For most of my life, I have hated buses. I don’t know why this should be so, nor can I say they really featured heavily in my existence. I was noting with some shame to an old school friend last weekend that we used to catch the bus into town...
Saturday evening was frustrating. After a glass of wine in my local while I read the papers – the Times magazine was especially good that day – I conceived an almost overwhelming desire for a curry. I don’t often get food cravings, and my appetite, despite my rotundity, is small,...
When I was at university, which was a growingly long time, it pains me to realise, there was an annual arts vs. sciences debate. It could be a dull and tedious affair, though I do remember one Assistant Dean of Science opening with the tremendous line “I’m not one of...
As my regular readers will know – are there any of you out there? – my father died late last year. I wrote about it here briefly, reflecting on his absence. That was in the very early days after his death, and I was still adjusting to the new normal....
My father died last week. I don’t mean that to sound too dramatic: he was approaching 70 and had suffered from cancer for a few years. That said, he’d been in remission, and until what proved to be the last week of his life, he was pretty healthy. His doctor...
Recently, I saw an episode of Channel 4’s “Naked Attraction”. If you haven’t had the pleasure, the shtick is pretty simple: a contestant whittles down six hopefuls to one as they are gradually revealed, well, naked, then they go on a date. I don’t imagine that creative meeting was an...
Last Saturday was the tenth anniversary of the introduction in England of a ban on smoking in enclosed public workplaces. I had a walk-on part in the drama of the ban: as a clerk on the House of Commons Health Committee, I drafted its report on the Government’s proposed legislation, which...
If a reasonably well-informed alien were to visit the United Kingdom in May or June, he (she? It? Them?) would assume that this was a land of devotees of the great sun god, Ra. We live, it is true, in a relatively cold climate – I read somewhere that the...
Recently, I found myself in Surbiton, where I had arranged to meet an old friend who lives in deepest commuter-land. I had never visited the place before. Indeed, I have to confess that it was well into my adult life that I discovered it was a real place at all;...