An Afternoon at Basingstoke Town!
There was a time when a professional football match at Reading was a place for oddballs. Everywhere you looked there would be harmless social inadequates, 40 year old men who still lived with their mum's and nicotine stained old boys who hadn't missed a game since they were six. Over the years as a new stadium was built, commercial avenues opened and with players starting to come from all over Europe and beyond, the necessity for the market...
Daily Express Winter Forecast 2014
Fantasy Scientists with no legitimate qualifications have issued their winter forecast to Daily Express scaremonger, Nathan Rao, confirming that we are all going to die. Andrew Knobcheese of unrecognised long range weather forecasting group ExactlyWrong, is warning that the winter of 2014-15 is set to be the coldest since records dating back to the Roman Empire, or something dramatic like that. "By mid November a Siberian plunge will ...
A Trip to the Doctor!
I went for a general health check with a nurse today and was surprised to discover at reception that it was my first doctor's appointment since 2009. Upon hearing this news, I was overwhelmed with irrational and paranoid hypochondria, convincing myself that I was just about to be sentenced to death. However, the news was good, in fact very good, as I am four pounds lighter than I was in 2009 and I have blood pressure (150/70) that is at ...
Stopping Fags as I Pursue a Glorious Half-Century!
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 ...
Understanding The Dreaded Comma!
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 ...