Train morons drive me mad

10:24am Friday 10th July 2009

ONE of the few pluses of my driving ban is that I am repeatedly experiencing the generosity of friends who repeatedly offer lifts when it means going out of their way and when I might otherwise be stranded.

Have your say »

Wanderers trust must support Steve Hayes

1:11pm Friday 3rd July 2009

The future of Wycombe Wanderers is in the balance this week. Members of the Trust have to make a crucial decision – whether or not to support Steve Hayes, whose financial support of the club has kept it afloat for several years now.

Have your say »

No, I'm not back in Doctor Who

9:57am Friday 26th June 2009

THIS week several people contacted me to say how delighted they were that I was to appear in a Doctor Who ‘multi-doctor special’ for Children in Need this autumn. “Am I? Am I really? How lovely. Erm… what makes you think that?” “It’s in the Daily Mirror.” So I checked.

Comments (3) | Have your say »

My bus left from a different bay

10:05am Friday 19th June 2009

AS I am currently not allowed to drive because I have been banned for speeding, I am trying to minimise the inconvenience to my family and friends, who are all otherwise very generously suffering for my misdeeds.

Have your say »

All this waste is just so unhealthy

11:37am Friday 12th June 2009

Isn’t it interesting that the nanny state has no trouble at all in getting pointless rules and regulations enacted and enforced, but drags her inelegant heels when it comes to the ones we all want enforced?

Have your say »

Scandal shows just how stupid MPs can be

9:57am Friday 5th June 2009

THE debate over politicians’ expenses rumbles on fuelled by the gleeful media. The whole farrago started when the government of the day lacked the courage to present to the public salary increases for MPs that might appear excessive to the man on the Clapham omnibus but which, in the world of business, would have been considered modest.

Have your say »

Why I refuse to wear stuff with designer labels

10:05am Friday 29th May 2009

I WISH someone could explain the attraction of wearing clothes that prominently display the manufacturer or designer’s name.

Comments (2) | Have your say »

Our behaviour would confuse alien observers

3:03pm Friday 22nd May 2009

AN alien observer would be hard pressed to come up with an opinion about us if they had cast an eye or three over the events of the last few weeks. On the one hand, we have seen how appallingly we can behave towards creatures we have domesticated in our service – as at the hands of James Gray in Amersham who will be sentenced next month after being found guilty of neglect and cruelty after more than 100 horses were removed from his farm. Perversely, unless the courts rule otherwise, the stricken animals remain his property.

Have your say »

A plague on all the houses of the greedy MPs

11:09am Friday 15th May 2009

SO, the little piggies of Westminster have been immersing their greedy snouts in the trough we have to fill through our taxes.

Have your say »

Let's publish and not be damned

12:59pm Friday 8th May 2009

LITTLE thought, in October 1994, when I wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper that he would offer me a weekly column as a result, nor that I would still be writing it, for that same editor 14 years later.

Have your say »

Bruce cooked for us in hell

10:20am Friday 1st May 2009

MY wife and I were invited last week to join the diners in Hell’s Kitchen, a television programme that I might otherwise not have watched, being more a fan of eating than I am of cooking. However, in view of the fact that we were about to be whisked off to the distant reaches of East London to sample the fare of Marco Pierre White’s trainee celebrity chefs, I thought it would be polite to familiarise myself with the process.

Have your say »

I broke speed limit ... so look who's walking

10:20am Friday 24th April 2009

WHAT I am about to tell you will divide you between those who are happy to cast the first stone, because they are without sin and the rest who say ‘There but for the grace of God…’ This week, I travelled up to North Yorkshire to appear in court for speeding. In October last year, a policeman with a radar gun caught me exceeding 70mph on an empty dual carriageway, on a sunny afternoon, going downhill.

Comments (1) | Have your say »

I hope baaa-rmy story was a joke

10:11am Friday 17th April 2009

I READ it in a newspaper (not this one, I hasten to add) – so it must be true. Tesco, it is reported, have instructed Silver Fern Farms in New Zealand who supply the retail giant with lamb for the British table, that they must stop using sheepdogs to round up their sheep (the clue is in the name folks!), unless the dogs can be trained to be gentler, more considerate and more sheep user-friendly. How you train a dog to send a written invitation to a flock of sheep to join him at the south-eastern corner of the 10,000 acre field, Tesco have not to date offered to explain. They have, it is alleged, suggested that it will be less stressful for the sheep if the shepherds – wait for it – “flail their arms, beat sticks or wave flags” to persuade the recalcitrant, grass chomping flock to toddle, unstressed, somewhere else.

Comments (4) | Have your say »

Foul play in the chicken run

Afew years ago we decided at Baker Towers that we would invest a small sum in acquiring some chickens at point of lay. We like having animals and birds around, already having a selection of domestic animals in residence not to mention the wild variety turning up in our garden for a light snack now and then (more now than then in fact).

Have your say »

More »