Category Archives: Blather

One of the small and simple innovations that will sweep the world, like putting wheels on suitcases, is to make the inside of laptop bags some kind of fierce bright colour so that all the otherwise identical black gadgets that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Should I feel safer because of this?The study of the medical histories of 6,643 men in 24 towns over a 10-year period and found that only 2.8% died from coronary heart disease, instead of the 4.3% predicted using methods recommended … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Two new tactics in the war against humanity conducted by spammers. the first is to use a security hole in MT to send spam onwards from our accounts. The second is to use messages whose text is random nonsense. There … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It was Joan’s funeral yesterday, and an old friend came down from Scotland for the wake. The three of us were all wearing ties simultaneously and in the same room probably for the first time since 1970, when I left … Continue reading → Continue reading →

About ten years ago, when email was new and fine, I wanted an address that would make slightly less boring the business of reading it out down a phone (“at, that’s the funny little sign that looks like …”). Since … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Joan, whom I wrote about three weeks ago, is still breathing. The noise of it, relayed down a 50p a minute hospital phone line, is like machinery dying. I am off to see her at any moment, though I have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I was talking last night to my very county friend Neville about schooldays, a subject which has been much on my mind since going to interview Redmond O’Hanlon, who was at Marlborough about seven years before I was (I was … Continue reading → Continue reading →

because it is quite impossible to bone one without thinking about development. All those ribs, each one a tiny bit shorter than the one in front, but each one growing through the same double turn, first out, then in to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Here is a legendary fart from the 1001 Nights. I found it through the indefatigable tnh. This is not from Disney Arabia. The qadi spent the forty days upon his bed in deep mortification, not daring to move for fear … Continue reading → Continue reading →

To Saddlers Wells last night, with Felix and his RADA friend Lucie, to see a production by Robert Wilson, whom they revere. I had bought the tickets on the phone and chosen the upper circle for the best view. Unfortunately, … Continue reading → Continue reading →