Weather
Look Who's now a proper author
9:20am Friday 5th February 2010
MANY of my contemporaries have been sending me copies of their autobiographies, some actually written by them and others, shall we say, ‘assisted’. I suppose it is now de rigeur for any self respecting actor who has achieved even a modicum of notoriety to write about their lives.
I landed in hole load of trouble
10:22am Friday 29th January 2010
I’M not sure whether another voice crying in the wilderness of potholes is going to achieve anything to improve the parlous state of our roads, which were bad enough before the ‘big freeze’ and are now approaching the level of disrepair associated with what we are pleased to call ‘third world countries’ for no logical reason.
Dr Who's not afraid of the big bad wolf
5:38pm Friday 22nd January 2010
When I was 12 years old, at an all boys school in Manchester, I played Phyllis, the lead soprano, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Iolanthe’.
Blame culture is snow joke
8:52pm Wednesday 20th January 2010
THERE are lessons to be learned from the effects of the extreme weather of the last couple of weeks. Perhaps, first of all I should define what I mean by ‘extreme’. This level of snow would not be regarded as remotely extreme in many other countries in Northern Europe, because it happens to them more regularly and more predictably.
Snow is great for panto? Oh no it isn't!
1:27pm Friday 8th January 2010
THE Inuit were alleged to have over a hundred words for snow, until it was realised that they didn’t all speak the same language. I have two – ‘Snow’ and another word, or indeed series of words, which I cannot include in this article.
2010 needs more Lumley moments
1:00pm Friday 1st January 2010
THE year 2009 was rather undistinguished in many ways. Or, put another way, it was a year that can be distinguished from other years more by its negatives than its positives. Not that there weren’t some positives. Barack Obama’s first full year in office after being given a mandate by the same electorate that gave the world eight years of George Dubya showed a definite coming of age tendency in the USA and one that couldn’t have been envisaged even a few years earlier.
My Xmas presence may be all I have
11:43am Wednesday 23rd December 2009
CHRISTMAS greetings from distant panto-land – Malvern in Worcestershire this year, which, I am delighted to report, is currently snow free although we had a minor and worrying flurry last night.
No we're not a soft touch
10:46am Friday 11th December 2009
I WAS chatting recently to a young American performer and asked him where he came from in the States. He told me he had been brought up in Orlando, Florida where his father worked for Disney.
Marky sparks me into action
10:29am Friday 4th December 2009
TWO weeks ago, I offered this column to the bidder of the highest donation to Children in Need. Not that the winner had to write it – (perhaps another year for that one?) but that he or she could choose the topic.
Schools' denials always worry me
12:12pm Friday 27th November 2009
I WAS intrigued to read that Sir Ranulph Fiennes, one of that exotic breed who can genuinely describe themselves in their passports as ‘adventurer’ harbours an unsatisfied urge for revenge against the boys who bullied him at Eton.
Highest bidder will buy me
1:22pm Friday 20th November 2009
I AM frequently asked how I come up with something new to write about each week in this column after more than 14 years.
Failure leads to extra cash
10:18am Friday 13th November 2009
THOSE of you who have followed my six months of enforced public transport as a result of my failure to obey speed limits and my glee at being restored to the convenience of car travel again will doubtless be diverted to read that I have already been reminded of the downside of driving. Last week I worked for four days in north-west London.
Wear poppies with pride
10:13am Friday 6th November 2009
It is heartening to see how many people still wear their poppies with pride in an age when some may be inclined to forget the huge debt we owe all who serve and have served in our armed forces, past and present. However much some may disapprove of what our servicemen have been called upon to do in our name over recent decades, the last people who should bear the brunt of that disapproval are the soldiers, sailors and airmen who put their lives on the line every day in places far away from the support of their families and friends. Service men and women who die in Afghanistan or Iraq are just as dead as those who laid down their lives in the trenches of Ypres or the Normandy landings.
Humpty is happy but are we?
11:45am Friday 30th October 2009
I have thought of a way to save the country a shed load of money. It would only take the time necessary to draft and enact legislation severely restricting the ability to claim financial recompense for the footling incidents and accidents that are currently manna from heaven to lawyers and the litigious.
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