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…
Were you ever sold a mortgage by someone you thought you wouldn’t want to socialise with? Was he a bit of a loudmouth with a cocky ego and plenty of spiel? Even so, was the mortgage package still ideal for your circumstances and pocket? If it was, it doesn’t really matter whether the mortgage advisor’s…
One of the things that always makes me cringe when I’m watching an international football match between England and Germany is the crass behaviour of many of the England fans. If they’re not singing ’10 German Bombers’, they’re making stupid references to the Nazis, or else claiming with great gusto on how “England won the…
After a stressful week, I came home last night wanting some light comedic relief. So I decided to watch one of my favourite episodes of the classic ‘Fawlty Towers’ series entitled ‘The Builders’. The plot revolves around Basil employing the services of a cowboy Irish builder called O’Reilly, whose men proceed to make a number…
In some ways it’s hard to believe we’re now almost a decade on from one of the most politically fraught periods of my life. On Thursday, 18th September, 2014 this United Kingdom came close to losing one-third of its entire territory in a government sop to an Anglophobic separatist party that had cruised to regional…
My career, over the last 27 or so years, has been in the field of disability healthcare and leisure provision. This sometimes involves taking people with severe physical difficulties out on activities and visits for the day. On Tuesday (w/c 19/08/2024), I booked a slot for a wheelchair user at the National Railway Museum in…