Yellow school bus

18 February 2021

Whingers galore and hardship hell, isolated in the Oxfordshire wilds

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Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #9 NO doubt the nation’s heart has gone out to another victim of the pandemic. Fortunately it is Random Acts of Kindness Week (yes, really) and help may soon be on its way to this poor soul. There are likely numerous others in much the same… Continue Reading

18 February 2021

Whingers galore and hardship hell, isolated in the Oxfordshire wilds

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Yellow school bus

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #9 NO doubt the nation’s heart has gone out to another victim of the pandemic. Fortunately it is Random Acts of Kindness Week (yes, really) and help may soon be on its way to this poor soul. There are likely numerous others in much the same… Continue Reading

15 February 2021

Marmite Markle strikes a blow for letter-writers

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memoir

AS a person of interest, Meaghan Markle usually rates way down the list of those spotlighted celebrities who engage my attention. Almost off the scale; at the lowest end. As I feel she is considered by most people apart from those sad sacks to whom all gossip is more precious than oxygen; the mainstay of… Continue Reading

12 February 2021

Criminals galore lurk in lockdown bedside library

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Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #8 Feb 2021: THE Pisa-like bedside tower of books looked like toppling before I got around to recording some of its content. It was only thanks to some extended sessions of lockdown reading that it has been whittled down to a less perilous height. Sadly it… Continue Reading

31 January 2021

Good news on books, jabs and theatre to fight BBC gloom

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Doomed depression image

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #7 Jan 2021: I HAVE been on a bit of a downer. Today, however, I am showing a degree of positivity by using one of the slightly less pessimistic of the several D-words available to describe the recent state of mind and body. Yesterday the temptation… Continue Reading

29 January 2021

Dealing with the nitty gritty on hoes and dykes

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plymouth-hoe-tower (from Historic UK)

PERHAPS this blog post should come with an advisory caution; like those that precede some of the raunchier dramas screened on post-watershed TV. A warning about bad language or offensive dialogue. Displaying an awareness of some readers’ fragile sensibilities.  Guarding against young minds being led down sinful paths; the elderly shocked into losing a grip… Continue Reading

27 January 2021

Happy fat makes deadly fat and an easy Covid target

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Wild horses can't change us by Mikael Kristenson courtesy Unsplash

  Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #6 Jan 2021: THE stable door is now shut tight. Bolted and barred. Triple locked and with no sign of a key or code. And unoccupied. The horse it once contained, an unruly beast at the best of time, seized its pre-lockdown moment and is… Continue Reading

22 January 2021

Deniers living in a world of fiction and horror movies

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Covid emeregency. courtesy Mufid Majnun, Unsplash

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #5 Jan 2021: WHAT is it that they don’t understand? Are the almost 100,000 deaths so beyond comprehension that they believe them to be a total fiction? Do the BBC’s recent series of excruciating hospital scenes unnerve them so much that they dismiss them as some… Continue Reading

20 January 2021

New writer’s thriller reveals Canada’s divisive dark side

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Book cover Osmand's Creek

ONE of the many pleasures gained from reading crime fiction is being plunged deep into places never previously visited. Or, if having been there only superficially as a mere transient, now getting down and dirty with the locals. No longer passing through but going well and truly off piste. The crime novel as a Baedecker…. Continue Reading

19 January 2021

Bras and knickers come before books

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Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #4 SO many Covid conundrums to confuse and ponder. The more our masters attempt to clarify, the murkier the restrictions become. How far from one’s home is “a reasonable distance” yet close enough to be accepted as an exercise zone? Precisely what qualifies as an “open… Continue Reading

12 January 2021

Cuddles for goals but not for grandma

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Celebratory cuddle as picture in the Daily Telegraph

Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #3 04 Jan 2021: THOUGHT for the day: money does not buy brains. Nor can it buy common sense, or consideration for others or the community at large. Shell out zillions but there’s no guarantee the recipient will be transformed into a truly mature and responsible… Continue Reading

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