This will be my last post on this blog. Due to a mixup with my Google settings, my real name is now linked to the blog, and the blog appears as the top search result. Given that my real name appears to be unique, this means that everyone I sit in a boring meeting with... Continue Reading →
A belated view of 2013’s films
Given it is the eve of the Oscars 2014, I'll have a look back at the film releases of 2013 (even if I watched almost none of the contenders), and a few small smatterings of what life was like at the time. January 2013: Jack Reacher. I watched this in the Lake District, on a... Continue Reading →
Why I hate gardening
Everyone in England wants a garden to call their own. It's one of the main reasons they move out of London, if they were not fortunate enough to have bought a house in Hampstead in the 1960s. Ironically, no one particularly wants a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, as it seems to have very little... Continue Reading →
Slapped with a wet fish – really
I've been having a mopey few days. You know, drifting into self-absorbed disappointment about life, for no good reason. So I was unreasonably amused by a story on the BBC this morning; some random Irish teenager walked into a shop and slapped a shop worker with a big wet fish. A bream, in fact. I'm... Continue Reading →
Knowledge in England
In common with many arts graduates, I delight in accumulating mostly useless knowledge. Since I'm not the brightest person I know, I tend to assume that this is knowledge also accumulated by everyone else. Interacting with a variety of different people suggests that this is not the case, and so I end up feeling bad... Continue Reading →
Useless days
Some days, I get to the end of the day, and realise that I could have achieved more, or at any rate destroyed less, by not getting out of bed at all. This is one of those days. You know you're off to a bad start when you have to write yourself a list of the... Continue Reading →
I want to break free
Life in my house is always fun, which is rather a good thing too, as I spend nearly 24 hours a day in it. Some days, I'm full of motivation for getting all my chores done - drop husband off at the station at 6.50 am, hang around waiting for Sainsbury's to open at 7... Continue Reading →
When you have everything, you have a lot to lose
Since I got married on Saturday, I suppose this blog has changed a little. It used to be about questions of life and death, and peripatetic pleasures along the way. Having ticked all the conventional life boxes (mortgage, kids, marriage), I feel a bit silly waxing lyrical about politics, philosophy or art. Surely someone so... Continue Reading →
I’m getting married today
Our lovely little boy kindly slept for ten hours continuously last night for the first time. Perhaps he knows it's a big day. Unfortunately, I stayed awake for hours worrying about how the day will pan out, imagining all the things that could go wrong, and getting quite frightened of standing in front of 100... Continue Reading →
The talentless success stories of life
There's been a lot of press coverage this morning of a 21-year old Merrill Lynch intern who apparently died of a heart attack after working 3 all-nighters in a row. The press has made this largely into a story about how tough it is these days for young people to secure a good job, and... Continue Reading →
The resting writer 