...]
America: your country needs you
Look, this is no political blog, and I’d like to think that people of all ideological persuasions are welcome here. But after tonight’s vice presidential debate, I find myself duty-bound to make five points:
1. Why aren’t there ever any debates between party leaders or their deputies in the UK? I’d have paid good money to [...]
