General
Thumbs up: has being risk-averse robbed us of a ride?
Our thumbs are useful for gripping, allowing fingers to click and acknowledging when things are OK or not so good. I also remember it being used in an elegant metaphor for night shift town centre foot patrol when I was a copper in the then concrete jungle of Bracknell’s pedestrianised shopping centre in the early … Read more
COVID, Captain Cook, Count Dracula, and Cod & Chips
I love where I live but I love to escape it too. I don’t know where my compulsion to flee originates from, but I can recall, aged four, when I lived in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire running to the very edge of the then known universe and touching the Hemlock Stone adjacent to the A6002 and running … Read more
Hesitation: Rejoice or Regret?
What seems a lifetime ago, aged sixteen, I was at college trying to figure out life, the universe, and what lay ahead. Cocooned with my college chums, often in the refectory smoking Gauloises cigarettes supplied by the rich Persian students, I realised that most of us didn’t have a clue what we wanted to become, … Read more
The price of freedom? £20
Not a King’s ransom by any stretch of the imagination but freedom nonetheless! Today I bought my ticket for Kent Kings versus Leicester Lions at Central Park Stadium, Sittingbourne, Kent next Tuesday (18th May), the opening Championship fixture. After what seems like an eternity, my normality will be celebrated with the breeze in my eyebrows, … Read more
Grassroots football: Who says I can’t spin?
Watching Notts County demolish Barnet at The Hive this afternoon (I don’t often use that word when referring to Notts) I wondered how the opposing press reporter would spin such a battering? Then I thought about my time as the pitch side hack for Whitegrove Arrows, the local team that my son Adam played for … Read more
Unbelievable! The hanging gardens of Hartlepool
Waking up this morning was rather surreal if not totally unpredictable. Hartlepool led the headlines. Many of you may ask, not unreasonably, where is Hartlepool? According to Google, “Hartlepool is a port town in the Borough of Hartlepool, of which it is the administrative centre, in County Durham, England. The town is 17 miles southeast … Read more
The utter genius of stupidity
Who hasn’t watched the classic Farrelly brothers comedy ‘Dumb and Dumber’ without wishing they had worn incontinence pants? Observing the idiocy of others at close quarters whilst sitting comfortably in isolated judgment provides our egos with the propellant necessary to literally laugh out loud! Yet is stupidity, arguably a compelling human trait if based on … Read more
LOL! Laughter Obscured in Language
Whilst watching a classic speedway meeting on YouTube during my morning ablutions, as is my want, I smiled when the commentator cried out, “And that is a fairy-tale ending for Hans Andersen!” Referring to the Danish Speedway star, as he battled to a fine win in the Speedway World Cup, there was an unambiguous link … Read more