Our current plight has resulted in all sorts of dilemmas where we feel morally compromised. I have already mentioned our discomfort at...

Several Christmases ago, or it may have been birthdays. Deirdre asked me what I wanted as a present. I replied something with sex and...

Fiftieth post on my blog! As there don’t seem to be any plans for acknowledging the fact, no TV specials, no street parties, I’m going to...

This morning I watched a pair of blackbirds trying to feed from a hanging coconut on the front patio. The coconut has been there for...

Shopping has always been hellish, unless it’s a shop that sells CDs, books or pies. I remember enduring the unalleviated damnation of...

This must be about the time of year the BBC invites next year’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing ‘celebrities. Based on the fact that for the last...

I have been in trouble with my editor for getting too academic and too philosophical about major existential dilemmas. She actually...

I seem to be engaged in a perpetual interior monologue these days. Maybe it’s the limited number of possible people with whom I can have...

On Florence Nightingale’s 126th anniversary Deirdre was born and ever after May 12th has been consecrated as the birthday of two women...

Zoom home schooling for 8 year old Mollie today was learning to recognise subordinate and co-ordinating conjunctions. This requires an 8...

The north east winds have brought me fears as well as ice-cold blasts from the Arctic. Going out to protect pots and plants against this...

I wrote much of yesterday’s blog early in the morning, finished it off quickly in the evening and submitted it to my editorial board, who...

I had a very mild-mannered and quiet uncle. Everything about him was understated and self-effacing. While his wife sat and pontificated...

‘In No Time’ has always meant happening very fast, which is how our pre-lockdown world worked, necessitating the divisions of time in...