I have a group of four friends who I went to school with. Two of them I knew at infant school (that’s thirty-five years ago) and the other two I met at secondary school. This week the second of us made it to 40 (I was the first), so we all trundled off into deepest… Continue reading Old Friends
Be Prepared
Which version of ready.gov makes the most sense? The real one or this one. And, for comparison, here’s the old UK government pamphlet Protect and Survive.
Onward Christian Soldiers
The leaders of the Church of England and the UK Catholic Church have issued a joint statement saying that they can’t see a moral case for war against Iraq. The Pope said something similar earlier this week. Given that George Bush and Tony Blair both claim to be followers of the great sky pixie, you’d… Continue reading Onward Christian Soldiers
Hmmm…. Beer
The BBC is running a story about how the Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar has won a case allowing it to continue to use the name “Bud” in the UK. In most of the rest of the world that right has been taken away from them by the lawyers from Anheuser-Busch (who market the popular American… Continue reading Hmmm…. Beer
Stop The War Demo
I could tell that this was going to be different when I arrived at Balham tube station. There were three times the number of people on the platform than you’d normally expect on a Saturday lunchtime. By the time we changed tubes at Kennington the must have been two hundred of us. When I got… Continue reading Stop The War Demo
Anti-War Demo
If you don’t know that there’s an Anti-War Demo on Saturday then you must be living on another planet. From what I’m seeing the number of people who are planning to go on this demo is huge. When I was a student, I was surrounded by people who thought like me and we’d all go… Continue reading Anti-War Demo
Sixteen
Yesterday was my stepdaughter’s 16th birthday, so this weekend we had the pleasure of sharing the house with a group of 15 and 16 year old girls. We had a good time. I was pleasantly surprised at their level of interest in the kinds of things that interest me. We had conversations about music (they… Continue reading Sixteen
Channel Crossing
On Saturday I experienced the worst channel crossing I’ve ever seen. It was bad enough that I’d got up at 5am, that there was a blizzard on the motorway and that a lorry had jack-knifed blocking the road so we sat in a traffic jam for almost an hour. When we arrived at Dover I… Continue reading Channel Crossing
Police and Thieves (oh yeah!)
Since Chancery Lane tube station has been closed (because of last weekends derailment) I’ve been walking to work from Bank station. This takes me past the Old Bailey (the UK’s central criminal court). Normally I’m walking past this building at about 8:30am which is long before anything starts happening there (judges like their beauty sleep).… Continue reading Police and Thieves (oh yeah!)
Left Behind
I recently read Left Behind by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It’s the first in a series of books about what happens when The Rapture comes and all the “real” xtians are taken off to heaven and the rest of us are left behind to deal on our own. It’s not the kind of… Continue reading Left Behind