All the things I do instead of writing…
Every year since I graduated twenty-one years ago, the phone rings with an Oxford prefix. Nearly all of us who matriculated in 1997 get this call, and each year we want it to be over before it has begun. I seem to be almost alone amongst my contemporaries in always picking up, despite knowing how... Continue Reading →
Yes, it's the 3rd of September, and the Christmas ads are already poking out of the woodwork. It's that rather mournful time of year, when everything at work and at school goes back to being busy and overwhelmed with tedious chores that need doing, but we don't yet have the benefits of sticking the heating... Continue Reading →
With age, I am becoming a compulsive oversharer. Maybe time seems so precious and so short that I don't want to waste any of it talking about the weather. But then, I'm also fascinated by people who care about handbags, and want to get inside their heads. I want to ask them where their ring... Continue Reading →
I think I was nine when my father bought a debenture (i.e. a season ticket for a posh activity) to the Australian Ballet. We seemed to be there every other week, and it probably wasn't far off. Giselle made a big impression, mainly because the storyline of a woman abandoned and driven to insanity and... Continue Reading →
It was our 8th wedding anniversary recently. Given that my lovely husband is currently entirely housebound (and more or less confined to the sofa) with a climbing injury, I was being as upbeat as possible about adventures we have had. Indeed, smashing your Achilles in pieces and a few calf muscles to boot, within 6... Continue Reading →
How to fail at not failing
Have you ever eaten a Mars bar when really, really hungry? I once got to the shaking with cold sweat stage of hungry, because I had forgotten my wallet at work. I eventually asked a colleague for £1 for the vending machine, because I didn't want to admit that I was so ditsy I didn't... Continue Reading →
From the frustrating of trying to stitch together too many fitness gadgets, to whether financial services technology is suffering from a brain drain.
All has not been for the best in the best of all possible worlds1 recently. The world we knew seems increasingly meaningless, and our sense of control over the events of our lives has eroded to the point that my understanding of Voltaire has increased considerably. Unfortunately, the garden is too waterlogged to weed at... Continue Reading →
Why home learning topics ina pandemic are an emotional minefield
The resting writer 