Visiting contributor, Mike Paul, wonders exactly how old is "old" these days? Recently I went to see Alan Bennett’s play ”The Habit of Art“, the centrepiece of which is an imagined meeting between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten. At the time of the meeting Auden was in his early sixties and, if Bennett’s script is an…
You will miss me when I am gone
It is Saturday morning and I am enjoying a cappuccino with a friend. It may be the general gloominess of the season but he is concerned about his obituary. Don't worry, I say consolingly, I will write an obituary for you. I am already warming to the idea of finding something nice to say about him.…
The power of an empty chair
The week before Christmas was always going to be a challenge. The conflict was clear. On the one hand, I am, or was, an unsociable man and in the past have found house guests difficult [see ‘A bit of bah humbug does you good’, 23 Dec 2009]. On the other, on the 18th of December a…
My brother’s keeper
After the usual pleasantries we sat down to lunch. The soup was served without a hitch. Not so the distribution of the bread which was greeted with some consternation. A guest, or was it my wife, had noticed that one end of the baguette was missing. Somebody had removed, and presumably eaten, this much-coveted crusty…
Present imperfect
That's the last time I take a bottle of Grand Cru Chablis to a dinner party, I said grumpily as we threaded our way down the garden path. I realised that I had become a little unsteady on my feet - just as well that the taxi had arrived to pick us up at the appointed…
Man in a hurry
I am now three years into my retirement and last month things changed. Suddenly I was a man in a hurry. At a dinner with six others, average age over seventy, it was clear that the each of us had decided how we would live out our lives in terms of what we should do…
Short back and torture
I reckon I have had my hair cut every 6-8 weeks since I was four, which makes last week’s my 500th. The trouble is that I have disliked each and every one, finding them at best unpleasant and at worst, plain horrible. I have nothing against barbers, I just don’t like keeping still and I'm not…
What’s in a face
Just as I have a system for recalling words, I now have one for faces. For words I do a mind search. As others do, I scan through the alphabet focusing on each letter in turn looking for those that best match the starter letter of the lost word. I then run through second letters…