Just in

Life

Details count (sometimes)

Getting up at my usual unearthly hour today, I was mildly amused by Radio Five Live’s coverage of the Ofcom and BBC Trust rebuke for the amount of swearing let loose on air during the coverage of the BBC Big Weekend Event – see here for a report on the website of THE GUARDIAN In about 1980, [...]

October 21, 2014 // 0 Comments

I know what I’d rather have

This week we have learned from new research conducted by the University of Rochester that males are hard-wired to prefer sex to food. According to a piece on the website of The Independent, assistant professor David Portman of the team carrying out research into a sample of a species of microscopic [...]

October 18, 2014 // 0 Comments

Sign o’ the times

My father, who turned 89 last week, set off yesterday to have lunch in central London with an old colleague, a peer of the realm, and his daughter. The occasion had been proposed by the daughter, who had bumped into my father outside the Gate cinema at Notting Hill Gate – introduced herself [...]

October 15, 2014 // 0 Comments

Don’t believe everything you read

I was – as former Premier John Major might have put it – not inconsiderably amused this week when reading media reports that the charity Independent Age and International Longevity Centre (UK) were warning that the number of men aged over-55 living alone, and therefore at risk of extreme [...]

October 14, 2014 // 0 Comments

Progress report

Yesterday I had my first consultation, a week into my new regime of diet and exercise. I am pleased to report that I have lost 2 kilos and that the loss is in fat not muscle. All that gazung but refusing pastries, the endless water, the half bottle of Mercurey still to be finished, the Prosecco in [...]

October 14, 2014 // 0 Comments

God’s own country

Two rounds of golf in two days – if you’d asked me a week ago whether I could manage even one without a buggy, I’d have laughed at you. I guess you find out little about yourself until and unless you try. The Old Course at the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club near Forest Row is one [...]

October 11, 2014 // 0 Comments

The White Oak

Yesterday Polly and I decided to visit the Stanley Spencer Gallery and lunch at one of my favourites the White Oak. Grace left before breakfast. She  is the world’s unluckiest traveller and it was no surprise when she texted that all trains to Paddimgton were delayed. I will need to speak [...]

October 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

But how stiff will I be this morning?

Yesterday I drove to Petersham for a warm-up round of golf with my brother and a Canadian relation in advance of my brother’s annual tournament later today in the heart of the East Sussex countryside. Both outings are something of an annual tradition. With having to manage my ongoing hip [...]

October 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

This one will run and run

The topic of the moment for not just female readers of National Rust – as heralded by my article yesterday – can be categorised by reference to that classic Meg Ryan scene in the diner from When Harry Met Sally …, when a middle-aged lady, sitting at a table in the background, [...]

October 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

Sanctum on the Green

The Sanctum on the Green at Cookham Dean is on old favourite of mine. It’s situated in the delightful village of Cookham Dean, not far from Cookham by the Thames where Stanley Spencer painted much of his best work and there is gallery to exhibit and honour this. The Sanctum is a modern [...]

October 9, 2014 // 0 Comments

1 … 312 313 314 315 316 … 342

Copyright © 2026 The National Rust | Design by Premonition