staying alive Everybody I speak to loves spring. Pam the Painter loves it because she is a devoted gardener and it leads to summer…
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marks on paper Last week two vibrant young women came collecting for Scope, and wanted me to put a questionnaire on my phone. I explained – no phone. “We could do it on your email” …
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all must have prizes This was the title of a book by Melanie Phillips whom I met once, to review the said book and she was …
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my world this week The owner of the sixth gardening concern (see annalog/decline and endeavour) arrived in response my telephone call for an appointment …
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decline and endeavour Hard times are coming if not already here but not for gardening concerns. I feel like a wallflower at a prom, having just been let down by the fifth…
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the skin you’re in Jane Seymour rarely eats later than the afternoon, so is hungry for up to 16 hours at a time…
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paschal The garden is doing its best but as the weather swings from one thing to another and in my view spring is still on a day/off a day, I thought I might look for a plant…
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you just don’t know Up the road and round the corner lives an American architect with his French wife, two hardly seen sons and a hysterical …
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lost I wish had a scientific mind but I don’t. but I don’t. I got as far as botany and biology at school …
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stories “You look like a carthorse” said Julie as I left Waitrose loaded. I said immediately “I knew a carthorse, her name …
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“knock hard, life is deaf” When I first began to write annalog, I asked what would happen to past pieces and was told they would stay on the internet. I thought that was…
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box Buns – so named because he can be bribed for a cup of tea and something munchy sweet to eat – has moved to a house in its own ground in Mayo, Eire …
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questions never answered Who is paying for the legal representation of Shamima Begum, she who …
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Valentine vanity I’d like to think that my vanity – all in its various bits – is less to do with conceit or what the OED calls “excessive pride” and…
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never goodbye My parents had been married 48 years when my father died. He asked to be buried with his mother, whom my mother loved …
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really Headlines in equal parts – dismay about the dog walker who vanished, and Happy Valley…
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the other way round The lovely long curly wavy hair I had as a child may have looked nice but it was hell to keep knot free. Getting …
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excessive unease Given her own she was born the daughter of a princely Prussian house. She married a British double barrelled bully…
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can’t do it without you There are lots of things you can do alone though you may prefer to do them with somebody, what you want…
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wet weekend I am writing this on Saturday morning, when I expect to be out and about . But it’s raining…
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‘cos we’re ‘ere Denning had a rotten Christmas. He has a disabling back problem (one of thousands), takes heavy painkillers which bind. They did, he took senna …
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don’t let it hear you… every year is special and I don’t want to
frighten the good omen by talking about it so – thank heaven…
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the Christmas list Because I can’t send cards to everybody, I wanted to list all the people who have been in …
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the sound of snow “I just want to share with you that childish moment of excitement when the snow begins” wrote SR …
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the way you say it People get across each other. They feel with instant animal sense that this man or this woman is against me …
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each to his own I once explained my theory of where we are heading as a society to an intelligent friend- I said I thought there would be broadly speaking …
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strong shadows I don’t very often remember my dreams. I read that we all dream and certainly there have been occasions …
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who chooses? Pam the Painter went to her local Sainsburys where paying is all by machine with a sulky assistant delegated to help …
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word power Where I live has always been very good for street cleaning. Rubbish is regularly collected , we have two …
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GMAB* No explanation from any of the terrestrial broadcasters about why the “pot” of reruns is so small. And one man’s old favourite is another’s endless repeat.
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what you think and how you get there Never extrapolate from the personal to the general. If, for example, you see a child peeing in a public park, it doesn’t follow that all other …
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advice not taken Some time ago, a woman wrote to annalog and in her note she referred to the difficulties she had …
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starting somewhere Early last week I had lunch, neither expensive nor vinous, with a woman I haven’t seen for 25 years …
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disquiet I slept well for years and mostly still do. But like eerie soft toys, I take to bed pictures of the Ukrainian war, some part of the troubled planet, the non-resolution …
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the backward glance Walking up the road this morning for the paper, I saw the window of a house misted with condensation …
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continuity Many years ago in one of my first sorties into a BBC tv studio, I met a slight energised elderly woman who was utterly calm, welcoming without gush…
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what I (don’t) know I don’t know how I feel about monarchy but I had a real affection for Elizabeth Windsor…
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good news Gabon They came into the circus ring, over a dozen, each holding the tail of the one before. These were …
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Woman A wholly unPC friend sent me a silly story about the gifts God gave Adam and Eve. Adam got to pee standing up and Eve got the brain. Did I laugh ? …
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p’s and m’s Do you remember p’s and q’s ? That somebody very much the wiser might have suggested to you that in that …
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look back in wonder So far, so good – my memory unreels. Not often nostalgic, I have never forgotten the old lady who said “People …
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balance I could write a list of things I don’t want to hear about Woman is plugging her ears with index fingers, not wanting…
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ghostbusters The lyric of the film theme says “Who you gonna call ?/Ghostbusters !” And I don’t know who else to call. In 2016 I began to buy my gas and electricity from EDF, a large company…
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Am I going away ?
No Prostrate in the heat ? Not…
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good news Yes, yes, I know – only bad news sells – Ukraine, famine, the leadership contest, the young and desperate spending thousands of pounds to have healthy …
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and now… It was the first place I ever felt at home in London and I go back to it, like a point on a compass. The greengrocer has a …
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(ab)normal An untidy lot, we had a history at home of putting something important in a safe place – which meant …
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cra* BBC2 ran a series called Art That Made Us. And in between working artists, images known and unknown, information and commentary…
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mixed messages National Rail strike will not protect members in the railway ticket offices whom it is planned to phase out…
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discard One of the best things about the pandemic was that, shut up with stuffed drawers and desks and wardrobes we spent …
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another kind of jubilee Three years ago or more, I bought something in Boots from a young woman who asked “Are you an actress ?” “No” I said. “I was a broadcaster.”
