13 January 2022

Workhouse death brings on 1921 census blues

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MUCH joy tempered by bouts of shock and sadness. Such is the lot of family historians everywhere. Something I can well attest to after recent foraging in the foliage of my family tree. Anyone joining this global corps of addicts soon learns that tracking down their ancestors is a long plodding journey. One beset by… Continue Reading

13 January 2022

Workhouse death brings on 1921 census blues

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MUCH joy tempered by bouts of shock and sadness. Such is the lot of family historians everywhere. Something I can well attest to after recent foraging in the foliage of my family tree. Anyone joining this global corps of addicts soon learns that tracking down their ancestors is a long plodding journey. One beset by… Continue Reading

31 December 2021

Deluded in thinking new year changes anything

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THE annual conundrum is upon us. As the calendar flips over from December 31 to January 1, the perennial question remains to puzzle us. We step across the threshold from 2021 into 2022 with still no satisfactory answer. We may be bleary-eyed, hungover and half-awake; or euphoric,  full of good cheer and a friend to… Continue Reading

18 December 2021

Alco-free bubbles: boozing minus hangovers

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alcohol-free wine

BOUGHT a couple of bottles of alcohol-free wine. One a bubbly, the other labelled as a Merlot. Friends and dearly beloveds familiar with my past indiscretions might be worried about my sanity on hearing this news. Wondering if this statement is another piece of  fiction. Or whether years of running have finally taken their toll…. Continue Reading

30 November 2021

Trigger-happy woke brigade way off target

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WHO would have thought it?  Who in their wildest imaginings would have been prepared for such a sudden assault on their mental processes? Thank goodness, therefore, for those ever-alert guardians of our sensibilities  and weak spots.  The do-gooders who see harm where none exists; and attach needless warnings of  possible injury to the most innocent… Continue Reading

17 September 2021

Fishy feelings over dubious delights of national dish

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WHAT is so damned special about fish and chips? The question has to be asked after again foolishly succumbing to the fiction that a chunk of lukewarm battered cod and a heap of pale limp would-be chips is the food of the gods. An endlessly desirable feast for a nation. A national treasure even. Allegedly… Continue Reading

14 July 2021

A holiday in Looe could get lost in translation

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BOOKING a holiday in Cornwall? Better make sure your agent puts it in writing. Think of the poor souls desperate for a summer break who decided on a couple of weeks along the sunny (?) Cornish Riviera. Suddenly they find part of their time in a holiday park perched on the North Coast cliffs could… Continue Reading

11 July 2021

Baffled by Hadrian’s Wall and a mystery postcard

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SURELY mine is not the only brain that has gradually turned to mush thanks to this endless lock-down. I sense previously lively little grey cells have coagulated into something resembling sago pudding.  Thus my head is host to an amorphous  splodge of lifeless nothingness. A once active organ languishes listless and lifeless. Bogged and befuddled,… Continue Reading

5 July 2021

Yippee, freedom . . . it’s holiday time

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Aah . . . the sheer joy, relief, escape, freedom and get-away-from-it-all happiness of a holiday trip.  These hordes are lockdown escapees from the Australian state of Victoria queuing to “enjoy” the snowfields, as pictured by the Herald Sun. Yet again I am prompted to wonder what is the sense and point of holidays. Why… Continue Reading

4 July 2021

Better to be clever than smart

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ALMOST daily we are urged to place our trust in rapidly advancing new technology. The catch-cry is “Get Smart”.  It is almost biblical in its unwavering insistence. Accept and ye shall be saved. Adapt to everything smart and ye shall enter the Elysian uplands where all the gizmos and contraptions that surround us will cease… Continue Reading

28 June 2021

Get set for National Eternal Optimism Day

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EVERYONE ready? Got your Union flags close to hand for some frantic waving? At least for 45 minutes. The bunting dragged out from storage to drape between houses? And hang there limply for days long after, a sad reminder of what might have been. The fridge cleared to make space for the packs of beer?… Continue Reading

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