A few days ago, I was reminiscing about a trip my family and I took to Austria in the summer of 1987. We travelled overnight by coach from London to Innsbruck (due to my late Nan’s almost pathological fear of flying), and spent 10 memorable days in villages on the southern slopes of the magnificent…
It was just before 3pm on December 11th last year when I received the telephone call informing me that the man I had looked after for almost 18 years had finally succumbed to his cancer. Despite a torrid year, I had kept my promise that I would visit him until the end, so that he…
In the summertime when the weather is high, you can invade the UK on the very first try. When the weather’s fine you got pillage, you got pillage on your mind. Take a boat with 55, go out and see what you can find. I’m not sure those lyrics would have propelled Mungo Jerry to…
When I was a teenager, my biggest ambition in life wasn’t to do well in my education; or to marry and start a family. It was to learn to drive a car. The layout of my old school meant that the teachers’ car park was situated between the playground and the main cluster of school…
My mate and I were in India when news came through that Boris Johnson had succeeded in persuading Parliament to agree to a General Election to sort out the laborious Brexit process once and for all. By the time we returned from Delhi in late November 2019, the election campaign was well underway. Despite having…
One of the funniest scenes in ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ is the one they shot in the impressive Roman amphitheatre in Carthage. It features members of the usurpatory People’s Front of Judea plotting to overthrow the Roman Empire. Suddenly, one of the more disgruntled members of the group (Stan) reveals he wants to become…
Last Monday afternoon, I decided to make the most of the unseasonably warm spring sunshine by taking a walk along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from Cottingley Bar to Saltaire on the outskirts of Bradford. As I approached the end of my journey, close to the famous UNESCO village, a keen late 20-something amateur photographer was taking…
Have you ever sat in a beer garden on a hot summer’s day enjoying a drink? Suddenly, a wasp begins flying around your glass, clearly attracted to the sugar content of your beverage. You sit there very still, desperately hoping not to annoy it in the hope it’ll fly away. But no! It keeps hovering…
As suggestions for the Gaza Strip go, it was very much an eye-opener. US President, Donald Trump, had suggested America buying that ribbon of cursed land sandwiched between Israel and Egypt for the purposes of transforming it into a Middle Eastern version of Monaco – complete with shiny new buildings, a buoyant economy and a…
Do you know which international airport serves more world destinations than any other? It isn’t Dubai; it isn’t JFK; and it certainly isn’t London’s tired Heathrow. No, the airport serving the biggest number of global destinations is Amsterdam’s impressive Schiphol Airport – no less than 273 in total! If there ever comes a time when…
Dear Reader, I would like you to close your eyes, concentrate your mind and picture the following analogy: You rent an apartment where all the rooms are painted a hideous bright red. On the day you move in, you ask the landlord whether you can get rid of the red and have the walls painted…
I’ve just finished reading a book about Captain James Cook. En route across the Pacific in 1777 on his boat called Resolution, Cook spent a short while on the island of Tahiti. One day in early September Cook, with two of his crew (the ship’s surgeon Dr William Anderson, and a Mr John Webber), travelled…
Having just turned 52, I am definitely now of an age where I can make distinct comparisons between the country I grew up in and the one I am, somewhat unfortunate, to live in today. Most folk, preoccupied with looking after their kids and partners, are often unintentionally blind to the changes in society –…
The year was 1988. My English GCSE class was informed by our teacher, Mrs Sced, that we would be introduced to a film concerning the moral dilemma of the right to die, which we were expected to subsequently write a film review about. The film was called ‘Whose Life is it Anyway?’ Even at that…
For the last two weeks, I’ve had to keep reminding myself that we’re still in November! At the time of writing, there is still more than a month to go before Christmas Day. So far we’ve had festive adverts on the television, Christmas songs played on in-store tannoy systems, shops decorated with tinsel and snow…