Category: Misc

Back in 1979, we went on a family holiday to the little Suffolk village of Walberswick. This was only our second holiday away. Until then we’d only visited our grandparents in Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast. Since Walberswick was only a little further down the coast from our usual summer haunt it should have…

One of my biggest bugbears is the poor quality of supermarket bananas, and how the inferior “dollar” bananas we do get are doing no end of harm to people who farm small-holdings in the Caribbean. This long piece from Observer Food Monthly goes through the whole thing in detail and is well worth a read.…

Idea a Day is a website that you subscribe to which sends you a daily brilliant idea submitted by one of it’s readers. OK – so some of the ideas aren’t all that brilliant. Here’s one I submitted today: Start an explosives company specialising in timebombs. The USP would be that they would have neither…

My flat basically doesn’t have central heating. But it’s OK! It tends to be quite warm all year around anyway. But when it does get cold I turn on the big storage heater in the living warm, but there is one small side effect – the warmth tends to send me off to sleep. I…

For the last year or more, there have been major refurbishments taking place at Kings Cross (and more particularly, at St Pancras where the Eurostar will terminate when the highspeed link is complete). The underground station has been, and still is, going through major renovations, and this week has seen the introduction of new ticket…

An article on Mediaguardian (free registration reqd.) talks about Bill Gates’ ownership of Corbis, the world’s second largest picture library. But what’s incredible is the bit about the Eiffel Tower. Depending on the time of day you take a picture: by day it’s public domain, but at night you have to pay the person who…

I was just about to pen an amusing piece about how the whole world (well Western world anyway) has gone plastic/rubber bracelet mad. I was going to point out that since Lance Armstrong launched the Livestrong bracelet last year, we’ve seen a massive explosion in bracelets including a blue bullying one, a white Make Poverty…

The other week in a moment of reckless abandon at the football I ordered a drink of Bovril for the first time in about 20 years – seriously! The last time I remember drinking it I was at Enfield FC. I should first of explain that my local Co-op has been accurately described as being…

There’s lots of complete nonsense being spouted about a survey supposedly listing the world’s top brands. Supposedly Apple is the brand with “the most global impact” in 2004. Complete nonsense. This is followed by Google, then Ikea, Starbucks and Al Jazeera. These brands are patently the ones that affect a certain type of monied middle-class…

Over the years, on more than one occassion, I’ve bought one of those plug-in air fresheners. The only thing is that it forms such an unimportant purchase that when I next visit the supermarket and decide it’d be a good idea to buy a refill, I can’t remember the brand I bought before, and so…

Please feel free not to read a word of this entry. OK – so you’re actually free not to read a word of any entries on this site. But this one is particularly unworthy since it’s really to get something off my chest – a hideous journey home last night. I’m out with friends in…

I finally heard a tannoy for Inspector Sands today. I guess that it really should have bothered me a little more – except that I’m sure it was a test…

I’ll sit back and not take a view over whether or not having three minutes of silence for those who died in the Asian Tsunami was a good thing or not. I’ve no problem with remembering the dead, but putting it into the context of the many other disasters and tragedies that have struck –…