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mass The Chelsea Flower Show is held at the bottom of the street the bus travels to take me to where …
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the train done gone The joke we share in the shop where I buy my morning paper has either YT or Tarzhoun asking me “How are you ?” and me answering “ I’m fine thank you …
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the quiet week I never take writing for granted. I write mostly on Sunday and I call it my homework, it shapes the day. But Sunday is the chosen day…
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Cinderella in sneakers Years ago, Mark (not his real name) was a tv researcher. He is now over 50, out of the business and writing a PhD …
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shapely When you live alone and you aren’t ever going to see 27 again, you have to bestride differing needs. The day needs a shape but if it is always the same shape …
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who comes after Pam the Painter (my nickname for her) and I have known each other for 25 or 30 years. She still colours her hair, mine’s white. She’s a different shape from me, watches different…
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eggs Growing up I had several books about Marise who was a pilot in the Winter War between Russia and Finland (the present horror should end so soon). I remember vaguely one of the covers …
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Survival There are people you don’t like. You may hardly have met them but you don’t like them. Like the girl I went to school with, who made…
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cold and bright What’s with the bare ankles ? I understood it last summer when what you were demonstrating was …
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gifts of feeling “Are you doing anything special for your birthday ?” From my mother, I inherited the idea that it’s my day and …
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blood and orange juice There is that wisdom which says something to the effect that you have to recognise unhappiness to know when it ends and you are happy …
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“It was no dream, I lay broad waking…”* We have had many good years of peace. What wars there were, were far…
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words on the war Vladimir Putin (excuse me while I spit) has made the old choice: either be loved or feared, and he has …
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Dorothy lives!* The people opposite have spent the better part of a year changing the shape of the house they bought. Each to his own. My idea of altering a house is at most a minor …
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the haystack needle Early afternoon the day of the storm, a man materialised on a link from the south of England to …
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whatchewant It is nearly 40 years since I bought a teapot, 1890s, American, cobalt blue, shape reminiscent of Aladdin’s lamp. And it came …
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fix Over a two page spread on how to spend money you haven’t got, I discover that fashionable nails are short and square. Forget fashion, …
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the bits don’t fit “Please don’t go out” said a friend’s solicitor to her – they are in process …
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monument I love a milk churn, though when I looked them up, I discovered that they are antique. Me too, I suppose …
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oh, those monkeys … When I was a child, you were called a monkey if you were mischievous, a little bit cheeky in a nice way. You were not allowed to make a habit of it. Being a monkey …
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facing it In the pause between bouts of unseasonable weather Tim wrote that he had seen dead leaves falling and …
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potentiation Three lots of self realisation (and Liz Truss) in one newspaper – Manifesting by Roxie Nafousi, James Smith …
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a week missed When we next meet, it will be a new year. And because you know how strongly I feel about anticipation …
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really Somewhere along the line, somebody said “Don’t confuse fiction with reality.” It sounded wonderfully clearcut, something you could be sure of. But it is not as simple as it sounds…
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three smiles in anticipation There is good anticipation like looking forward to meeting again or going on holiday, some kind of a longed for date …
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company I’ve lost two friends through the pandemic years, one a married woman with a husband and two sons she loves …
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what’s it all about? Christmas was brought down to earth early in my life by lack of money and death in the …
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people and print Why don’t you write a book about it ? is one of those things I am asked from time to time …
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the mending shades My father died when I was 24 and I was furious with God. My sister looked more like his side of the family, I like my …
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want and need Saturday afternoon found me trying on a pair of shoes – or at least, preparing to. I haven’t done that for two years because whatever I want shoe-wise,…
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outside and in Pouting was not popular at home. My much older sister had had a fearsome scowl as a child (I’ve seen pictures) and if I looked…
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assent without information? It must have come up at school when I was 12 or 14, so that I came home and asked my mother what class we were. “Educated” she said over her …
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“because one has no friends or company”*…OED Recently the young man 3 doors down put out a small box of books and bits with a sign saying “Free”. I took …
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language On the front of the scaled down version of the Independent in print (called the i ) is a slogan: “journalism you can trust”. I wrote to the …
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not really a rant Picture a whitehaired respectably dressed woman hooting with laughter over her newspaper. The Times headline “PM rebukes police …
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thank you Sometimes you go to write something – but before you get there, you read something along the same lines…
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p and n Way back at the beginning of the pandemic, one of those Chelsea matrons who inspire me to bomb making remarked …
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pause for breath Pause for breath …Not plane, or train, or bus, or car. A book to take me far away …
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gentlemen of the chorus Just before a young man hit me in the face I glimpsed a tall man with a golden Labrador …
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time (2) Time moves all the time. As I say “now”, you read it later. My father used to drive me mad saying “Don’t leave at 1.00 if you …
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turmeric Last week I lost a watch. I was very fond of it but I can live without it. I had been to three shops and when the bus broke down coming home …
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BANG There is no magic method of sensing danger. And you can sense it all you want but if the hostility facing you is armed, you are at a disadvantage. The gun may …
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the same but different I heard her before I saw her, a young woman asking the bus driver for a location he …
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the nice bits The other day as I came home, I passed one of the neighbouring young men, propped up against a …
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the long way round It was too early to go to where I wanted to go so (untypically) I switched on the television where in a …
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connection Even as I write it, I hear a soft trans Atlantic voice talking about connectivity. Forget it. What do you think of when I say bridge …
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look back in wonder I suppose I like my recollections under control. Putting memory to one side, things like, say, school reunion? No thank you. Book launch? All those old acquaintances …
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IDC “Do you think there was already tension between Harry and William before Meghan came along ?” Thus the breathless intro to yet another article …
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what did I miss? Wal (no, not short for Walter: stands for “wonderful and lovely” which is how he likes things to be) …
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getting through The Times (15.06.2021) front page headlined “ English team playing gesture politics by taking …
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in the ear of the beholder “I like his voice, I just don’t want to have to look at him” said my mother of both Cliff Richard and Frank Sinatra. This is the woman who taught me that John Carradine …
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sweet nothings I dread being a middle class late middle aged (tick, Wal !) soppy. The crooning “Aaaaahhhh …
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the p word Manhunt, Fritz Lang’s film of 1941 , is older than me. The story was pretty hokey, but I was …
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learnt by chance Two out of three brown bears in a famous zoo got out when their enclosure was rendered less than safe by freak weather. And they had to be shot. Danger …
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empty Forty years ago I did my first few self generated radio programmes and one of them was about housing stock standing empty and lack of affordable …
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gee I first saw the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery when I was about 12. My father said smiling, softly “the right of the …
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small My friend Wal is a decorator, a designer, a go to man whether for a boiler or a brilliant…
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nod Sleep is a country. I am a great believer in sleep. And if it’s a country, I hold a passport in apparently …
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onward I have a friend who often begins or signs off her emails thus – onward – and it reminds me of one of…
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besides One of the great successes of Richard Osman’s first (and as he says, best) novel is that death is never denied. If you set a story in a retirement home, no …
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joe hill 2021 When I was 9, I attended the Avenue Methodist Church in Middlesbrough. I had been brought up to visit any place of worship with appropriate …
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“a few bits” You can have almost anything in the supermarket but the growing, farming and marketing involves forcing…
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discovered Last week was a first. I couldn’t write. Well. I could, I did – but it was tripe. And there will be those among you who like …
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note of absence Annalog is under the Arctic Dome, isn’t well and won’t appear this week. Look forward to seeing you next week.
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minotaur Last night, in a trip down memory lane – I cleaned two pairs of shoes before I went to bed – actually just after supper, so the emollients could sink in. I felt about 12. So much cheaper…
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the balance Yesterday a leaflet was posted through the door asking me to join an organisation to ban the Chinese …
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just talking The ballerina’s name was Lucette Aldous and the company was Ballet Rambert. I was 9 or 10, and they danced on the platform of the hall in a new …
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ups and downs “Oh” said Pam the Painter with feeling “ British Telecom! Just seeing one of those …
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under b Earlier this week, a known actress – you might call her a star, I wouldn’t, very few stars in the sky of my imagination – was described as not being pretty …
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instinct The first polar bear cub born in captivity here was called Brumas and we all bought pictures and cooed with excitement. Such a thing triggered all sorts of fashion and comment …
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sign of the times Because I went to the US when I was young (19), certain images have remained …
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the mind runs on As I walked up the road for the papers, the sky was a sort of washed out beech leaf gold and as I came …
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wfl (which front line) Is “lol” laugh out loud or lots of love ? Anyway I would like to thank the Sussexes for a headline …
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body politic No I don’t mean when you think you have learnt that the Princess Royal had electrolysis or “that nice boy” is …
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sacred and stocking For years worship was anywhere I could play Aretha Franklin singing Amazing Grace in which (happy blend of cultural ideas) her voice makes shapes …
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the raft Christmas is a bit like a raft. First of all you don’t think you can get it to stick together. Which wood should you use ? (Of course, I want to say pine trees) What about …
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Christmas recalled I was really excited to see two things I liked in Saturday’s paper – a seriously overpriced but utterly beautiful rose gold bracelet and some equally …
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countdown and think again A change is supposed to be as good as a rest but I’m guessing that’s a small …
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blessing counting (107) In anticipation of the lockdown ending in time for us all to get sick over Christmas, I have …
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on the face of it Endlessly interested in character actors, I catch myself wondering if they are really as …
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coming up roses I wrote about division last week and even the garden doesn’t know whether it is coming or going…
