Month: January 2012

Music can transport you. Even a few bars of a long lost song can instantly take you to another time or place. This is especially true of television theme music. If there’s a genre of music that doesn’t get the respect it so richly deserves, it’s this one. It’s not so much regarded as the poor cousin of regular music as the poor second cousin twice removed and living in a basement, whose name no one dares mention aloud at family gatherings. Whilst as a general rule I am all for musical snobbery, it’s time that these songs came in from the cold.
Continue reading “The Last Mike Post”

We all do it. In fact, our mobile phones demand it of us – they insist that we create a voicemail greeting. I resent them greatly. It’s foolish to pretend that you can soften the blow of not having your call answered. A mere recording is not much in the way of a souvenir. As much as I hate encountering the voicemail of others, what I despise most of all is the task of recording these messages. You know the kind. They begin by telling those who are trying to reach you that you ‘cannot come to the phone right now’ with the offer to ‘leave a message’ at the tone. These invitations often contain the sweetener of a promise to return the call ‘as soon as I can.’ This, of course, is a spectacular untruth.
Continue reading “Setting the Right Tone”

Truth be told, it took me a very long time to find Kate. The mere fact that I am forty years of age and have not previously been married says it all. Indeed, many who know me well must have wondered at whether I would ever find anyone willing to regard me as a suitable partner for life. Certainly, whilst it’s fair to say that I’ve had my fair share of offers when it comes to wedlock, it must be said that those offers were exclusively in email form, were from Russia and required me to deposit large amounts of money into a bank account as a sign of ‘good faith’. As much as I appreciated the repeated offers by strangers to travel around the world to live with me in exchange for cash, I declined them all. Call me old fashioned, but I hoped for something more.
Continue reading “The Shameless Pursuit of Happiness”

It’s tragic, really. For years, my handwriting has been in a state of ever-increasing decay. Like an ancient pullover, it has been gradually unravelling until all that remains is a single, indecipherable thread. The tragedy of my handwriting is not a story of a single minute but of a toll taken over several decades. It started out as terrible from which point it has since steadily devolved.

Continue reading “The Terminal Decline of Quality Penmanship”