Category Archives: travel

Taking To The Hills – Malvern

Posted on January 25, 2022 by j futrell

The most significant change to my life since being dumped from The Sunday Times by a man with a name synonymous with lavatory cleaning is no longer automatically being shown the best room in the hotel. Nowadays I must … Continue reading →

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no goodbyes

Posted on November 5, 2021 by j futrell

Friends and those on the fringes of friendship don’t walk out on you overnight, they just sort of fade away, like sunsets. Okay, there’s a handful of I would and have crossed to the other side of the street to … Continue reading →

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Coronavirus – a September view from Padstow

Posted on September 28, 2020 by j futrell

Kim and I went blackberrying today to an evidently not-so-secret spot near Constantine Bay: our source heavily pre-picked by the look of the denuded brambles. It had been chilly when we left the house, passers-by in puffa jackets and woolly … Continue reading →

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coronavirus – an April, May and June view from Padstow

Posted on April 2, 2020 by j futrell

June 12, 2020 With everyone and his dog claiming that ‘lockdown’ is somehow making us better more caring people with an enhanced sense of community is overlooking the bald fact that it’s also turning us into caricatures. Today Kim and … Continue reading →

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The Quiet Life – or a hell of a holiday by Robin Banks

Posted on November 19, 2019 by j futrell

I ought have known something was wrong when the guest I was expecting insisted on the telephone that I am a “nasty person”. The woman, her mother and partner, had flown down for a short break and wanted to … Continue reading →

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where am I? A very meaty issue?

Posted on October 31, 2019 by j futrell

I don’t know how many times I have driven east towards London over the course of 25 years on the A303, passing Stonehenge making for the M3? Let’s settle for 150 times, it can’t be far off. So imagine how … Continue reading →

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The last Port Eliot Festival?

Posted on July 30, 2019 by j futrell

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed what may easily be the very last Port Eliot Festival.There was a look and feel and smell amid and among the rolling grounds, woodland and elegant Port Eliot House and gardens … Continue reading →

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Never Not Never Go Back – a taste of Viareggio

Posted on June 1, 2019 by j futrell

My life is one of stringent rules: Never wear aftershave; always polish my shoes; stand up for elderly people and women with young children on the London underground; never vote tory; spread the jam on top of the cream upon … Continue reading →

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I remember monkey bottles, kangaroo tails, and Frank Ifield

Posted on November 28, 2018 by j futrell

I am fortunate to have worked through a period in journalism when the gifts, the perks – the freebies to apply the correct journalistic parlance – were worth having. My diary is housed within a handsome Papyrus leather book … Continue reading →

Posted in gone west, London, media, Seashores, travel, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

when is a bookshop not a bookshop? when it’s in Hastings.

Posted on February 15, 2018 by j futrell

We hadn’t gone to Boulevard Books with a view to buying something to read. The thing is this secondhand bookshop in the centre of Hastings Old Town mutates into a Thai restaurant after dark and despite the walls in our … Continue reading →

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