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alcheringa* I am tired of division. I am tired of the old being arbitrarily separated from the young, the young from the younger, the boys from the girls, the straight…
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meldrewed I don’t believe Donald Trump ever had Covid. From the moment I saw the doctor who isn’t a …
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fisherman’s* I was never a big drinker which is not to say that I haven’t tried to keep up with Wal and Howard …
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music and the tiger The Tiger is an experienced nurse from Bengal, not Bangladesh. It was the first thing she told me, in response to my question about her name …
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a small a day It’s all too big. £154 billion for the high speed rail link or borrowed to keep us afloat, a billion pound bail out for London Transport, here a billion …
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familiars The night before an exam, I went upstairs to say good night to my 12 year old son and found him sitting up in bed, reading a story he had loved when he was younger…
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the glass That glass. You know the one, the one that we describe as half empty or half full. Life’s glass, the image a friend offered to me at the end …
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the distaff side Among the really not very many photographs I keep are two or three of me and Rosemary who was a first friend. She was dark blonde …
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tales of the time Three boys, none of them over 18, walking single file up the other side of the street, 7.15 am, I’ve just been to get the papers …
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mask I know that having half your face covered doesn’t make it any easier but I am not going to give up being as positive, polite and agreeable as I can…
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… and now what? Like many of us, I can only take so much “news” at the moment. In an interview with Professor Karol Sikora, a noted …
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160 and kisses When I read about somebody with millions of followers on Twitter or something, I think it’s just a modern take …
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day by day Here is good news. When eventually the extended family plus friends over the back from me finished playing …
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the other PC* As one day rolls into another and we admit as much shamefacedly to one another, we need to be reminded of each other as …
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notes on a letter What is it with M? The Virgin Mary, Monroe, a child murderer (Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang’s film “M”), Charles Manson and …
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turning nasty A woman I was queuing with remarked “In these circumstances, the nice will be very nice and the nasty will be horrid.” She was speaking of the …
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wings In the family I came from, we ate at the kitchen table. It was usually covered with a striped seersucker …
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two sides to everything (at least) I was growling as I walked up the road yesterday, narrowly avoiding a young woman with each thigh the size of my ribcage who was riding …
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God and Christian Dior Only twice in my life have I managed to feel like a Victorian lady looks, corseted, frail and in need of shelter from the world. Once was after I hit a boyfriend a freak blow …
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words fail me I was brought up to believe that if you liked someone, you would find a way to relate, to talk, past any social difference …
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old wood In the dear dead days when media still expanded from time to time and that didn’t have to mean unreliable rubbish …
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remember 13 years older than me, my sister was a child of WWII and my mother took her to the country where the bombing was less. They moved into rooms in a country vicarage a long way …
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“…don’t get around much…” Eyes are precious. Yes, I am as scared as the next person of being unable to breathe …
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” I was George Osborne’s dustbin …” Generally speaking, I support the printed word and one of the thrills of my working life was to be given a set of national newspapers …
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thanks The girlfriend of a friend’s son (late 20s) remarked that she didn’t like saying thank you, it made her feel obligated. Less a chip …
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look in the mirror* My first non secretarial job was with a sex magazine. My first journalistic job was with a woman’s magazine. For the next 20 years I was told at intervals …
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the other animals When we saw Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp”, I was 11 or 12 and my mother whispered to me how clever it was to draw Lady…
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as others see us 16 bags of wrapped garden waste appeared in front of the flat next door whose owner is away staying …
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balancing the books The accountancy mentioned is strictly of the emotional variety. As a woman remarked of pandemical behaviour in general “The nice is very nice …
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the rough with the smooth Serena (not her real name) is what you call a woman with a good heart – if you can get to it through …
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bananas When I applied to go to the US aged 19, the Visa Authority had me send home to Middlesbrough General Hospital to make …
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love in the time of cholera On Thursday I was just finishing supper when I heard a noise like dried …
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London lockdown One of my neighbours a gloriously attractive Chilean wrote me a “Don’t hesitate to ask, we’re just up the street ” email. Next door upstairs distributes …
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ring-a-ring-roses* “What did you do in the war, daddy ?” may be rephrased …
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first, find your lie … Fact and fiction are often part and parcel of each other. Never mind who writes what best, badly written fact …
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quick quick slow slow I don’t want to write about the resignation of the head of the Civil Service because there is more to this than meets the eye and you have be desperate – especially…
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the shape of the day I opened the computer this morning and there was an email from a woman I have known for 25 years – I know it’s 25 years because it was the …
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the importance of trivia Shirley and I were talking about the state of the nation on the till in Waitrose, and I remarked that there …
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what you can’t know I have a friend unmet in Scotland, who has stuck with me from the radio. He lives with his mother who isn’t getting…
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us and them A very young man, imprisoned for terrorist offences, is released. Shortly afterwards, he grabs a…
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Yazz singing The Only Way is Up
house story The newest arrival in the house over my back wall is a yapping dog – a noise I hate. But it could always be worse and when the other day I went to see an old friend …
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I don’t get it Putting to one side (sorry chaps) Holland and Barrett, and Lloyds and Boots and all the other multis selling vitamins …
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how we live now Everybody is entitled to their own opinion though these are shaped differently once they are in print or other public domain– passing as they do …
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2020 – and I don’t mean vision What would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news ? If I give you the …
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you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine Do you remember Sleeping Beauty ? That the royal parents of some …
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the morning after I am breaking my own rule about starting with a positive but let me just say this and then I promise to hold my peace. Campaigning must be positive as in “Get Brexit done” which …
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…those perinativity blues You always know when Christmas is coming because every price you can see …
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treat When you live on a restricted income (like many of us) a constant internal dialogue goes on between you and yourself. It features phrases like …
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mendacity Prince Andrew and I have vanity in common – though mine is in a minor key compared to his dissonant symphony. His lack of judgement brought …
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coat tale It may be an urban myth but it is alleged that there were those who called the area “South Chelsea.” I never met such a person and so I live variously …
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fire and flood My mother described the car that hit my father ( in a mercifully minor accident) as grey. He saw …
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belief I played Anne Frank in the Diary at the Middlesbrough Little Theatre, directed by Arnold Fry, the year I took what were then called my GCE O levels. And I remain …
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weights (waits?) and measures When Wal was robbed in Barcelona (he and his SO -significant other- Howard travel widely for …
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sidelined There is a bright green cycling scheme bike neatly parked on the pavement outside the flat. Modern times come to …
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moments How seductive is “…and they lived happily ever after”as the road, literal or imagined, stretches into a benign future …
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today’s great thought This is what my father used to say when he was trying to remember something. Today, it is linked to self motivation and similar oft-repeated phrases …
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recognition Years ago, a woman on the plane asked my son then about 8 “Do you know your mother’s famous ?” …
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“what I meant…” Bunslove used to work in radio. (His name is because of his sweet tooth – you can, he says, buy him for buns and tea.) Our tastes…
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under the skin Every time I think I can’t go on, I meet somebody who makes things better. People make it possible. Oh they drive me crazy – bad manners, bad clothes …
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the wait I am not good at queuing. As a schoolchild, I came home for lunch so I didn’t take my turn for school dinners…
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skews I wonder who first used the phrase “fake news”. Was it the Great Faker ? Or some hard pressed hack on one of the …
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in touch Yesterday morning I had coffee with Kay (not her name). I so rarely have coffee in the middle of the morning , you could …
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the lion’s mouth A friend wrote “I have a great sense of what on earth is happening ?” She is a former listener, who found me through annalog…
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“Peace is…”* A long time ago a friend described being chased by a rhino pup through her family’s East African bungalow while …
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minddoor There are things I don’t want to do or be, even at my age. I don’t want to assess strangers on the basis of money spent, except for curiosity. Like the …
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alphabet A is for akrasia, B is for blond, C is for control Or A is for alt-right, B is for Brexit…
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one in the eye If eyes are the window of the soul, my windows are currently swathed in red curtains because for …
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the way we live now Game of Thrones – no. Big Brother, Love Island or Britain’s Got Talent – no thank you, no, no…
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a quiet night at home Yesterday I had a rehearsal for what is to come. The remote control on the tv ceased to function. Those who never look at television should leave now. I do. Mostly old films, often …
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what’s new There are different kinds of new. There is new to you or new to us all, very little of the latter. A famously eccentric …
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sufficient unto the day… … especially when it is as a good a day as the one of which I write. I woke to that softness in the air which has …
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Temple* I fell. I was concentrating on the traffic lights opposite, the pressing traffic and moving sideways to …
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muscular thought Yesterday a friend emailed. He teaches children with “issues”. He was going through what books …
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papercuts* The cheapest of the six life-transforming, dewkissed, light enhancing with added SP120 suggestions on the beauty…
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weeding Something like news underpins a great deal of broadcasting so I left it to colleagues and pursued issues and ideas. This has two advantages …
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riding a bike Speaking in public came with the job. The editor of the sex magazine I worked for …
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“by Robert Collins”
big ears In a senior moment, I called last week’s post by the same name as one I wrote earlier. Oh dear. I knew that would happen one day…
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again She came towards me, taller by some three inches, a handsome woman, width across the cheek bones…
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nothing is forever Folding old sweaters in loving maintenance (my friends tease me about the age of my wardrobe) I remember that nothing is forever…
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eggstrordinary Walking up the street from the butchers, I thought how wonderfully peaceful London is when numbers of people go away. You might rejoin …
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“best nose!”
