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Britain

“Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley …”

Do please stop me if you’ve heard or read this before somewhere but, judging by the views expressed and/or discussed in the circles I currently move in, it would seem that most of the UK population have become so thoroughly bored, confused and possibly numbed by life as it now is in the year 2 [...]

August 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

Some home truths arising from the pandemic

I’ve been getting the impression since the coronavirus pandemic first hit the UK that humanity really needs to make its mind up between whether it would prefer to live free without restraints to “do its own thing” – albeit perhaps within some basic limits (e.g. as long as this doesn’t [...]

July 30, 2020 // 0 Comments

Book review: Utopia Avenue (Part 2)

This is the second part (of two) of my review of Utopia Avenue, the latest novel by David Mitchell just released in the UK. To build upon the themes I touched upon in Part One, I must register that normally I avoid fiction like the plague and hitherto had neither been aware of Mitchell’s [...]

July 29, 2020 // 0 Comments

Book Review: Utopia Avenue (Part 1)

This is a book review with a  difference – a statement I should not be permitted to make here without supplying some sort of justification and I begin by seeking to supply a two-pronged one. Firstly, it arises as a result of one of the ‘signs of our times’ – an online Zoom one-to-one [...]

July 28, 2020 // 0 Comments

My sporting weekend

One of the ironies of the post-lockdown period – when proper live sports action is still so scarce – is that one tends to spend more time than ever seeking it out on the television. For me it’s been something of a curate’s egg situation – “good in parts” – albeit that there have [...]

July 27, 2020 // 0 Comments

Peter Green RIP

Overnight, no doubt like many of my vintage with an interest in popular music, I was deeply saddened to learn the news that guitarist Peter Green had died at the age of 73. In penning this piece I shall leave others who take the trouble to go public with their appreciations – not least media [...]

July 26, 2020 // 0 Comments

Our NHS is a wonderful thing

Yesterday, as it turned out, I didn’t have a procedure at my local hospital in order that a biopsy could be taken of a small blemish in the centre of my forehead in order to check whether it might be something serious – or hopefully confirm that it wasn’t. At my age and getting older by the [...]

July 25, 2020 // 0 Comments

It could get worse again before it gets better

Having taken part in a number of conversations about the progress of the coronavirus pandemic over the last few days, I can say this for a fact: the more one learns about both ‘the science’ and the various ways in which governments around the world have been – and are – dealing with it, [...]

July 23, 2020 // 0 Comments

What’s going on

There’s little doubt that, besides forcing you to face up to the fact that time is passing – I always shock myself in replying whenever someone asks me what my kids are up to these days and how old they are – and, without necessarily meaning to add fuel to the fire, the generations coming [...]

July 22, 2020 // 0 Comments

“Blistering barnacles!” (as Captain Haddock of Tintin fame would say)

Regular Rusters will be aware of my general antipathy towards the country of Scotland and its inhabitants and indeed my petition currently before Parliament demanding a national referendum to decide whether the country as a whole would like to eject Scotland from the United Kingdom. Let’s examine [...]

July 20, 2020 // 0 Comments

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