Health
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
BDSM: finding enlightenment in the dark …
According to Ian Dury in his 1977 hit, co-written with Chaz Jankel, ‘Sex and drugs and rock and roll is all my brain and body need. Sex and drugs and rock and roll are very good indeed’. If I were being picky, I would add good food, some cash in my skyrocket and a nice … Read more
Getting the lowdown on Down’s
The older I get, the crankier and more miserable I appear to become. I would like to be able to put this down to old age, yet the reality is that I have sometimes allowed my mindset to perpetuate this notion, since not everyone I know of a similar age is necessarily so. COVID-19 has … Read more
Imagine that …
What a goal! Off the upright, into the bottom corner! A Les Bradd piledriver from just outside the box with only minutes remaining! I couldn’t contain my excitement and did a lap of the garage in celebration. My Notts County Subbuteo table football team were invincible! Each plastic figure, hand painted in the famous black … Read more
NHS: SWALK
I admit that I clapped under sufferance. Not because I wasn’t in awe of our brilliant NHS but more so the nagging feeling that this was no more than an orchestrated token of appreciation. Formed on 5th July 1948, a result of the 1942 Beveridge cross-party report, and launched by Labour’s Minister of Health Aneurin … Read more
Oh, what a lonely boy: Dismissing the M*A*S*H doctrine
When I first heard ‘Lonely Boy’ by Andrew Gold I was instantly hooked on the simply brilliant rock ballad. In 1977 a fair few people agreed with me since It peaked at number 7 in the US and reached 11th spot in the UK charts. According to its discography the lyrics which engaged with the … Read more
Beating ‘it’
Now that I have your attention, may I commence with an apology for any male readers. This isn’t an article about masturbation although I do fully acknowledge that for most of us blokes this is a super-power. Assuming at this point that I have lost around fifty percent of the initial readership let me explain … Read more
Shafted: good karma wears sensible shoes
Being deceived, duped, conned, or shafted isn’t pleasant. But if you have been you are in damn good company. In 30 BC, according to Plutarch, Cleopatra misled her protector Epaphroditus and committed suicide. Prime Minister Anthony Eden was duped by Harold Macmillan during the Suez Crisis of 1956 resulting in the latter getting the top … Read more
Classic cries
I cried the other night. Nothing unusual in that other than it was at the end of a predictable rom-com whilst sitting in the lounge only forty-eight hours after I had become teary over a song that I had played on YouTube whilst shaving. At 57 I appear to have become a serial blubber probably … Read more