ins and outs A star I knew slightly (no, not coy – I am probably one of few he didn’t move in on, it not being on my list till I was ready and his needs being met all over the place) …
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story If you came in the front door of the house I was born in, and went up the stairs facing you, just to the left was the back bedroom…
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becoming mum It’s Mothering Sunday, I saw my son yesterday, and my best present is one more person has named me as a …
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lunatics one/asylum nil The only thing standing between me and arrest in the street is the number of police. One overcast morning recently …
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“The Rat Race by Sam Creasey”
Kiwi courage We called it the rat race – the repetitive endless pursuance of goals in the hope of reward, after laboratory rats who’d run, ever faster, through a maze for cheese…
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put it on the pickle jar On one of the rare occasions the post failed me and the cheque to Wal didn’t arrive, I took it over on the bus and on the way back, at the bus stop, signalled authoritatively for the…
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turning up trumps When I moved in 20 years ago, a pretty woman from up the street arrived with a line of guff anticipating that I was “her” whom she had thought, remarking …
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grey There is an ad for hair colourant (dye) which boasts “ … and NO greys !” As if the most terrible thing in the world was to have white or grey hair, a sign of age, a sign of worry…
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whatyoucallit “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” says Shakespeare. Shakespeare and the Bible cover most things. And I suppose the …
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a good week for a cold Things have got better in the last 24 hours. Why? Do we have a decision on Ireland or how to leave Europe ? Has the …
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free We were a full house, me and my son, his daughter and his oldest friend. OF brought tulips for me and separately, a small bunch for Babygirl. Picture us…
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“red anemone in the negev”
two wolves The woman walked through the doorway, looked at me and came straight towards me with her arms wide so I stepped forward into her embrace …
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gardening It’s wonderful when you have written so much that you have to go back and check before you start again. Well, it’s wonderful to me when …
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“Gold 18th century time measuring device”
choosing Time can be measured, the measures can be named, but time is. It cannot be stopped. The sun comes up and the sun goes down but when there is no more sun, it is the end of everything we know and I don’t mean KFC. Casting …
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slimming by ear I am very worried. I have just found a Gwyneth Paltrow recipe I like. We get so used to the wilder …
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again If the magic of Christmas to me is its silence, then the coming back down to earth of New Year is its noise – harsh voices, loud fireworks…
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Cutprice Christmas The cost of Christmas is going up but the two best things for me this year haven’t been to do with money at all…
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Annalog over the holidays
Thursday 20 for Christmas
Thursday 3 Jan for New Year
and a very merry to you all.
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keys and trees As the door closed I knew it: the keys were on the kitchen table. I have locked myself out twice before . Once I broke my own window and climbed in. Once…
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first day of winter We used to send cards for Christmas or birthdays and that was it – until somebody discovered the joy of black and white photographs and then cartoons and witticisms …
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a prevalence of ghosts So many people don’t reply. Large swathes of the business world have tossed acknowledgement and …
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no stopping The terrible thing about life is you can’t stop and start again. You can reorganise your desk or the kitchen …
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“I prefer this!”
NDY* There’s a new book, the title of which says it all (Death of the Megafauna by Ross DE MacPhee, an Edinburgh born paleomammalogist at the …
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Lincolnshire Longwool
I’m never going to get used to… Ugg, a range of overpriced sheepskin boots, sort beyond fashion: on the positive side, warm and soft and flat and …
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getting across Usually I like talking to anyone who wants to talk to me. And most of the time (bighead) I like being interviewed. Occasionally it becomes horribly …
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days I am fascinated by how different one day is from another. This sense of difference is taken from you if you are imprisoned. It is reduced if you suffer chronic illness: you don’t …
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by Marjean Brooks
…the way that you do it* Most of the street has been closed or blocks sold off to developers, the biggest of which is Chanel, probably a tax dodge because the presiding designer is elderly…
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Oh, cluck It all began when I found a hole in the exterior frame of the bathroom window. Well, if it’s nothing, it’s nothing but if it is an incipient problem, Wal’s the man. Wal may own a stack of real jewels …
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just think… I didn’t listen to much of the Senate hearings re Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. It has been described as “a watershed…
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“look heavy, feel light”
life skills As your best friend aged about 14 (the artistic one with pretty hair) took up with some awkward monosyllabic spotty thing with an abiding interest in his brother’s motorbike, somebody would remark laughingly…
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less is more Until this morning I had attributed this gnomic wisdom to the dress designer Chanel but according to the search …
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light a candle What a week. A friend’s brother flew over from LA, cleared in his latest round of tests, well and happily spiky, only to collapse…
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sex This little word has an impact like few others. I never knew who came up with describing the long running show I did at the first incarnation…
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on the record The great thing about the life of Senator John McCain is that the mistakes are on the record and there’s quite a list: nearly bottom …
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dream come true It is said – don’t tell anybody your dreams (or wishes come to that) because then, they won’t come …
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want A long time ago, coming to the end of our journey, my therapist asked me “What do you want?” I said I didn’t know. Silence. “I could tell you what I don’t want” I offered.
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layers Somewhere I read that the Native Americans wore moccasins because that was the thinnest and most natural …
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appreciation The young woman helping me buy a hat had a slight accent, like a check in the voice. The hat was a knitted shape too often made in massive reproduction…
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betwixt and between “Ambivalence” said the therapist “means feeling quite conflicting things at the…
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worse Should I complain to Wal about my noisy neighbour (I call her Clementine – “herring boxes without topses/sandals were for Clementine”) he will …
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“by Ingram Pitt”
Judge not…* But I do. Most of us who have opinions do. There are those we like and those we don’t like and even not knowing them doesn’t stop us …
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overrated Pushing his nose at the kitchen window this morning like some be-winged bassett hound was an enormous bumblebee…
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links in the chain Noticing things is the present tense of memory and memory is rarely straightforward – leave “never say never” out of it. Memory can …
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a walk into the light It is much easier to write about what is wrong than what is right. A great deal is wrong and it’s much easier to bitch and moan and stamp and rage …
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Sorry technical problems!
