New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and it’s about time, too. Good restaurants and elegant nightclubs are now a thing of the past, at least here in New York, so it’s home sweet home for the poor little Greek boy, for dinner, drinks and even some dancing at times. Here in my
Every year Vernon celebrates the gathering in and pressing of his olive harvest by inviting friends to a ceremony at his house. This year there were seven of us. He poured about a third of a pint of the freshly pressed, very green oil on to a central white china plate. We each took a
The streetlighting engineer walked up and down outside my house trying to work out who was right: me, or my neighbour, the vegan. On the one hand, I was claiming this LED light was lighting nothing of importance on a deserted village green at night while shining through my bedroom window driving me insane, and
Forget the blasted Advent calendars and the vile tat in the shops, it’s the time-honoured festive offer with Corney & Barrow which tells us that Christmas is really on its way. And hurrah for that! No, not Christmas, silly, we could all do without that, I mean hurrah for the offer, which is nigh on
As a defender of free speech, I sometimes feel like a man falling through a collapsing building. Just when you think you’ve finally reached rock bottom, the floor gives way again. That was my sensation last week when I read about the disciplinary investigation of Professor Garth Cooper by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Q. We have moved into a terraced house in a seaside town. Our joy is confined, however, by the fact that our next-door neighbour has bought a new car but left his old derelict vehicle on his driveway as well. Although he takes great care never to walk on our garden, often his visitors do
A group of us had gathered together to raise a glass, tell stories, to laugh and to mourn. It was a lunch to mark the passing of Grey Gowrie. Although we were an interesting and diverse group (this writer excepted), we could all agree on one point. Over longish lives spent in lively company, Grey
‘There once was a curate of Kew, / Who kept a young cat in a pew,’ began my husband when the news bulletin on the wireless mentioned the omicron variant of coronavirus. The naming of the variant has caused much dissension. Old-fashioned speakers of English object to the BBC’s preference for the pronunciation ommi-cron, with
One summer I’d a plague of them – they looked so pretty in their red and black I didn’t mind them fluttering round but then I’d find one on my pillow or leaving smears across the panes. The boldest liked to totter on my finger then take me under her wing – it was lined
I don’t like trains – People get on who never get off again They have given me flowerless distances and windows smashed with rain Offered me stations as big as cathedrals where no one spoke And no one sang Yet when I was a child I loved the engines for their smoke. Once they
Yes but, no but, the paintbrush seems to mutter As I swish it back and forth across the weatherboard, Going with the grain then working against it, The faded charcoal turning onyx, the wood made rich again, Less true to itself the blacker it gets But beautiful, the knots like stubborn hearts, Which
Fairly early in the pandemic it was widely accepted in scientific circles that the likelihood of outdoor transmission of Covid at low-density events — say garden parties or beer gardens — was relatively low. It might therefore have seemed logical to allow such gatherings to take place sooner than we did. From a practical point
