‘Del Boy’ Trotter, television’s engagingly endurable (and perpetually replayed) comic Cockney character created by actor David Jason, forever dreams of putting Peckham on the top-notch international map. Didn’t the wide boy of Mandela Mansions once bid to stage the Miss World competition? ‘I can see it now, Rodney …first Rome, then New York, and after
Dear Mary… Q. In Scotland the Celtic tradition favours the female line (hence hereditary titles passing to daughters in the absence of an immediate male heir). In my opinion it would therefore be entirely appropriate for G.C. (4 December) to wear his wife’s tartan at a reeling party, provided (as stated) it is worn with
New York Thanksgiving is a bigger marathon than Christmas. Maybe because the holiday lasts only four days instead of 12. Thus Americans feel obliged to cram as many lunches and dinners as possible into that shorter period. It’s a form of speed eating. Meals are staggered — at least they seem to be in New
Off to Ubon, sister restaurant to the famed Japanese fusion establishment Nobu, which is Nobu spelled backwards. No one had to point that out to me, by the way. I spotted it all by myself, which I think proves what I have said all along: I’m a pretty bright cookie. I’m not sure why the
I fancy football’s most satisfying kick of the year has not been any particular jingo-jangle or hype-hype hooray on the pitch itself, but the cold-eyed gunslingers’ rivalry between two middle-aged obsessives — Sir Alex Ferguson and Monsieur Arsène Wenger, respectively the managers of Manchester United and Arsenal. As an irresistible sideshow it gets better and
Q. At 50, I was entitled to retirement which left me free to start an easier career and I got a job as a driver/valet to a young Saudi Arabian who owns a racing stud. I enjoy the work and we get on well. As is correct, I call him ‘Sir’ and he addresses me
A bass, I have always thought, is a bass, but these days it is called sea bass — quite redundantly, since freshwater bass are not known in Europe. The bream of the sea, on the other hand, should be distinguished from the freshwater fish of the same name which is related to carp. Instead, it
These days, I suppose, they would call it a gap year. In my case, it was nearer two. Idling around Africa with a rucksack, that is. Zimbabwe was called Southern Rhodesia then, and in 1961, in my early twenties, I chased a haughty blonde Virginia Veitch from London’s Earls Court, whose pa worked for Barclays
Dear Mary… Q. Last week I went to a private view of Craigie Aitchison’s new pictures. I have always been a fan of his and having had a windfall I was looking forward to purchasing one of his compositions. I asked a gallery assistant for a price list — a reasonable request, one might think,
With half the kingdom now designated by New Labour as a grey Lego baseboard to press soul-less plastic bricks into, there is an ever-growing demand for properties of age and character. Homes made from redundant churches or chapels are blessed with both. One of the prayers that used to be recited in the most ancient
If you like looking down on your fellow men, take a trip to Gipsy Hill. So transfixed was I, on a recent visit, by its panoramic views over the City, Kent, Sussex and Surrey that I became embroiled in an uncomfortable exchange with a man in a stetson and a bootlace tie who accused me
Alas, half-term is over, my son is back at school, and I have the house back to myself during the day. Oh, how I miss him, or would do if I wasn’t so thrilled to get rid of the pesky old so-and-so. Oh dear, school today, I said on the first morning while pushing him
This Saturday, 20 November, and next, Twickenham’s presumptuous clan gathers its travel-rugs round its knees and bays for colonials’ blood. Likewise, the hipflasks will warm cockles and loosen throats to raise the rafters for the boys in green, blue and red to strut the hard yards in Dublin, Edinburgh and Cardiff. While rugby’s autumn internationals
Dear Mary… Q. I don’t know whether you can help me but I thought it worth a try. About 15 years ago, I was charged, while on holiday in Australia, with a very minor offence which I felt was quite unjustified, and did not feel disposed to cancel my flight three days later and wait
Six Jones boyos were picked for the Wales rugby union XV which played South Africa last Saturday — Adam, Dafydd, Duncan, Ryan, Stephen and Steve. BBC commentator Eddie Butler said the knack had been to identify them by their hair — ‘blond, dark or ginger’. Eddie’s a better man than me — five of them
Dear Mary… Q. I have written a perfectly good book and would like to see it published. I have, however, given up sending it to conventional publishers. They are not interested and I know this is because I have lived happily in Norfolk for 20 years and can’t be bothered to go to London. The
I don’t mind rude letters, really I don’t. I don’t mind much, actually, which probably illustrates a fatal weakness in my character. But I do mind having eggs thrown at me. There I was opening my front door the other evening and, wham, splat, an egg was hurled in my direction. With unusual dexterity, I
Dear Mary… Q. My wife and I were recently delighted to receive what appeared at first glance to be an invitation to the wedding of the eldest son of friends. On closer examination we were less pleased to discover that the wedding is to take place in Las Vegas, and our participation is only requested
Wise guys steer clear of soccer till the clocks go back. The long muddy slurp and slog of winter are now properly under way. Mind you, this time autumn’s warm-up lap has offered an instructive preamble if not, as we shall doubtless see by Easter, a necessarily telling one. In England, the cosmopolitan London strut
It didn’t start well at Lingfield on Saturday. I discovered too late that on my walk across the field from the station I had been dribbling £1 coins, carefully saved for Mrs Oakley’s car-parking fund, through a hole in my pocket. And if the nice Chinese lady who mends my pockets smiles sweetly and says