See you next week…
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... nobody’s perfect It’s the last line of Some Like It Hot, a wonderfully silly clever film without a duff performance, a remark open to interpretation…
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titfer* Disher came to supper, a vision in a guava coloured tailored shirt. I had a top that didn’t work for me, in which I suspected she…
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what it means It’s always personal. That line in the Godfather films about it “only being business” is the ultimate copout…
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Take a break , my “hands” are going on holiday…You thought I did this all by myself ? The chance would be a fine thing …
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mind matters The most expensive tv guide is the culture section of The Sunday Times. And on a bad day…
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clear Apparently, the eleventh commandment is “thou shalt not get caught” though the former President Reagan (Republican) said…
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But I thought you meant… How uncomfortable is the misunderstanding. Especially when you have made (or thought you had) every effort to be clear and the other person hears something else…
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waiting You can always find somebody in any one of the countries involved who will tell you they are frightened, that things have never been worse…
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many happy A man I know in his later thirties is mentor to the children of his female friends. No I don’t mean he is a closet…
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patience The woman was in her fifties, and her left knee was strapped up so that she had to use a crutch to manoeuvre herself awkwardly into the bus seat. When I asked her what…
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this and that In New York in the sixties, the man who supplied drugs was the candy man. Now, he’s the sugar man: zucker …
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whatsit The actor’s face came up on the screen and I could remember his first name but his second took about four hours to arrive. I can’t recall what the prepared aubergine dish …
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never knowingly Instead of asking its long serving staff to work at tills alongside the automated version, don’t you think it …
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homework How do I think of what to write? It varies. Perhaps I see something and respond to it: it hits me, I hit back. Or – I have …
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picture this Brian (not his real name) who is one of the kindest and most practical men alive arrived to organise my new passport…
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ITYS* My mother, that’s her, third cloud on the left centre back most days, will have her hands over her ears but really – I Told You So*. It is an insufferable phrase, she taught me…
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floral tributes The house on the curve of the street was once owned by a disagreeable dipsomaniac. You never knew which way she was…
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the rules of engagement* Daisy doesn’t like the telephone. I am not sure if this was always so, whether she associates it only with work or bad news …
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writing in the air (2) For the first time in his life, a fellow broadcaster whom I shall call by my nickname for him Bunslove (he has a sweet to…
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Monarch of the road* I like buses. It is possible that, because buses took me to and from hospital when I was very young and they signalled my “growing up” in facilitating attendance to a less…
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emotional geography When I couldn’t sleep one night and even the rocking of the red boat with a painted eye in the blue of a Cretan bay didn’t work, I began to think about Middlesbrough – no, not the football team, though my…
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no Long ago, a man rang my then newly established radio show and (as people sometimes do) went on and on telling me the rigmarole of his life, without …
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in the corridor I saw my son on Christmas Eve – he was working through the holiday – and as he left, the cold arrived. Waking at six or so on Christmas morning when it was still dark…
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pause in transmission
It’s the end of one year:
Happy Christmas…
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the festival of hope Never has the build up to Christmas so resembled rickety stairs – here a joist, there a mousehole, watch where you…
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white stuff Pure White and Deadly was the title of nutritionist Professor John Yudkin’s book about sugar, though with that title, it could just as well have…
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…as to a bridal What I liked best about my father’s funeral was the double line of his comrades from the Great War, lined up at the top of the churchyard. Kind and nice things must have been said but…
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butterfly mind Last week, one friend had a cancer scare (clear), another’s husband collapsed with what turned out to be pneumonia, a third’s husband was…
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africa story Michael Raeburn gave me his name and I kept it. Best thing he ever did for me. He was born in Cairo, his father a British colonel, his mother an Italian …
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…Growl Words and terms get lost in the relentless twee of modern parlance. Less dumbing down than dumbed. We can’t all know …
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a piece of the jigsaw It doesn’t happen so often now – old age is very rewarding in that – but every once in a while I feel that I can’t keep up…
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contrary* I don’t want to write about the abuse of women. Any abuse especially sexual abuse is both simpler and more complex than it appears…
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“A perfume organ in Grasse”
Ain’t I a Woman* Linda used to wear, among other scents, Caleche (Hermes) and Mitsouko (Guerlain). The trouble with modern perfumery is that it has discovered that synthetic fixatives – the thing that make the perfume endure – are cheaper than natural substances. But they have changed the smell …
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modern times I came home to two envelopes containing identical letters (yes yes -I know, the computer) from my energy company, who have booked an employee to come and read …
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Wwan* There is a moment in Out of Africa, set in the early 20th century, when the car engine fails and between them Meryl Streep and …
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Lists Sometimes I fall on the keyboard with enthusiasm, thinking oh good, I can write about that for annalog : about …
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Eating words Snowdrop (he loves them) came down to visit last week. He is very good at finding new places while I get thoroughly restive and fear getting it all wrong. The French wine bar had apparently …
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Mr.D* Sometimes death seems like a very good idea. I am far from fixated and most of the time it doesn’t cross my mind. But the news isn’t good wherever it’s coming from and the idea of any other kind of peace is very relative.
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mask 
“What’s that on your face ?” the leading man of Wind River asks his griefstricken First Nations friend. “It’s my death mask”. “Looks odd.” “I know, I made it up. There’s nobody to teach me …
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gone I have a wonderful memory of a young Whitney Houston in a black trousers suit and a white shirt, fresh and lovely with a terrific voice, singing “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. .
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“how to avoid Bank Holiday crowds”
One of the better weekends Why does everybody want to go away at the same time over the Bank Holiday ? There are crowds at the airports, crowds on the roads and crowds aided and abetted by every kind of disruption …
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Numbers There are all sorts of things I hope to be spared and being trampled to death in a crowd is one of them. I’ve been in …
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middle 
What happened to the amber light ?The crossing near me has become a much less organised affair with red for longer…
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nasty I am not very good at the nasties by which I mean – I see them, I acknowledge them, in my limited way, I understand where …
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TFG The GP who took early retirement was a large creamy Irishwoman for whom nothing was too much trouble, kind, sensible – in my few dealings with her, truly a fairy godmother…
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Green The garden at home wasn’t one really. It was just a sort of space at the back of the house with a privet hedge, a primitive garage where …
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what it means 43 years ago I was interviewed by David Frost in his last such …
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Just a tick… “I like ticks” said My Young Friend and no, she wasn’t speaking of bugs or Lyme Disease. She meant getting things right at school. “ But sometimes…
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tribute Sometimes I think I have wasted my life. The feeling doesn’t last long because whatever I have done, personally or professionally, it’s been 120…
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Blank books The plastic surgeon for whom I worked just short of two years really started something when he commanded me to “write it…
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Spilt The date a day desk diary shows a cartoon of four wolves in sheep’s fleeces and the caption reads “Now what ?” Where is the leader of the Royal Borough …
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“What now?” Do you remember May’s first speech after she became Prime Minister ? There was a change of tone, a different speechwriter, a newer warmer May…
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“Worry and waste” “No point in worrying, you can’t do anything about it” says my friend Dan, reasonable, grown up and low key. As said an elderly taxi driver years ago when I had …
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“…from the sublime to the corblimey” This is the phrase my mother (born 1900) used to describe (among other things) her then …
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“Outer wrappings” This weekend I went to a vintage fair to meet a man who sells blue and white fabrics from all over the world, especially the Middle and Far East (I didn’t buy enough the first time round and we found…
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“Fan” Lovely Linda, protector and friend, used to say “a fan mail flooded in” and we laughed because my public’s loyalty had already proved immeasurable…
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p&p No, not postage and packing though there are similarities. I refer to production and programming. And in this, I am just a consumer…
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“may” If I remember correctly, “may” indicates possibility, “can” determination, degrees of permission, a grammatical and conversational…
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“Ghostbusters*” “Trussst in me, jussst in me” sings Kaa the Snake seductively sibilant in the last cartoon personally supervised by…
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“Choo cho0” I like trains. Well I thought I did. You enter, it takes you, you read, talk or look out of the window. I don’t clutch a clipboard …
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“Sword and buckler” They were standing, eight young men, talking at the tops of their voice, spilling all over the centre of the carriage …
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“Let there be light” 
It took a year to get the candleholders I wanted…
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Whose mirror, what image? When I was 24, my father died. Not so very young, but young enough. Age is only figures, maturity or otherwise is harder to …
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“Special” The dining room of the old Ritz in Paris (before it was got at) was a large room with something blue in it …
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“(W)elle…” My son’s best friend and best man, a boy from pain, has just sent me a postcard for the first time and I am thrilled. It is on the mantelpiece and I am remembering how he once described …
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“For you” Years ago, you put a clean sheet of paper in the typewriter and set about filling it. On a good day, you had something in your mind you…
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“A rose by any other name…*” “Give me a red lipstick and a white shirt and I’ll give anybody a run for their money” said my very nearly beautiful mother. No kidding. She had apricot skin…
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“Not quite” My sister (who qualified in applied maths at 15) trained as a meteorologist and when dementia wiped out all sorts of other things, the distant past hove into view …
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Balance Let me introduce his majesty. He is large and shining black with white paws and white chest, and if he doesn’t choose to acknowledge you, you can whistle Dixie. He is the personification of the Cat Who Walks…
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This too shall pass I have a gimp left foot, a burnt left arm, my son isn’t pleased with me and I was called a racist. Somewhere long ago, somebody said of such a time, …
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“Anatomy of memory” The first time I went to Paris, I remember nothing about the journey, except coming in from the airport (in those days) early in a cold morning…
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“Lucky” You can love and respect people but it doesn’t follow that you share their choices. My parents liked Bing Crosby but I was never sure. Once I had read about his domestic violence…
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“Them and us” The Cardboard Giants. A Man Against Insanity. The Hidden Flower. If I close my eyes, I can still see the large dark brown or red tomes …
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“Certainties” There was a strange breathiness, a panting sound and as I turned the corner…
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“Old and new” All the way through my twenties and thirties I was haunted by the fact that I would never amount to a hill of beans because I…
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“Yule and new year” When I was filing annalog the other day, I discovered two entries under hope. I’m not surprised. Wild …
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“Bitsa” I can’t remember who first called a dog of many breeds a “bitsa” in my life but from childhood, I was taught that often oddly shaped creatures had the consolation prize of fine …
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“Three weeks to go…” On Saturday afternoon I went through the gloryhole under the stairs. It wasn’t so much that I was looking for anything but rather that I thought it might be time to see what…
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” An ordinary day” This is an ordinary sort of day and I suppose my mind is at peace – or in neutral – which is why I find it difficult to decide what to write about. Do I write about …
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Van Gogh, Pair of Shoes, 1886
“Threadbare” One morning last week, putting on a coat in the half light ready to go out and buy the papers, I saw what I thought was a stain on the front right edge. It wasn’t a stain (hooray) but the edge was worn right through.
