Killer Mild Weather Expected to Meander in to Britain!
When September arrived this year, I decided that because I have moved around so much in the last year and had experienced the pleasure of having many of my items getting lost, or indeed, stolen, I would treat myself to an ‘Autumn Collection’ of clothing. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and I chose to ignore a plethora of Facebook and Twitter links associated to Nathan Rao and The Daily Express; otherwise I would be sat here in an ...
Remembrance Hijacked by the Right-Wing Media
When I saw the right-wing media using the remembrance Sunday service to once again, try to discredit Jeremy Corbyn, I wondered whether it could be a turning point in the minds of the British public. Yet again we saw the poppy fascists leap all over Corbyn, supposedly because of an alleged half-hearted bow. This, despite the fact that when the cameras had all gone home and other MP's had dispersed to a VIP lunch, he was spotted applauding and ...
The Tale of Guy Fawkes
When I was a kid, bonfire night or Guy Fawkes night was an invite to Withey's house to watch my Dad or Terry Withey making a nonsense of the theory that you never return to an apparently dud firework. All we really knew about Guy himself was that he plotted to blow-up parliament and was apparently a bit of a traitor, rather than 17th-century proof that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Of course, with the advent Google ...
Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbot – Wisdom, Laughter and Lines
When The Beautiful South finally called it a day in the mid-noughties, Paul Heaton conceded that in music, in the words of the late Joe Strummer, "when you are hot, you are hot, when you are not, you are not." Accepting that his days of commercial success were behind him, Heaton embarked on a solo career that was only really noticed by the likes of me and a scattering others who have suffered from Heaton bias ever since he first emerged as ...
Jose Mourinho – A Psychologists Dream
Psychologists will tell you that one of the toughest aspects of winning something or indeed, reaching any sporting, personal or financial goal, is lifting yourself or those around you, to levels of motivation to repeat the process or set new targets. Achieving a goal comes with all sorts of psychological challenges and many athletes describe feelings of emptiness and a fear of the future when something they have worked for since childhood has ...