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Saturday, 31 August 2013

An unexpected but very, very pleasant sentimental journey. I won’t say ‘to my roots’ because that would be bollocks, but there was something of that about it. And a rather odd tale as to why my father was nicknamed The Spy (Der Spion) by my many relatives in that part of the woods.

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I don’t think I’ve yet really done justice to my trip to Germany in what I’ve written. OK, so my stay there was extended from just three day...

My how time passes (or from baby poo to first driving lesson)

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Altogether now: aahhh, isn’t it sweet. Well, it is for me. Not many months ago, it seems, I was wiping my baby daughter’s arse, then putting...
Monday, 26 August 2013

The joy of breaking down and needing a new starter motor while abroad, but thank the Lord for relatives, even if most of them are several times removed

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In Germany, though as things have turned out, in Germany for rather longer than I had planned. My niece, my sister’s oldest child, was marri...
Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Let’s hope the US courts see sense and let off Bradley Manning with nothing more serious than a slap on the wrist and the advice next time to look before he leaps

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UPDATE (on Aug 22): I understand that Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years, but could be out within ten, and that he now feels he is re...
Tuesday, 20 August 2013

Turn down the sneering, the natives are restless. Or why Frey and Henley are as good as Fagen and Becker any day (and aren’t quite as up themselves to boot)

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I’ve long liked Steely Dan and I also like The Eagles, though I have heard far more - well, everything Steely Dan have recorded, but not eve...
Thursday, 15 August 2013

Stupidity (or how do you make a bad situation ten times worse? Ask us here in the ‘developed’ West. We can give you chapter and verse, whether you like it or not)

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There is a good case to be made that one can forgive most things except stupidity. Actually, there are one or two other things which one fee...
Friday, 9 August 2013

Wagner gets a Brownie point, Tchaikovsky gets a load more, Brahms – well, who was Brahms except, apparently, the third B? - and me, well I’m still wondering just how English I am

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It’s was off to St Endellion last night for the penultimate concert of the St Endellion Summer Festival with the aunt with whom I stay when ...
Thursday, 1 August 2013

In which I drop the pose and ask: Marriage? Is your’s pretty shitty too? Read on

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I have sometimes complained in the past that in this ’ere blog I have painted myself into a corner, that after I started it as a kind of dig...
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Sunday, 28 July 2013

‘Arab Spring’ still working its tortuous way to disaster. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better (he said hopefully). And RIP JJ Cale

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The usual story: Sunday shift finished, I am sitting in a pub supping my pint of cider and drawing on a cigar (which, I must swiftly add, I ...
Sunday, 21 July 2013

Orchard Dene and Lower Assendon revisited – I go on an unexpected and unplanned sentimental journey

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Lower Assendon will mean very little to almost everyone reading this blog, unless you live in Henley-on-Thames or nearby – Watlingon, Bix, F...
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