Since my mother died in 2003 I have given up smoking on several occasions, notably for six years, eighteen months and exactly a year, with plenty of other negligible attempts in between, ranging from an hour to a couple of days.
When I did my first stint of six years, courtesy of a hypnotist, I watched my step for a few a while as several of my fellow smokers had warned me I would probably get run over by a bus the next day. They would also ...
One of the hardest things I find when writing is how and when to use a comma.
There are pretty much hard and fast rules when it comes to other forms of punctuation but the comma is unique, because it is open to debate when it should be used.
When it first arrived in the English language (in the 18th century) the comma was supposed to signal a pause as well as separate phrases and clauses.
However, the comma was almost too popular for ...
When I received a Facebook message from my friend Jenny Syrad asking what the film, 'Northern Soul' was like, I didn't really no know how to respond.
You see if I had responded "not bad" or "pretty good" the assumption would have been that the film was a load of crap. This is because we have got used to saying everything we like is "awesome" or "spectacular" on social networks pages. "Very good" and "not bad" are now pretty much obsolete on ...
When you look on the news or social media these days, it appears that something has to be either "awesome" or "catastrophic" with precious little time for issues that are far more dangerous but sadly, far less interesting to the masses who are addicted to impending bogus weather events featured in The Daily Express, reality TV and the outbreaks of Sci-Fi like viruses such as Ebola.
A recent Gallup Poll has suggested that out of one thousand ...
My latest weekend break out and about the great British countryside took us on a trip to the rolling hills of the Cotswolds taking in a visit to the chocolate box towns of Woodstock, Chipping Norton, Moreton in the Marsh and Bourton on the Water.
The first thing I noticed about the Cotswolds is that every village has an obsession with Union Jack flags and I can't help but feel that there is a scent of polite racism hanging in the air that ...
