Can you teach a shaggy dog new tricks? Graham Dukes knows a man who can... Some seventeen years ago – yes, it was 1999 – I made up my mind to become famous. It all started at a second-hand bookstall, where I picked up what had once been a correspondence course for budding writers of fiction.…
Heart of gold
Moving house is one of the more stressful of lifetime events; for many it even matches divorce or the death of someone close. Perhaps a major component of the stress is the insecurity that follows being uprooted. However, although many roots are severed some remain, and for me at least, these remnants have helped. The fact…
Reopening gambit
After closely observing my peers, I have concluded that when people retire their approach to life remains much the same as it did when they were earning - busy people stay busy and lazy people do rather little. During my own career I was actually too busy - some say a workaholic! My days were…
Seeing red
The family had met up for lunch at a city farm restaurant. While the seating arrangements were being finalised, I found myself staring through a window at two scruffy goats. Suddenly my gaze was distracted by a flash of scarlet through the window to my right. The sun had caught the scarlet of a ribbon tied in…
A short history of eating
Graham Dukes and partner Elisabet Helsing have just produced a book... No, we must be truthful. All that we produced on our own was an electronic bundle of words and notions; to turn that into a book we were reliant on a creative and sympathetic publisher, a typesetter with nimble fingers, and a professional printer with…
In search of humble pie
In general, my French lessons follow a fairly standard format. After a session in which we catch up on the French news and on any important student news, our teacher goes round the table asking each of us in turn if we have a presentation to offer. Most of us will have prepared something and,…
Sister in arms
Despite an early start, dawdling had put me at risk of missing my train. Then things got worse when I broke the habit of a lifetime and got involved in a discussion with a street vendor - this one 'selling' ideas. A tall, snappily-dressed, woman stepped out in front of me as I entered the station, pushing a…
Tweet of the day
Just recently two of our clocks have been causing concern. The concern is over the noises they do or don't make; or more honestly, to the noises that I can or can't hear. Sensitive readers may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph which describes a critical but personal component of this saga. For many years my…