Brighton by Night
I first visited Brighton in 1975, as a stop on a long drive from Southampton (where I was still living with my parents) to South London (where I was weekending with a girl friend). We had a look at...
View ArticlePenguins
An online article I noticed yesterday on TechRadar prompted me to relive the famous John Smith's Extra Smooth Bitter TV ad from July 1996. This is the one that shows comedian Jack Dee extolling the...
View ArticleWhat really matters to me
I overspent this month. There was the unexpected expense of the mower (£269). Then I compounded the financial damage by purchasing two tops, a long cardigan, patterned pants in some silky material, a...
View ArticleSocial networking and instant messaging
I'm starting to feel out of step with a lot of people, for not having a Facebook account. Apparently I am missing out on what's happening in other people's lives. And there's a suggestion that people...
View ArticleBeing different
The last post (on rejecting Facebook) has prompted this one. More and more I find myself caught in the middle of two opposing tendencies. One is to let myself be part of the mainstream of life, taking...
View ArticleThe iPhone X. Any real-world advantage?
Hmm. The iPhone X is now officially revealed, and it looks very nice, but not very different from my Samsung Galaxy S8+. Popped into a case, it will hardly be distinguishable. Will people say to me,...
View ArticleDissatisfactions 1 - Hair and weight
There are things niggling me. Let's begin with my appearance: my hair and my weight loss. Hair first. On 5th August I wrote a post titled The Hairband which went into why I'd stopped wearing one. Under...
View ArticleTriumphant return of the hairband
One cause of dissatisfaction has now been eliminated. I've bought a fresh collection of black hairbands, at Boots in Barnstaple. Flyaway hair? No longer. It's back under control. Boots had three kinds...
View ArticleLunch with crime author Ian Rankin
That went rather well. In fact, it exceeded expectations. Today I attended the Appledore Book Festival Friends' Sunday Lunch - with renowned crime author Ian Rankin as the guest. That's right: Ian...
View ArticleWhile chickens cluck and owls hoot
Did something strike you about that last post? It was profusely illustrated with pictures, even though published from a caravan in a field deep in the North Devon countryside, and therefore using...
View ArticleSandymouth
Two days ago I intended to go to Bude, in North Cornwall, but ended up at Sandymouth instead, which is a few miles to the north of Bude. You can, at very low tide, walk along a vast continuous beach...
View ArticleUpset tummy
That was silly of me. In good company I do tend to eat and drink without too much regard to the consequences. And once upon a time, I could get away with it. That time was as recently as a year ago. I...
View ArticleGetting close up and personal with the Cerne Abbas Giant
The Cerne Abbas Giant is well-known to visitors of Dorset. It's a huge figure cut into the grass on the side of a hill, exposing the white chalk beneath and making it very visible. From a mile away,...
View ArticleSome good food news
Five days after that unwise food and drink consumption of mine, and my tummy is at last beginning to settle down. That's the longest period of constant indigestion that I can remember. Yesterday I...
View ArticleNow, Miss Melford! Out with it! What is your sexual orientation?
I had hoped never to be asked that, as it would be an awkward question to answer. The NHS is however now making it mandatory for doctors and nurses to ask a patient what their sexual orientation is, if...
View ArticleMutual recognition - or not
Now that was an interesting encounter. I was in my butchers this morning, stocking up on meat items to take with me on my approaching caravan holiday. Bacon rashers, gammon steaks, kidneys, liver; and...
View ArticleNo hiding place
That last post of mine got me thinking. Acting on impulse, I had risked an embarrassing encounter. For I couldn't have predicted the outcome. What had made me do it? Overflowing friendliness? Or...
View ArticleThe vices (and redeeming virtues) of digital photography
That's a photo I took in August 1990 in a Sussex churchyard, at Itchingfield, in the countryside south-west of Horsham. I was starting to experiment with black-and-white photography. It was taken with...
View ArticleA new start
I've been blogging here since February 2009. Originally it was an outlet for things connected with Mum dying, and the suddenly-fractured relationships with Dad and my partner at the time. Then it...
View ArticleA lump in my throat at Newtown Quay
One week ago I visited the Isle of Wight for the day, using the Wightlink car ferry from Lymington Pier to Yarmouth. I was staying at the Club site at Black Knowl, on the west edge of Brockenhurst,...
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