We offer the Greyhares antidote to Royal Wedding post euphoria syndrome. Twice-married Neil Taylor asks, "What's the point of marriage?" Would you ever seriously consider advising someone you cared for to get married? Your own children, for example? Or Ed Miliband? The most recent report from the Office for National Statistics reveals that there were fewer…
Fatuous dances
I often ponder over ‘bests’. My best soup was a lobster bisque at the Albannach in Lochinver; best prawns (with mayonnaise) at a water-front restaurant at Honfleur in Normandy. I have also been doing ‘bests’ in the ‘most-fatuous-dance’ category and until recently the holder was a moustachioed man in Vienna. He, like my wife and…
Lying in state
Normally I have little or no feeling for dead animals. While I have buried various pets and, on the insistence of my children delivered the necessary eulogies, these have been the exception. Apart from corpses displayed in the butcher’s shop or the ‘real thing’ stuffed in displays in museums, my nearest viewing of dead beasts…
Eye to eye
Last week I spotted Gordon across the street doing his weekend shopping. I announced myself, and conversation flowed. Gordon is blind, so conversation is a little different from that with my other friends because we cannot make eye contact (indeed I rarely look at his eyes) and he cannot read my body language. However with…
Watching the white wheat
Last week I received an unexpected email. "Dear Joe, I've recorded one of the Welsh folk songs that I've been singing recently. You can hear it via the link below..." I listened, and what a treat it was. Not just because of the beauty of the singer's unaccompanied voice (click here to listen to Bugeilio'r gwenith gwyn first…
Life’s little irritants
Phil Gould gets really rather ratty. Is it a sign of his rage? So what is it that really annoys you? What is it that sends you into a spasm of seethe or a descent into a slough of sulk – apart, that is, from reading a blog commencing with a raft of rhetoric or indeed…
Why bother?
As I was leaving a neighbour's house last week something sharp scratched my knuckle. The culprit was the head of screw. For such a commonplace thing, the humble screw comes in a rich variety of forms - length, width, head shape, drive form (slotted, Philips, Torx), thread geometry and in the material from which it…
Vanity fare
I was sitting in the underground reading a newspaper and minding my own business. It was rush hour with many passengers standing, leaving those seated in that strange, and somewhat childlike position of being in an underworld surrounded by anonymous legs, backpacks, handbags or perhaps an overgenerous coat. Identifying to whom they belonged was out…