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Life

Treating triumph and disaster just the same

Yesterday I travelled to the Pre-Operation Assessment centre at the hospital where I had my hip replacement operation last year, having been requested to do so in order to take further part in the research project which I had consented to join shortly before my operation took place. Regular readers [...]

June 22, 2017 // 0 Comments

The Road to Damascus

Old people – and I am one – who needs them, huh? Before the pedants among you get out your New Testaments and quote the story about the desirability of taking the beam out of your own eye before taking the mote of someone else’s [at first I wasn’t going to look the reference up, but then I [...]

June 22, 2017 // 0 Comments

There’s always next time!

From time to time upon these pages I have extemporised upon the subject of parenthood in the context of the illogical ability of human beings to cling to the absurdity that they are eternally youthful – e.g. my father commenting that his ability to flirt was undermined anytime he was forced to [...]

June 19, 2017 // 0 Comments

Southwold: an Earthly Paradise

For many years my second husband Laurie and I had a second home in Southwold. He is an a illustrator and taught in evening classes in Roehampton College. There a Polish student with blue eyes, glossy hair and full young breasts, none of which I possess, seduced him and our marriage broke up. We [...]

June 18, 2017 // 0 Comments

Summer wine and its marketing

In our wine business I had responsibility for marketing which took various forms: the wine estates and sometimes even the region would do their marketing, we were conscious of our own image as a prestigious St James wine merchant specialsing in vintage Clarets and Port but the aspect I found most [...]

June 17, 2017 // 0 Comments

Knebworth Festival 1974

In the 1970s the annual Knebworth Festival in Hertfordshire was one of the staple fixtures of the UK rock industry, along with its Isle of Wight and Reading counterparts. As with all walks of life – national events, football games, whatever – there’s a weird syndrome about in which if you [...]

June 17, 2017 // 0 Comments

The lottery of Life

When Camelot first won the franchise to run the UK Lottery in 1994 [I’ve just googled the date: the first-ever lottery took place in November of that year and Camelot was re-awarded the franchise in 2001 and 2007 with the current franchise period running from 2009 to 2019], along with just about [...]

June 16, 2017 // 0 Comments

Is this one too far?

Some think we on the Rust have a fetish about sporting debates. It’s not quite true, but there are certainly a number of issues around which sporting purity, fairness, integrity and principle (on the one hand) wrestle with expediency, power, corruption, influence and commercial imperatives [...]

June 16, 2017 // 0 Comments

The future of sport

The Guardian newspaper is beginning a new series of pieces on the issues attending the future of sport. It begs the question as to which sports – and how they are marketed – will come to dominate the 21st Century. My guess would be that before too long real-life sport might just be [...]

June 14, 2017 // 0 Comments

A small comfort perhaps, but some things never change

Here’s a modern tale. About two months ago I decided to do something about the lights in the front room of my flat. I had two issues with them: One of the lights in one of the two-knocked-through-together-now-open-plan room(s) was not working at all, and – in the other former room – [...]

June 13, 2017 // 0 Comments

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