Category: life

David Aaronovitch points out the inconsistancies in the recent outbreaks of sporting patriotism. A couple of weeks ago the Daily Mail was ranting about plans to enter a European team into the Olympics (“NOW EU BIDS TO HIJACK OLYMPIC GLORY”) but yesterday everyone was quite happy to cheer on the European golfing team as it… Continue reading Having It Both Ways

So I’m back from my holiday in Egypt. More details (and photos) follow over the next few days.

After lunch we visited the Cairo Museum. The lack of sleep was finally hitting us and therefore it was, at times, a bit of a struggle to keep interested in what our guide telling us. The first thing that really made an impression was the fact that they had a replica of the Rosetta Stone.… Continue reading Cairo Museum

We landed at about 23:30 and by the time we had got through immigration and collected our luggage it was after midnight before we set off on the 45-minute drive to the hotel. I knew we were staying at Le Meridian Pyramids in Giza, but I was still surprised at just how close to the… Continue reading Pyramids

Here’s a useful tip for travellers to Egypt. Don’t use Egypt Air. As we entered the departure gate for our flight there was an extra security check. Now that’s pretty understandable given the current political situation in the area, but the problem was that the Egypt Air security guard doing the checks spoke very little… Continue reading Egypt Air

Apparently the popularity of sites like Friends Reunited is being blamed for a recent rise in the divorce rate. A lot of people have a rosy impression of the first relationship they had at school or college. If they are feeling unhappy with their partner, they begin wondering what it would have been like if… Continue reading First Love

The destruction that has taken place in Boscastle this week is, of course, terrible but there’s one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned on the news. One of the most interesting buildings in the village was the Museum of Witchcraft. This museum had a number of interesting and unique exhibits about the history of witchdraft… Continue reading Boscastle Witches

I’m starting to suspect that there is an orchestrated campaign to turn Matthew Somerville into the new Craig Shergold. When I first mentioned the closure of the Accessible Odeon site I got this response (which also appeared in a number of other places). I emailed the person who made these comments to correct their errors,… Continue reading Matthew Shergold

Orange used to be a great mobile phone company. I think they are still the best in the UK, but their standards have dropped substantially since they were taken over by France Telecom. Here’s an example. On their website they advertise a talk plan that gives you 120 minutes of cross-network talk time and 30… Continue reading Orange Insanity

I’ve never enjoyed being in control of powered vehicles. I think it stems from a visit to a go-kart place when I was about seven or eight. After only one lap I was deemed a danger to myself and my parents had their money refunded. The only time I was ever in control of a… Continue reading Powered Vehicles