Like the Christmas tree and "seasonal" cards (42 this year - not bad - including one received today from far-away East Sussex, postmarked 15 December), 2022 has been consigned to the bin. At least, that's what I'm trying to do. I hope for fewer traumas; obviously none at all would be better. When I looked…
The discovery of Herne Hill has been reported in the press. Again. It happens, on average, once a decade. Yet, like America, it was always in plain sight. Of course, Columbus, to his dying day, believed he’d sailed to the Far East, and in any case he spent almost all his time exploring the so-called…
As I've said before, I am not much of a musician. I'm resigned to the fact that, at my age and with arthritic hands, I will not get better - but I am still ambitious, within my limitations. I try my best. When One for the Wall re-formed, eight years ago, the idea was just…
Back to Blighty in early September, after a long, sunny and thoroughly enjoyable holiday in France. For six weeks we saw almost no rain. Then, on our last day, we were nearly caught out in two violent rainstorms; one on the island of Noirmoutier, and the other in Saint-Malo just before boarding the ferry for…
I received my first Covid jab on 28 January and I was waiting to get a date for the follow-up. After hearing nothing for 10 weeks I cracked and rang my GP; to be told, more or less, to sit tight and wait for the call that would soon come. A week later I'd still…
The BBC reminds us that the UK's first lockdown began a year ago today. At that point 364 people had died; now the total has reached 126,172. Over half the adult population has been vaccinated: an incredible achievement, many times better than what any other European country has achieved, and yet life has not returned…
After eight years in the job, I stood down in December as Chair of the Herne Hill Society. Hardly world-shattering news, I realise. It seemed a good time to step aside and let someone else have a go - if I could find someone to take it on (which I did, eventually). Membership is increasing,…
Have you given up looking for reasons to be cheerful? Understandable. Nine months after the first lockdown, coronavirus infection rates are higher than ever. There are over 32,000 people with Covid-19 in UK hospitals. More than 83,000 have died. There have been over three million cases. With many more to come for sure. But now…
Having lived in Wirral and Oxford until I was 22, I'd rarely travelled on the Tube until I started working in Upminster. Even then, I travelled mostly by bus or I walked. It took me a while to work out where the lines were connected, how to avoid the interchanges with the longest walks, and…
Here's a middle-class, 21st-century question. Where do you get your olive oil from? I am more than old enough to remember when the answer was almost invariably "Boot's". Olive oil in tiny Crosse & Blackwell bottles were sold in pharmacies for unblocking your ears. That was the only place I encountered olive oil until I…
The Wight Stuff 