As I get older I get more picky, and this extends to where I sit when travelling. For some time I have had favourite seats in cars and planes. The list now includes places in the underground, more specifically, in trains on the District Line. Here, making sure I find one of my favourites is…
The name of the bat
Graham Dukes makes the case for the fluttermouse. Whatever one’s world view, one can hardly avoid having a sneaking respect for creation. The old seven-volume Taxonomy of the Animal World, that has graced our bookcase for years, is reason enough for that. I shall never digest more than a tiny fraction of it, but I…
Territorial waters
Builders and developers seem to get away with murder and in practice it is best to stop any errors or oversights in their tracks. Certainly, relying on the council or the courts to reverse excesses once they have been 'set in stone' rarely works. Keeping an eye on the builders requires vigilance, and in the…
A gift horse in the mouth
In the UK we have silver sixpences buried in Christmas puddings. In France it is tiny porcelain statuettes, called fèves, hidden in galettes des rois - 'king cakes'. Both coins and fèves have magical properties, bestowing special powers on whoever finds them. But for the sixpence, nowadays more likely to be a twenty pence piece,…
Hyggelig, they say
It hasn’t happened to me very often during the last eighty years or so, but the last few weeks I have been completely at a loss for an English word. I’m fairly sure that it must exist, and I know that I shall need it, but where is it? I have done everything that might…
Cupboard love
Joe Collier works through his difficult relationship with a piece of furniture Yesterday a tug-of-love in the Collier family was finally, or probably finally, resolved. The central character in the saga is a dour, antique two-piece wooden cupboard with glass-fronted top that we brought in 1980. It cost £3.50 and was spotted by my wife…
The house that Joe watched
Maybe it’s a man thing, but I love peering into building sites. Somehow, watching as a crater is dug, foundations are laid and then a building grows is absorbing. But observation is often difficult as construction companies often build screens to obscure the view. And, although peeping between corrugated iron sheets or through the knotholes…
A winter’s tale
Alan West has a crack at predicting the past. Yogi Berra the American baseball star of the fifties and sixties (and not the cartoon bear of similar name), once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” He also famously said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over” and “It’s like déjà vu, all…