Since when did it become compulsory to have a mobile phone? Why is it almost universally assumed that I am the owner of such an annoying and unwanted device? Without warning or reason it has become almost mandatory that I not only possess this accursed accessory but that I carry it with me at all…
A click of the mouse was all it took to reveal that thinking is no longer needed. Henceforth I can safely leave such a stressful activity in the efficient hands of AI. With Artificial Intelligence taking care of my thought processes I can stop creasing my brow and pacing the room in frustration as I…
Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost out on the many advantages LinkedIn claims to offer. Several years of membership and I am none the wiser. It’s like being admitted to one of those exclusive London clubs and being allowed to enter no further that the lobby. Am I wearing the wrong tie?…
Kitchen gadgets come and go. Yet so few stay with us unless stored well out of sight and accessibility. There is a damned good reason for this; cooking is a sensory art. A touchy feely joy; the fondling foreplay before the final act of love – presenting your creation. It can be as simple or…
TWENTY-FIVE thousand? Really? Did I read that correctly? Surely someone with stuttering fingers has been clicking the head-counter at Sharm-al-Sheikh. Or perhaps Rishi has seconded a number-cruncher from the Treasury (you know how good they are with numbers) to lend a hand with collating the stats at Cop27. Whatever the answer, it seems staggering beyond…
THE mind refuses to stop. It seems to be in permanent overdrive. Refusing to shut down. Unresponsive to any attempt at braking, or changing direction. And it is getting worse, more insistent, taking a tighter hold and blocking any alternative thoughts or distractions. Endlessly dwelling on Russia’s brutal and horror-filled assault on Ukraine. And…
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…
WAR has been declared. It has long been simmering with spasmodic outbreaks of invective hurled across the Great Grammatical Divide separating the two sides. But now it is out in the open. Apostrophe or no apostrophe, that is the question (as the greatest source of precise English would likely have defined it). It is no…
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…
LET’S be clear on this from the start: I bear no ill-will to anyone engaged on artistic endeavour. Certainly not to all those struggling performers, musos, writers, actors, artists, creatives, dancers, singers and all who gather under that misunderstood umbrella of culture. That said, there was a certain frisson of pleasure experienced this week in…