‘Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, Into Dover town centre walked the six hundred. Coppers to the right of them, Commies to the left of them, Invaders in front of them. Stormed at with government shot and media shell. They had come through the jaws of Death, Heading towards the mouth…
One of the things I love about the English language is its versatility. A common observation from other Europeans is the sheer volume of words English has adopted to describe a particular thing. That’s why luminaries in the creative writing field like Steven Frank, author of The Pen Commandments, estimates that English has around 500,000 words,…
Take a look at the picture above. Where do you think this is? Could it be Stourbridge in the West Midlands? Nah, not enough Muslims about for it to be any place in the English Midlands! What about the North York Moors? Doubtful, unless we see Nick Berry whipping past on his Francis Barnett 198…
There is a scene from the film version of the comedy classic ‘Rising Damp’, in which Philip (Don Warrington) thinks he has mislaid his wallet. John (Chris Strauli), his roommate, suggests that the new tenant, Seymour (Denholm Elliott) is a con man who has, in fact, stolen the wallet. Keen to satisfy his suspicion, John…
“Down South, they had the Cavaliers. They’re the ones with the velvet knickerbockers. Up North, we were governed….we were governed by King Dick of Wigan. Buckingham Palace in those days was on Plank Lane in Leigh.” This was a passage from the late, great Ken Dodd. It was one of his hilarious monologues given on…
‘But now you’re walkin’ around like you’re front page newsYou’ve been awful careful ’bout the friends you chooseBut you won’t find my name in your book of who’s who I-I-I-I-I’m not your steppin’ stone (No!)’ These were the words sung by The Monkees in 1967 and revived by Ant and Dec’s ‘Byker Grove’ characters PJ…
I always loved going down to Brighton as a kid. In my opinion, it was the best seaside resort in south east England. It had an air of sophistication, but wasn’t too salubrious. It had enough character and things to do to compensate for a bloody awful beach consisting of nothing but large pebbles. Brighton…
When the United Kingdom has its very first collective national mental breakdown in 1997 after the tragic and untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales; people essentially decamped to either Team Charles or Team Diana. Personally speaking, I was firmly on Team Neutral. I didn’t like him, his constant infidelity or his Bertie Wooster persona….
Perhaps James Dean’s most iconic role was as the troubled teen Jim Stark in the 1955 classic ‘Rebel Without a Cause’. One of my favourite scenes in the movie is when Dean’s character confronts his mother and father after the unexpected death of a local gang leader. He’s perished in a driving competition with Dean,…
On the 21st December, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 crashed on to the small town of Lockerbie in southern Scotland. Less than three weeks later, a scheduled flight from London to Belfast crashed on the side of the M1 motorway in Kegworth, Leicestershire, following pilot error after trying to make an emergency landing at East…
For those of you unfamiliar with the Beverly Hills aesthetic of suburban Bradford, I’d like to introduce you to the A647 Leeds Road. One of the main thoroughfares into and out of the city, it runs more or less due east from the city centre out towards the Leeds border at Thornbury Roundabout. The area…
Picture the scene: You’re a young boy who’s been at senior school for a couple of months. Just by your personality and intellect, you’ve managed to incur the dislike and displeasure of the two school bullies (in this case we’ll call them ‘Jones’ and ‘Brown’). One day, Jones approaches you and start screaming about how…
A short drive from my house is one of those quintessentially British (and highly irritating) road management markings – the double mini roundabout. It lies on the brow of a hill and is indicated by a mix of signs including some large rectangular red warning signs reading ‘Double Mini Roundabout Ahead’. The position of this…
Of all the politics modules I studied at university, a second year course entitled ‘Models of Democracy’ was one of the less enjoyable and interesting experiences. Based on the book of the same name by David Held, the module covered the development of democratic ideas starting with the Athenian period in Ancient Greece. It also…
I have had an association with Glasgow since I was a kid. I first went there in the mid-1980s after a family break on the Ayrshire coast. I went again during the summer of 1990 on a school trip which I, as a Sixth Former, had been invited to join as a mentor for First…