Blogs

Here comes the rain again, Falling on my head like a memory Falling on my head like a new emotion. I want to walk in the open wind   The problem with the naming of storms is that some names are more, well, stormy, than others. Take Storm Ivan, for …

And I still find it so hard, To say what I need to say But I’m quite sure that you’ll tell me Just how I should feel today It’s one of those facts beloved of newspaper journalists, desperate for something to write about post-Christmas and New Year, that January is …

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. Hands up who had 72 seats in the general election overall majority sweepstake? Nope, me neither. Many people thought we were heading, last Thursday for another hung Parliament. Others – me included – …

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. It’s cold, chucking it down outside and the neighbour’s tree surgeons have been making a racket …

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has the data Growing up in the 1970s, this is the time of year when I would grab hold of the Argos catalogue and scour through the toy section, turning down the pages when I found yet another item that I …

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there As a journalist whose technique is rather more on the ‘let’s have a nice chat over a cup of tea and see if we can get some sort of story out of it’ than the ‘go …

It has always seemed to me that, so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little As usual, the devil will be in the detail. However, I don’t think this election is being fought on the detail, nor will it be won on the details. Perhaps …

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place, The flood may bear me far There are times when I hate living in a hilly town. Usually when I’m trekking back from the station, in the cold and the dark and there just doesn’t seem to be enough puff …

This is my quest To follow that star No matter how hopeless No matter how far To fight for the right Without question or pause To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause It was so close. It could have been the result that so many, many …

A man’s grasp should exceed his reach, Else what’s a heaven for? Call me Ishmael. So begins one of the English language’s greatest stories. (Bear with me gentle reader, there is a point to this.) As most of you know, I am a fan of architecture done well and loath it …