Shooting Parrots

The glorious weather is especially good for the camera and I’ve been taking a few shots around the garden, as you may have noticed from all the flower photos that have been appearing in my Flickr stream. I took the one on the left early one morning last week and if you click to enlarge [...]

It’s been over nine years since the Innovations catalogue bit the dust, but I still miss it and all the things it sold that I never knew I needed. Admittedly, I don’t recall ever buying anything, but it was nice to know it was there in case I ever felt in need of a handy [...]

There are all sorts of royal secrets leaking out in jubilee year, such as the fact that HMQ doesn’t leak much at all for a posh lass, or seeing her knickers up for sale on e-Bay. But the one that I liked the sound of was the queen having some flunky to break in her [...]

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an inventor, author, social philosopher and poet but is best known for his work as a behavioural scientist. And his pigeon-guided missile. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, [...]

When George MacDonald Fraser died in 2008, he left behind countless readers who mourned not only the author’s passing, but also that of Flashman, his most enduring creation. The cad and bully of Tom Brown’s School Days became the reluctant hero of Victorian England and his adventures, both official and unofficial, filled twelve splendidly crafted [...]

It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t complete the story of Prudence the Duck. For those who missed my original post, she arrived in pool of our friend’s home in Las Vegas one breezy day and stayed for a couple of hours. It seemed she and her mate had been attracted by the swimming [...]

I knew there was something else I meant to post about on our Las Vegas trip – the little place we’ve invested in as a holiday home. That’s it above with the discreet sign reminding visitors where to turn.

You do find art in the most unexpected places. I was in Ancoats in Manchester yesterday and came across te little gem on the left. For those who don’t know Ancoats, it was the world’s first industrial suburb in the world’s first industrial city that is both an icon of capitalism and communism. Quick history [...]

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion wouldn’t be everyone’s choice of holiday reading, but it somehow felt appropriate as I sat in the Las Vegas sunshine in presidential election year. Whenever politics was discussed, even among friends, views were clearly polarized between liberal and conservative. Not to mention those [...]