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“A Glimpse of the horrible pit” I am always shocked when people stand up to speak in public and don’t do it well. Yes, of course, different people have …
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“Fragrance clings…” Hands are fascinating, perhaps the more so because we take them for granted. In spite of the prevailing popularity of manicure, you’re stuck with …
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“Transformation” Both my MM (married men – there were only two) gave me dictionaries. On request. I was a snippet of 19 when the first, bringing our affair to a graceful …
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“Tell me a story” One winter my father read all fourteen volumes of Fortescue’s History of the British Army. The public library got it for him and he sat, smoking and …
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“Jiz” In a carefully chosen Warhol box in my living room are all the cards I sent Jizzy and all the cards she sent me. The origins of her nickname don’t matter. She did. She was six feet in her stocking …
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“New for old” Years ago, I read an account (in a US publication) of work with men against heart disease. Treatment …
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“Better than birthdays” Even if I think about it very hard, I don’t remember the specifics of birthdays as much as the emotions – clutching …
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“Strange times” We were on the bus going up London’s ritzy Sloane Street, the last half of which journey has been rendered laborious by the …
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“In praise of younger women…” If you ever wanted to understand the depth of the studio’s ambivalence towards promoting the late great Judy Garland , you have only to see her in blackface singing …
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“The price of like” Suzanne O’Sullivan’s book is called It’s All In Your Head and recent events have made me think friendship is a lot like that. There’s Jack and Elizabeth (all the names are changed) with…
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“It comes to us all” I am developing a full scale phobia about the term “anti ageing”. First of all, it brings to mind not dewy skinned eternal youth but the cold glance of so many women…
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“There’s a word for it…” Blame it on Yuval Noah Harari. Knocking around in my head this weekend was the phrase reading with understanding. When you look it up, most of the references are…
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“The face of summer…”A
fter years as director of physical education for the North Riding of Yorkshire, my father retired. He spent a year as stockman for a wine and …
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“Dear Mrs. May…” Are the systems of screening now so advanced, so fearful of letter bombs, anthrax or other nasties, that the possibility of communicating…
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“Rut bust” Habits sustain you, to a certain level, and then the balance tips over and you’re in a rut. I try to anticipate when the comforting reins of my trotting existence begin …
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“M is for maintenance” Every so often, life spins away from you, like a ball of wool unrolling across the floor. It is quite probable that, until that moment, you’d always thought of yourself …
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“Next time round” Sometimes you think “if I only had (whatever it is) I’d be fine.” I spent years wishing for a waist. I managed perfectly well without one but every so often…
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“Like” I like bread. In the farmers’ market where I go most Saturdays, there are two stalls with several different kinds of bread between them and I am …
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“Star Followers” Maybe the reason I was caught by the idea of the Three Wise Men is because it is an inclusive one. In the first image I remember…
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“No pot of gold” In my experience, the people who tell you about losing money are always the ones who have some. Shares down, devalued…
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“Planful???”
“The right decision” This is one of the best things I was ever told: ”there is a decision to decide “yes”: there is a decision to decide “no”: and there is a decision not to decide” (which means you get what you get and …
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“Chinese symbol of fire”
“Playing with fire” The only time I have ever met a film producer, I asked for her email to send her the details of an undervalued Norwegian novel by Gaute Heivoll called …
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“Snob sister” Whether terrestrial television is dying or trying to kill itself, there is now nothing to watch for whole evenings or even whole days at a time, while BBC and ITV compete as …
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“Dorian Gray Depp” In her later years the great star shared an elevator with a man who asked “Didn’t you used to be Joan Crawford?” Whatever she was or wasn’t, I feel for her…
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“Sympathetic magic” Beyond the windows, the plants are green, the sun is shining, the air is soft. And beyond that looms the referendum on whether …
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“Round the corner” A free newspaper used to be delivered. I am afraid I never took much notice of it after I tried when I first moved here (16 years ago) to find a plumber through it …
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“Bitter” Never any good at committees, I became the chair of a drug rehabilitation project because the head honchos of the two most powerful…
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“Wren tail fly”
“Magic” Magic is very extreme – whoever heard of middling magic? Magic is transformative. As in, you look like hell until along with all the care of wardrobe, hair and makeup…
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“What’s it for?” Scrolling through the free on-line compilation called NextDraft, I spend a lot of time saying “no” but it is invaluable for the days you…
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“Soul ache” There are four of them I see often – two sisters, wrapped as if for a snowstorm on the sunniest day, strangely knobbly and terrifying thin: a sweetfaced woman who smiles …
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“A little of what you fancy…” * What is an “expert tip on erotic spanking “? (See Sex Box, Channel 4) Is there an inexpert way to sexually spank, so that person who is supposed to be excited falls off …
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“Pecked and stung” AC/DC, a clever play by Heathcote Williams suggested that there was very little new under the sun. And when …
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“Tinsel” After 34 years together, Leon’s second wife left him. (The first question you want to ask is “why”?) 40 years later, Leon (not his real name) came looking for…
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“Off switch” Have you heard the idea that everybody has a book in them? Just one book. The second one and/or others is a different thing entirely. This is why…
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“Paid help” I have been having a round of specialised medical advice – but the specialist I most wanted to see about the strange mark under my left breast was cancelled for me …
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“Spring blues” It is unfortunate that my spring blues coincided with Mothers Day. Champagne doesn’t like me – …
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Illustration of real and fake written on black chalkboard
“Is life deaf?” Long ago and far away a woman wrote to me and described me and what I did on air as “echt”. I guessed the meaning contextually in my reply for which she rapped me …
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“Overcast” It was a slow weekend, not much sleep and there was enough going on to murder sleep anyway. So first of all …
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“Mother moment” My mother was a very self sufficient confident woman and like a lot of people like that she had her moments of self doubt. When my …
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“Happy-do-nothing” This morning I stole up on the day. Usually I look at the clock but this morning, after the first peaceful sleep for two weeks in spite …
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“Kneejerk” You know where it comes from ie the doctor hits just below your knee with a surgical tool and the reflex jerks the leg out below in a kind of kick. (Please don’t try this at …
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“What it’s worth?” Ginny (not her real name) left her job and wrote to me “Am I worried about not being employed ? Yes. Am I …
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“Hail and farewell” Unless you know somebody personally, their death is in some way symbolic. You like what they did or the sound of them. Even …
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“Week” When I was at junior school, we had a double art lesson all of Wednesday afternoon with the dashing …
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“Honours & Shame” When I first had a job with a salary I couldn’t spend no matter how many books, Tshirts, trips to the cinema and gifts I bought, I worked for a women’s magazine. There were always people…
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“as pretty as my grand daughter”
“Crossover” Christmas was lovely. I had it on Christmas Eve when my son , his wife and their daughter came to see me. We spoiled each other and shouted with laughter and had a wonderful…
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“Beyond the stocking…” There were two kinds of Christmas presents when I was growing up, one was the big thing you had to have like a coat or new spectacle frames and then there…
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“sung every Anzac Day”
“Abide with me” We’d been talking about the world in general and our small bit of it in particular, when my friend said thoughtfully “Change and decay in all around I see…” “Where did that …
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“Three wise men” There was a Christmas Fair at the Town Hall. Sponsored by a magazine called Selvedge, it filled the old rooms with colour and light, pleasant …
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“Three weeks and a bit” The backwash of Black Friday (apparently a week’s plasticfest, not a day) – plus roads up everywhere while the Mayor throws…
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“Squirrel’s drey”
“Old rocking chair got me” Most of us have two homes, the one we came from and the one we make. I have a friend whose parents parted shortly after her birth, whose mother felt her …
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“Little things” On Saturday I received an email from my local policeman, the second paragraph of which reads“The Metropolitan Police Service has …
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“Shhh – very quietly… “ Shall I start to try and write before I get the papers ?I woke at 6.00 and thought – don’t read, it will only clutter whatever passes for …
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“A puff of smoke” Tobacco is a killer
If it were grown and cured organically, used occasionally, it might be ok. But (like meat) once it was produced industrially, marketed and targeted …
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“What might be…” The ties of friendship between Pam and me are reinforced by worldclass worriting.
