At 76 it’s a bit late to be concerning myself with the perils of puberty, but God’s idea of a teenage joke has re-entered my life courtesy of my grandson. With the exception of Harry Potter and a slew of genitally dead fictional heroes, most boys are forced to endure this biological torture. The majority allow the abrasive effect of maturity to clear the psychological muck away before it causes any lasting damage. Others, like Donald Trump, clearly illustrate that, if unchecked, its debilitating effect on behaviour patterns can last for years…. Read More

“New York, New York, a wonderful town” goes the song and anyone who’s been there surely agrees completely. One of the best things about New York is that it’s made up of a lot of villages, each with its own character.  Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, Greenwich Village, all of them places where people walk, where the dwellings have their own style, where there’s density of living, lots of shops of every type, noise, people, trees, variety in every aspect.  Talk about wonderful!  I first went there for a weekend at the age… Read More

At the weekend, I was telling anybody who would listen that I’d been spending time with someone who spoke using a lot of clichés. To illustrate my point, I gave an example, ‘We mustn’t upset the apple cart.’ My younger daughter, who, surprisingly, had been listening, said, ‘That’s not a cliché, it’s an idiom.’ I was intrigued. She knows about these things because she’s a primary school teacher and she teaches her Year 4s all about these figures of speech: metaphor, simile, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom and cliché. Even so, I still felt… Read More

Important disclaimer Any resemblance in the following comments to anyone living, dead, or en route in either direction, is purely a matter for their own estimation. Many are called… Yep I’m back! As a result of a nasty fall, various bits of me have decided to freeze up, requiring the attention of a neurologist. Thus here I am flat on my arse, being poked, pulled and prodded by Doc One, a brusquely efficient, but otherwise charming woman, who vaguely reminded me of an absent-minded Miss Jean Brodie. After whacking me a few… Read More

Trees are smarter than we think; in fact, smarter than us.  Trees have survived through eons of time.  In contrast, our species is unlikely to survive for very much longer, considering what we are doing to the climate and considering the way we destroy one another in our millions. The need for water Trees, like every living thing, need water.  When you think of all the different conditions trees have to face in order to grow, it’s a bit like our society, where kids are born into different circumstances and have to… Read More