It’s too cold in the Arctic waste which is Epsom, Surrey, England, to venture outside, so an afternoon in front of the TV is called for.  But what to watch?  I have a satellite dish I picked up from a Jodrell Bank

Oscar night tomorrow night.  I rarely go to the pictures and my knowledge of films is poor.  If it’s not got George C Scott playing General George S Patton (and his lust for glory according to the films’ subtitle) then I haven’t seen it.  I

It has rained/snowed and whatever the past participle of to sleet is this week.  A consequence is that the pavements in London (not paved with gold for anyone reading this outside of England’s capital) and very damp indeed.  Because Benito Mussol

Why is hotel soap so inferior?  It is not worth washing while you’re away and risking the onset of scurvy such is the low quality.  Why also is the canister set at such a height in the baths in hotel bathrooms that only Twizzle (see any one of Ge

So, that’s the ending of hunting in this country.  What will they do with all those red coats?  Donate them to old pillar-boxes who are feeling the cold, perhaps?  I never went hunting – red doesn’t suit me; I can’t drink out of small cups

Are London bidding for the Olympics in 2012 (just before quarter past eight in the evening)?  Many things, which are normally common sights in and around central London where I work, have been replaced with banners and other assortments of bunting i

The Daily Mail (or Holy Grail if you are into medieval rhyming cockney slang) on each day of its publication runs a picture - usually of something furry (and legal).  Today’s copy has a 12-foot cross between a lion and a tiger called a “liger

In the papers today there is news of a possible giant asteroid narrowly missing the Earth.  This will happen on Friday, 13th February 2029.  I shall be nearing 72, so couldn’t give a monkey’s.  If you are reading this and will be younger than

I gave up karate in 1976.  A consequence of which is I do not like travelling home late on trains. I went twice to learn karate in a south London hospital.  This seemed a safe bet should there be any attack made by me (or likely, on me) - A&E w

Most days I have to wear a suit to work.  It’s a kind of uniform.  Not like my cub uniform – no bad thing as I had to wear shorts and have legs so pale, due to total lack of exercise, you would never see anything that white on a paint colour ch

I am just finishing John Le Carre’s latest novel Absolute Friends.  It is, like most of Le Carre’s writings, abut the clandestine world of spies.  I don’t think I’d make a good spy.  I don’t like being unpopular and the thought of the St

I have discovered a way to get a seat on a crowded tube without giving the impression of having the early signs of consumption.  One should read a book which no one else is reading and also make sure it’s one people would not assume you would be r

Today is Ash Wednesday.  Forty days (and forty nights) of fasting or giving something up. I gave up smoking as a 14 year-old after being caught by my mother (after a two-week No. 6 smoking binge) and having had the (literally) mother-of-all-bollocki

Because I cannot cook, I shall not be tossing any pancakes this evening, Shrove Tuesday.  Because I have high cholesterol I shall not be eating them either.  One thing, however, which puzzles me round this Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday/Fashing (dependi

30 years of commuting into and out of London and I have still not got to grips with being assertive on train platforms.  So much so I get a train an hour earlier than I really have to to prevent any unwanted fights.  I have no predilection for sitt

Cut backs are in evidence in today’s airlines.  Saturday saw me on a return flight to the Bavaria’s main city, Munich and the offering from the Lufthansa stewards on the outward flight was the choice of a cheese roll or nothing. There was anothe

Dear Diary Today is the first day of my Blog Diary. A new word to add to my rather small, but growing vocabulary. Sounds like a Chinese toilet. I notice that there is no speller checker on this system. That will show up a million flaws (floors?) in m