She whose domain is dominated by…
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“Jumbo corner…” as in “the elephant in the room”. We used to ask “And how do you know there is an elephant in the room?” to which the answer was …
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“The marketing of the cup” Not the tea cup – I mean bra size.
The bra is a sort of temporary restructuring agent which appears…
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“Good” Thirty five years ago, I sat in a Salvation Army Citadel to shoot the last of a series of six programmes about programmes about faith and belief and how those ideas …
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“Time” Time is strange, very fast and very slow, a perfect example of the law of paradox. Time flies when you are having fun, drags when you are bored or scared, where you have entered another’s time scale and lost …
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“Spontlack” Years ago I had a boyfriend who was a medical student (the charm of the devil and a major alcohol problem ) who …
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“Not always a rest*” I really began to grow up (late but seriously) at the hands of the retired health visitor who took care of my son when I was working. She was salaried but she was in effect chief cook and bottle washer…
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“What to believe (and what to do about it)” A story is offered to you one way, for example: Her Majesty’s long reign and sense of duty featured in a story about how every penny spent on her reign has been a good …
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” Full of it” The curse of the four letter word rides again! The word is “full” and when rock star Chrissie Hynde gave an interview to promote her book…
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“Same old same old…“ except very little is. How depressing is the uniformity of today’s clothes, shoes, habits, appearance (though I cherish the man who remarked on looking a row of upcoming…
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“Speak to survive” Years ago a woman told me on air how embarrassed she found seeing advertisements for sanitary …
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“Sumer is icumen in” * The other day I looked through the papers and wondered where was “the silly season”– that period of the year when most people have …
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“Wings waste and wonderful” I have never liked gulls. They have that cold eye and they are always bigger than we expect and while …
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“Thinskinned” Years ago my skin broke out.There’s nothing particular about my skin, but the occasional spot is one thing and a rash is something …
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“Gimme a break” I went to meet a friend on Sunday and I was early – we laugh at each other about being early, we are always early – but this was time …
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“Cackhanded” Long ago my former husband who could tell a great story and had a natural narrative gift was persuaded to try and write it all down.
Off we went on holiday with a computer…
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“This is an update” The proverb says “It is a poor workman who blames his tools”
so here’s the truth..
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“Truant” I am tidy. I bet I am the only person you know who used to enter her place of work (radio newsroom) and clear up before she began to work…
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“Getting through it” Nobody walks around with a notice saying “Help!” though most of us have felt like that at some time or another. And often, human nature being the unpredictable thing…
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“Half a story” “All the news that’s fit to print” is a brave sentiment. But who decides what’s fit to print? Does that include images or just words…
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Unbroken circle – quilt
“Circle” When Michelangelo was trying to persuade Pope Julius II to let him have the Sistine Chapel to decorate (against considerable competition), it is said that everybody else sent examples of their finest work…
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“Common Sense” Don’t be put off by the title: my common sense is your hardheartedness: your commonsense is my incredulity. It varies a lot…
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“Bank holiday treasure” My mother and father had a running battle over how much you should tell me about a …
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“How to train your dragon” (lesson 342) Everybody has a dragon, some of us have more than one. Setting aside its flaws, I loved the animation How To Train Your Dragon, partly because …
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“Spring” Here is the good news: it’s a bit warmer and a bit lighter and the election is over which means that once we get past the reassessment (should he. shouldn’t she, why didn’t they…
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Maya Plisetskaya
“Inspiration” When a couple of newspaper paragraphs announced the death of Russian dance great Maya Plisetskaya, my mind whipped back a lifetime to a black and white portrait …
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“Apologies” What again! Sadly, yes.
The computer is undergoing major surgery and has post operative shock
So too the blogger …
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“Boxed” In the obituary column of The Times last week was the story of an actor who had had a long and rewarding career, mostly as an industry secret…
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“The other half of the sky” I don’t know what I think about Hillary Clinton and it doesn’t matter much because I don’t have a vote in her country…
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“Birthdays” When you were a kid, birthdays were very exciting though, thinking about it the other day, I don’t remember more than one or two things I was given as gifts…
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“War” Last week I stumbled on a phrase that haunted me, knocking at the back of my eyelids till I went …
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“Good news” What is good news? Years ago a BBC presenter – who is still around so he might have got it right – suggested that the news was co-opted to doom and gloom and every so often…
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“Pink is…*” My painter friend, the Kandinsky Kid, is a colour drunk. The house is a riot of strange pinks and reds, darker blues juxtaposed with terracotta, duller greens with crimson and ochre…
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“Lower orders” It’s no secret I am a dog lover. Of course there are dogs I love more and dogs I love less and some I really don’t like, just like people…
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“Baa” No disrespect to the families of those he has murdered but I am fed up with hearing about the murderous Mr. Emwazi. You may call him…
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“Fear” There is a drawing by the Dutch graphic artist Escher, of a fish looking up through water bounded by trees, leaves floating on the surface. But in my recall, the water is ice and the fish is trapped…
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“Catsick” When my father died, my mother was 70 or so and Britain was fighting the IRA. One evening, my mother sat looking at the television news, and I thought I saw a tear so leapt forward …
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“The art of conversation” Some of us talk so easily that we never stop to consider that it might be a problem for somebody else. And of course if you’re talking to someone who likes to …
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“What it’s worth” How do beggars choose whom they approach?Is it scattergun ie try everybody and hope somebody responds? Is it…
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“Blog with teeth”
“Paid to think” It’s a wonderful thing to have a column in a newspaper. And if you can’t have a column for pay, a blog is close. Because a columnist (and a reviewer who is another kind of columnist) is paid to opine…
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“Home thoughts from a broad” These are the two things that hit me like sledgehammers this week – apart from my own friends, three of whom are…
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“Big Guns” 17 people were shot dead in France – you know this unless you have spent last week locked in the loo.
Now, as the French Prime Minister …
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“Signs and Portents” The excuse was that we were didycoy, of gipsy family, and the saying is “as superstitious as a gipsy”… ________________________________
The Buggy Bus” When my mother was asked if she liked children, she used to say carefully ”Well, I like mine …
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“The Good Morning Gang” I never thought about sleep until it became evasive, though sleep patterns apparently change as you get older and now …
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“Never forgotten” The programme went out live for 2 hours, rehearsed for transmission from the regional television station in Newcastle. The studio …
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“Joined Up” Recently through the door came a luxuriously printed and coloured publication, endorsed if not underwritten by local estate agents, to show what is happening about us and as …
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“Bargain basement” A bargain is something you want at a price you can afford, right? A bargain is not something you didn’t …
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“Shopping” My mother hated shopping. We’re talking about a long time ago.
The supermarket was yet to take hold, the butcher, the baker and the … _________________________________
“Uniform” Recently the head teacher of a once floundering, now successful secondary school …
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“Young Skipper” The poppies we bought from the trays in the street were once silken if not silk. Now they are plastic. When you see poppies growing…
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Simone Veil
“This is what a feminist looks like” This is what a feminist looks like (if you have managed to escape the furore) is the slogan on a T-shirt which several major politicians were …
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“Haunted” 30 years ago (well, nearly – 1985) I put my name in the front of a book at the radio station where I then worked. The idea was that, whether the book…
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“Faking it” According to the paper, women who have overplucked their eyebrows to follow an earlier fashion trend can now by brush on fake eyebrows for a thicker Paloma Faith/Elizabeth McGovern look.
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“Leather flappers” Sitting in a French garden in the skin-strokingly warm dark of an early summer evening, something swooped over my head and I yelped. It was a bat…
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“Weekend” People work very long hours. Work has been extended through demand, insecurity and various bits of technology. And I was brought up very short in an interview the other …
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“You Don’t Know Who To Believe” ! No more milk in glass bottles, says Dairy Crest. 260 jobs will go, plastic is preferred and cheaper…
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“Worrywort” A young man, his dreads flying above a singing orange sweater rode his bike down the road…
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“Duvet days” The raven was making a hell of a noise and you don’t want to wake to a bird of ill omen. But maybe he was a crow, spooked by a cat,…
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“Memory” When I woke up I had been dreaming about a wood.
