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Friday, 31 July 2015

An irony and there will be more once I get my act together and survive easyjet flight 5020 from Bordeaux to Londres

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If I were not acquainted with irony – and I am, we are good friends of long standing – what has been going on today would have been a good i...
Saturday, 25 July 2015

Who was Alroy Kear? Well, while you’re finding out, let me tell you about my fourth culture vulture visit to south-west France

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Who was Alroy Kear? Well, if I’m not 100pc certain, I’m at least 99.9pc certain that no one knows what they hell I’m on about. But I do, an...
Saturday, 18 July 2015

The day Britain awoke to hear the shocking news that the Queen likes to goose-step of an evening. Or not as the case may be. Meanwhile, sadly not for the first time, I sail a little close to the wind

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In that magic way we hacks have of skittering from topic to topic (and my innate modesty prevents me from excluding myself from that sorry b...
Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Your truth? My truth? At the end of the day truth doesn’t matter when the house is burning down. And will the euro and the EU survive? (Who said ‘who cares’?)

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There are a great many slippery concepts in philosophy, whether your philosophical discoursing is taking place in a university seminar from ...
Monday, 6 July 2015

Thin-skinned or what? I join Taylor Swift in being removed from the Cupertino Christmas card list. As for the euro, what next? It sure ain’t going to end in laughter, a song and a kiss

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Now here’s a rather telling story. Apple (Apple - remember Apple? Apparently before he died Steve Jobs was reputed by many Apple queens to...
Thursday, 25 June 2015

Why morons are morons are morons are morons the world over, irrespective of gender — but somehow the male of the species has a head-start. Why?

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We all have to pass the time somehow (and don’t give me any of that ‘I’m to busy to worry about how to pass the time’ bullshit - show me som...
Sunday, 21 June 2015

I hate to say this, but this is nothing but a 1,104-word whinge, so unless you have nothing better to do, best ignore it

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Oh, to go on holiday again, and soon. I’ve only been back from my nine/ten days in Mallorca, but I can already feel the yearn for a certain ...
Thursday, 18 June 2015

Seems like the Greeks will soon be making that drachma out of a crisis - finally. But hold onto your seat belts, it could be a very bumpy ride

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You might well have heard the anecdote about a visitor to Ireland asking his way to somewhere. ‘Well,’ declares the Irishman he consults, ‘f...
Thursday, 11 June 2015

Q: When is a loan shark not a loan shark? A: Never. They are always scum even when they come in a suit and expensive aftershave and don’t carry a stilletto. And that is what Greece now knows: you want credit? We’ve got credit — but it will cost ya

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We must all know that feeling, especially when we are younger and have less experience of life (by which I mean we have so far been in fewer...
Saturday, 30 May 2015

Howl! Those old hippy buffers still think they were relevant. Oh, well, but never trust folk who believe their own bullshit. And then there’s Ginsberg’s Howl: a milestone in poetry or just a long late-adolsescent rant? You decide, I’m off to watch the Cup Final

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I was born in 1949 so I might legitimately be regarded as part of the ‘Sixties generation’, although for one or two reasons I was not. First...