Health

That all-important second jab

It so happened that yesterday I joined a very British queue. I’d been rung on Tuesday afternoon by someone from my local GP surgery about my second vaccination jab. I’m sure that every GP surgery, pharmacy, NHS “walk in centre” and other unit involved in rolling out the UK’s vaccination [...]

April 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

A new dawn begins

Yesterday after lunch, on the eve of the first major step out of “lockdown”, I went for a two hour walk in south-west London, first alongside the River Thames and later into Richmond Park. To be frank, as I compose this post I’m personally still somewhat hazy as to what today’s new Covid-10 [...]

March 29, 2021 // 0 Comments

What’s going on … and some laudable efficiency

Having – as announced on this august organ – begun my new fitness campaign on Monday, yesterday I did my third seven-mile walk in four days and this return to regular exercise, combined with a slight change to my dietary regime, has already appeared to help me lose four pounds in [...]

March 26, 2021 // 0 Comments

Get a life, everybody!

Today I’m coming out of the closet – if that is the appropriate phrase – as a curmudgeonly old fascist git. We hear and read plenty these days about how “woke” the modern world has become (or is it just the Millennials, or even our “Generation X” youngsters as a group, that is being [...]

March 24, 2021 // 0 Comments

New Fitness campaign – Day One

With my GFC (great fitness campaign) having become a Covid-19 pandemic victim last summer – since when, apart from occasional long walks, I have failed to indulge in any serious bout of exercise-taking – my plan from today is to gradually crank up my general state of fitness until I [...]

March 22, 2021 // 0 Comments

The meaning of words and statements

The saying “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics …” has been around for a long time. For the purposes of this post I looked it up on the internet and it seems that nobody really knows who or where it originated – apparently Mark Twain, who was [...]

March 19, 2021 // 0 Comments

The physicality of female sport (a postscript)

Earlier this month I posted on this august organ a piece listing some of the physiological differences between men and women (The physicality of female sport – 11th March 2021) and discussing how, in modern sport – attended as it is by the strains of extreme training and strength and [...]

March 19, 2021 // 0 Comments

Into the future, come what may

The second section of The Times yesterday featured a lengthy piece asking how much the Covid-19 pandemic – specifically the effect of the lockdowns – has aged us before then going on to provide tips as to how we might ‘recover’ some of the lost ground. In my own case I have to admit [...]

March 7, 2021 // 0 Comments

Another milestone on the road back to where we were?

This is an important day. At some point the Prime Minister is going to formally announce his heavily-leaked “road map” by which the UK will gradually emerge from Covid-19 Lockdown 3 and ascend to the sunny uplands of its post-Brexit prosperity and world domination. Or possible not. Overnight I [...]

February 22, 2021 // 0 Comments

Covid injection appraised

I support the consensus view that the rollout vaccination programme has been extremely well organised – the cynic might say the government’s sole success to date. My letter of eligibility arrived a week ago, I made the appointment at the local racecourse for early morning last Thursday. [...]

February 20, 2021 // 0 Comments

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Thoughts on the European Super League

April 20, 2021 // 0 Comments

If nothing else the proposed European Super League (ESL) of the major clubs of England, Italy and Spain has done something unique: united the disparate and diverse elements [...]
The Tanner Report: Arsenal 1 Fulham 1

April 19, 2021 // 0 Comments

To concede a goal late in the 7th minute of extra time is gut-wrenching but, when it costs you the final lifeline of survival, doubly so. Had we won we would have closed the [...]
A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Family Way (1966)

April 18, 2021 // 0 Comments

A Touch of Honey is based on a Shelagh Delaney play which she wrote when just eighteen. It’s set in the industrial landscape of Salford and was the first and acclaimed [...]
County championship woes

April 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

The county cricket championship is under way and Sussex CCC have the thin end of the bat. The mini league format of the last Covid-stricken season was re-adopted with Sussex [...]
What’s it all about?

April 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

My subject for today – illustrated by two examples – is the vexed one of how the human race copes with life on a planet with finite resources on the one hand and [...]