It’s the wood I ran away into when I was five or so, from which…
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“Receiving loud and clear” Both my parents loved words and so do I.This doesn’t mean that I spend my life trying to use three syllables where …
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“Age” Richard Attenborough’s death at 91 is in the news but. I remember him bustling down the corridor, one of several sets of listening ears…
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“Time” Years ago I decided that I wanted to do a radio programme about ubiquitous four letter words, often of much greater impact and meaning than their size suggests, and no, it wasn’t about …
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“Holidays” Annalog won’t be posted next week because the magic hands that make it happen are going on a well deserved holiday! We may be a bit later but …
“Invisible writing” I wanted to be a writer. I don’t know what I thought a writer was,or how writing was done – I mean writing aside from agents …
“No end in sight” My friend David has a friend called Nina (neither of these are their real names).They met on a cruise of northern cities…
“Take it where you find it” I mean joy, take joy where you find it. Enjoy every little joy
For example …
Germane means literally…
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“Knocked out” We take sleep for granted. Or, if you have always had problems with sleep, slept lightly or were prone to broken sleep, over time you develop ways of managing it so it isn’t a big deal…
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“Pain” Pain is humbling. I sound like a martyr. Not so.
But however we experience it, pain changes the way we look at things. The idea that pain ennobles is not …
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“Terms of reference” Are you shy? Or is it nervous? (I am leaving lonely for another day). There are those who are victim to their shyness. They don’t meet…
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“Words as music” Poetry is as personal as perfume.
I once sat through dinner with a voice coach from the Royal Shakespeare Company who (not surprisingly) …
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“Wren” Birds are a bonus like feathered lilies of the field. They exist, small miracles of engineering, parallel with but independent of humankind, often wonderful – literally, full of wonder …
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“Hymn to him” Harry is one of the few heterosexual men I have ever known who is emotionally rich and realised – loves his life, his wife, his kids, thinks, feels, claims the pain of loss …
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” Shocked” Forty years of people – in the face, down the phone, over the radio – means I have seen and felt and thought a lot about humans…
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“More blessed to…” Somewhere in the radio years, a listener taught me “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today is a gift – that’s why we call it the present.”
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“Doglove” The first dog in my life was a black Labrador cross called Scamp, rescued by my father from being tied up at a playing field…
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“Men are men and women are women…” I have a confession to make: I didn’t watch Kirsty Wark’s “polemic” about men being more violent…
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“Can’t…” As in “there’s no such word as can’t” which is what school teachers used to say to ham-fisted girls like me when…
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I’d like to apologise but the blog won’t be posted this week due to technical difficulties. Please come back and visit me next week. Feel free to send me your own personal stories on your ‘frustration with technology’!
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“Let’s hear it for the uglies!” May be this is a reaction to a week of mankind behaving more buffoonishly than usual from maritime disasters …
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“Hope” Hope is one of those little often-used four letter words which encompasses a working example of ambivalence. And when I first…
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“Birthday” “It will be just like all the others “ said my son cheerily “ won’t it ? I mean, the figure doesn’t change anything ? “ “Yes” I agreed “ all just figures except for 40. At 40 I loved your father, I had you, a dog…
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“Print and Pictures” How’s this for a double standard?
The Times carried a piece about “a lesson in love” (their headline) that the famously priapic film star Warren Beatty taught …
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“History, herstory” Apparently history isn’t popular at school. Is that because of the remoteness of the details of a long ago and very different world…
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“Mind the Gap” There is a new drama on television about a man who killed the women he was close to, described by the estimable David Chater …
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“What did you call me?” We used to laugh when the late great Claire Rayner called someone “lovey”.Perhaps we laughed in sympathy because we feared it put the person to whom it was …
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“I spy” When I was younger I used to think that the short sight (plus astigmatism) with which I was born …
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“Lucille’s lesson” 
When “everybody” tells me that I must see this film/play/exhibit, I run the other way, react against the prevailing opinion. …
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“The smell of it” You can miss the smallest or most mundane thing about yourself if it is out of action for any period of time… _____________________________________
“Smoke and Mirrors” There is a lot of it about, both smoke and mirrors – sleight of hand, deception great and small, some connived at, some glaringly obvious. Take Putin – oh do, do take Putin . Away…
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“What are friends for?” And the following morning I went briskly to check the telephone which sat, lights blazing, nobody home. It was dead. So… _____________________________________
“Appletreewick” It’s odd to bring up a child born in that place saying “we are not from here” but by the time I was born in Yorkshire, my parents (both…
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“Foot Note” Sharon Stone has ugly feet. Before you dismiss Ms. Stone as The Blonde or The Body or That Shot in Basic Instinct, see The Mighty directed by Peter Chelsom (1998). She’s…
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“New Ears” We had a choir at school, first led by Mrs. Quinn and when she retired, Miss Pringle. We sang…
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“Party” Putting the American use of the word to one side – implying all kinds of wildness, drink, drugs and sex…
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“The 25th” If you don’t like Christmas, don’t subscribe. You can choose. Is that why so many people …
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“In Praise of Radio” The Times Magazine (8.12.2013) ran a piece entitled How to Have Sex on the Radio, featuring those artists who arrange sound effects for radio…
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“Kismet/busmet” Kismet was the gloriously over the top Hollywood musical my mother took me to see…
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“Fear Equals Hate” Every so often London comes to a halt. Sometimes, this is because of a demonstration or a...
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“The Door” The lacquer red of the front door was scraped when an infuriated neighbour had a go at it with a brick. The red was…
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“Dowdiness” I am not very good at going back. When friends tells me about reunions – for work, school, college – I shy away. Memory may not be…
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“Diamond Jubilee A&E” Derek (his real name) and I a year younger when we climbed up on a car trailer which tipped with our weight and we…
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“Addo Annie Rules?” I spoke to the builder working across the street about the small job of repainting needed on the front wall of my building after …
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“Jane Taylor” My mother inspired me to feminism said I on Radio 4′s Reunion to Sue McGregor. “She went back to work when I was nine (and she…
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“A Day of Meetings” A day of meetings sounds very professional and business-like. My meetings were purely pleasurable…
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“The Bowl as Witness” As I lingered over an elm salad bowl 35 years ago – and it wasn’t cheap then – my mother offered “I’ll buy it for you ” and, as I…
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“The Tree” Perry (not his real name) was a lonely awkward gay with a good heart: adopted by punitively religious…
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“More Than Pizza” However uncomfortable it is, I can never feel badly about sunshine in …
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“Dirty Clothes” Although the notion may not appeal, clothes soil. Whatever the cleaning arrangements for public transport in London…
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“The Snake” There is a lot of building (redevelopment? refurbishment??) going on round me, probably because I live in one of those areas in…
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“The Lost Apple” Millions of us are going to be affected by varying degrees and forms of dementia. The sufferers…
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“A Magic Carpet” When I moved from family house into small flat (not that small said my son) I thought I would work again but regretfully…
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“Shopped” The email read, What is she wearing? She looks like a failed pot noodle….
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“Smile” I was late leaving, I pushed my hair off my face, up in a big clip. It was colder than expected so I put on a raincoat and a scarf over…
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“Top Note” Time was when men and women customarily wore hats. My father used to get very fond of his dark brown trilby and evade buying…
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“Speccy Foureyes” Halfway back from shopping, the snow came. I stopped in a doorway, noticed I was carrying two bags as …
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“Wood Woe” It pains me to think that I should agree with George Osborne about anything – he’s…
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“Not a Word” When you have sat and talked to people about their lives – over telephones, down microphones…
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“Facing It” I first heard the word “prosthesis” when I was secretary to a plastic surgeon 40 years ago…
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“Doctor: from the Latin” After a positive experience in a small department of St. George’s Tooting where they…
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“Now” If you spend the front half of your life looking forward, you spend the latter half looking back…
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“What You See Versus What You Get” Searching for somewhere to put my savings after a “this year something, next year not much” agreement…
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“End in Sight“ Must go, emailed a friend, running to a funeral… I can identify with that. Sometimes, that’s just how it feels…
