Month: April 2013

If golf is a good walk ruined, fishing makes the act of sitting around and not doing very much a supreme test of human endurance. My grandfather was a keen fisherman. He could plunge his bare hands into a glass of water and come out with a twelve-inch trout, he was that good. My father missed out on the fishing gene and it soon became clear that it’d skipped more than one generation. Suffice to say, my father is a terrible fisherman. I, on the other hand, am not quite as good as he is. Truth is, I always found it easier to catch a cold than I ever did a fish.
Continue reading “Things That Ought To Be Fun (But Aren’t), Part 1”

We were celebrating the birthday of my niece. Matilda was turning seven and the family had gathered at the farm to mark the occasion. Given that this was likely to be the last of the nice weather, we decided to eat outdoors. Under the sailcloth near the barbeque were a number of tables loaded with all manner of food. But just as we prepared to swarm around lunch, a large number of European wasps got in first. Within seconds, they were everywhere. I blame social media.
Continue reading “The Last of the Lickspittle Generation”

This is Kim Jong-Unbelievable. No sooner had I finally committed to re-watching all seven series of ‘The West Wing’ and North Korea goes and announces the imminent end of the world as we know it. Talk about thoughtless! Sadly, it appears that the doomsday clock has not been adjusted to take into account the end of daylight savings and it is now less than five minutes to midnight. North Korea is hell bent of forging a new era with the outside world best summarized as ‘Defcon 1’. These threats are not, it seems, retaliation against South Korea for the crime against humanity that was ‘Gangnam Style’ but, rather, a clumsy attempt to show that when it comes to being an unpredictable megalomaniacal tyrant, Kim Jong-Un is his own man, despite looking, sounding and dressing exactly like his father.
Continue reading “Armageddon Completely Sick of This”

Language is ruined. And, as usual, technology is to blame. LOL, OMG and YOLO serve only to prove that if charged by the character, people will readily abandon the rules of spelling and grammar just to save a few lousy bucks. Thanks to texting (or, if you prefer ‘txtg’), unnecessary letters have been stripped out of words. It’s as if the whole planet needs Baby John Burgess and his mighty Wheel of Fortune to return, giving us all one more chance to buy a vowel. I never thought I’d say this but, Baby John, your country needs you.
Continue reading “The True Meaning of ‘Der’”