The blog

  • 2006 and all that

    2006 and all that

    And so it's time to do my annual round-up of the year's highlights in this journal, just like in 2004 and 2005. Except, this year I've written so little that I'm not sure there are any.


  • Clarity

    Clarity

    This is nice. I'm sat with a cup of tea in the bright, airy garden room of a National Trust holiday cottage in the far south west of Cornwall, free from most of the cares of normal life and about as far as you can get from the barrage of Christmas commercialism.


  • I deny everything

    I deny everything

    Just to clear up any ambiguity caused by this post on Northern Irish uber-blog Slugger O'Toole, let me state clearly that I have no inside knowledge of whose hands have been delving into Lembit Opik's underpants, or for how long. A few days ago, when the news broke that the Lib Dem MP had split…


  • In search of the English Roswell

    In search of the English Roswell

    So, yesterday we went to have a potter around some woodland where, 26 years ago this month, an alien spaceship was seen to land. Possibly. The Rendlesham Forest Incident, in which a group of American airmen rushed out to what they thought was a crashed aircraft, is sometimes known as the”English Roswell”. Some, including a…


  • All the news that fits

    All the news that fits

    Newspaper bills – the posters outside shops with snappy headlines – are supposed to intrigue you into buying the paper by giving you a taster of the story. They’re not supposed to leave you so doubled up with laughter that you decide it’s safer to pass them by and look the stories up later online.…


  • Lions and tigers and bears, oh yes

    Lions and tigers and bears, oh yes

    Saturday saw us belatedly celebrating Beloved Other Half's birthday with a trip to Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, which I must surely have visited as a child, if only I could remember. Won't forget today in a hurry, though


  • Viva la raza

    Viva la raza

    Monday was the first anniversary of the death by heart failure of the wrestler Eddie Guerrero – and, to judge from the fresh set of comments that have appeared on YouTube tribute videos, his memory has lost none of its power to affect people.


  • Limping forwards

    Limping forwards

    When I fell on Friday I didn't hear the heavy, muffled sound, like a thick bar of chocolate being snapped in its wrapper, that heralded my broken foot of a few years ago.


  • Lack of manners

    Lack of manners

    No “Modern Manners” cartoon this week – I was up until almost 4 meeting a publisher’s deadline and am too tired to be witty. I don’t imagine anyone will miss it, anyway.