Category Archives: Uncategorized

forget everything you ever learnt about a balanced diet

Posted on April 3, 2019 by

Shortly before she died, in a hospital similar to the one I recently  myself in, my mother asked for her Christmas present a Ralph Lauren watch. I’d bought her a watch a only a couple of years earlier yet despite … Continue reading →

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An Inconvenient Truth – the end of the high street just a click away

Posted on December 11, 2018 by

Don’t you ever think convenience is, well, getting out of hand. What began as convenient  – tv dinners for those too rushed to peel the potatoes stepped up a level to embrace teas-mades and bread-makers. Then supermarkets to save the … Continue reading →

Posted in gone west, shopping, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I remember monkey bottles, kangaroo tails, and Frank Ifield

Posted on November 28, 2018 by

  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

The Price Of Fame

Posted on July 3, 2018 by

It’s flattering to receive an exclusive invitation, especially one from a Michelin rated chef. It reaffirms one’s faith in elitism, that select order of hedonists that has has a lot of bad press recently for being too clever and influential … Continue reading →

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A Significant Time

Posted on June 13, 2018 by

As a rule I’m not one for significant dates. Anniversaries I like because I like being married, and there are thems who are gone whom I miss. As for significant dates along the landfill of life –  you can keep … Continue reading →

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Mick Owens – the artful life of a generous man

Posted on March 13, 2018 by

Michael Owens looms disproportionately large in my life; a presence in four of the rooms of my home to be precise. For a man I shared a house with nearly 40 years ago, and whom for the past ten years … Continue reading →

Posted in London, media, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

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

Posted on February 15, 2018 by

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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Vandals at work – the death of the bungalow

Posted on September 25, 2017 by

There soon won’t be any 1930s bungalows left. While conservation groups, local authorities and investors, watched closely by the likes of English Heritage, take pains to preserve ancient cottages as well as properties from the Victorian and Georgian eras anything … Continue reading →

Posted in gone west, London, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A good day for Tilly

Posted on September 4, 2017 by

Little Tilly will never know how close she came to never enjoying another beach walk. Today, September 4, 2017, was to have been the Staffordshire Bull Terrier’s last. No more runs on Harbour Cove with Asta, her jaws clenched ever … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogs, gone west, Seashores, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Hello, I’m Seamus – give me your money

Posted on November 16, 2016 by

  I’m not unique. We’ve all been there. The phone rings and a voice introduces themself as Andy, or John: One insisted to me his name was Seamus without so much of a hint of an Irish accent; although perhaps … Continue reading →

Posted in shopping, Uncategorized | 1 Comment