I had my second curry night in just over a week on Saturday night, this time rather than Brick Lane in the heart of London, it was off to the Punjabi in Stockbridge High Street in the heart of the Test Valley in Hampshire. Last week I was with my oldest group of friends, this week it was the newer bunch from Broughton. The locations may have been remarkably diverse, but the conversations taking place mirrored each other in a way that ...
Despite it being the month of my birth, I have always found it difficult to find anything inspiring about November; every aspect of it is about as interesting as painting a coat of magnolia emulsion on a wall then watching in fascination as it turns lighter and lighter through the drying process. If November was a person it would be John Major, if it was a car it would be a Ford Focus 1.6L. Totally inoffensive, but sensationally ...
I read one of these "Things to do Before You are 50!" articles in a Sunday supplement a while back and it recommended a "Brick Lane Curry." I am not sure where it all goes wrong if you don't have a Brick Lane curry until you are 51, but last week I was just 44, so this left me six years away from danger when we ticked off this rather odd recommendation during London pub crawl to celebrate my ...
I have been reading various press reports recently with great interest, the case of the John Terry racial slur has caused journalists to be very careful what they are writing as one false word and their career is over. It is safe to say that any defence of John Terry (who has yet to be found guilty) will find a sports writer becoming the press equivalent of racist "comics" Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning, so in many cases the true picture of ...
Sometimes I wonder what I am going to to write about, then, suddenly, there are almost too many things to cram in to what is supposed to be a topical blog, so I have to trim it down to highlights. This week-end had so much going on it is hard to know where to start, but I think I will begin with the unlikely defeat of the World and European football champions (Spain) by a limited but spirited England side who I have learned to ...