Fat Man on a Keyboard: Master Chef
Fat Man on a Keyboard: Master Chef: So Delia thinks we are losing the art of home cooking. Well here is something to cheer her up. Thanks to Roy , with fond memories
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THE STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE
HOW TO GET BY ON JUST £13,000 PER WEEK. In October 2002, Network Rail, a tax-payer funded outfit, took over the running of Britain’s rail infrastructure with a mandate from the Government to improve...
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FORGET THE DREAM, JUST WRITE
Is That It, Then?It doesn’t matter what life throws at us; some of us are still lucky. I live in a country which we frequently complain about, and justifiably so in most instances, but that situation...
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DARKNESS OVER WATFORD
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMESIt’s BILDERBERG time!The ‘elite’ - i.e., the Rulers of The World, are gathered from June 6 to June 9th in another secret annual cabal, the Bilderberg conference, at...
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THE HEALTH PIRATES
We’ve sleepwalked into a Private NHSSpeaking on the foundation of the NHS on July 5 1948, Aneurin Bevan MP said “It will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”...
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WHADDYA GONNA DO?
Death of a GiantSome people you expect to die. Some have long lives. I never expected James Gandolfini to expire at 51. He had so much more to offer, yet as Tony Soprano he constructed a dramatic...
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Introduction: THE MAN WHO FEEDS THE SWANS
Markenburg The swan, like the soul of the poet,by the dull world is ill understood.Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)Markenburg sits on the north bank of the Mosel River between Koblenz in the north and the...
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WHAT'S SO FUNNY?
'And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep'.So said Lord Byron (1788-1824).I've always treasured the ability to tell a good yarn, a joke or a funny story. This ability 'in the...
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DEAD AS A DODO: THE WORKING CLASS
No More Heroes: Only Toffs. Robson Green, Paul O’Grady, BBC4 shipyard documentaries, the British Working Class have become a rich emotional seam of social nostalgia for TV. This is perhaps due to the...
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Don't Mention The War!
Are all the Nazis dead yet?SS-Reichsfuhrer Donald Pleasence as Himmler in The Eagle Has LandedI was in short pants on the bombed-out streets of Hull when the Fűhrer topped himself. My Grandfather, Karl...
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The Endurance of Words
Remembering SimonovPost-Perestroika Russian 'intellectuals' in an attempt to bury their Soviet past can be cruel in their dismissing of literature produced during those awful Stalinist years. Such is...
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Happy Birthday, Sarah.
PAINFUL ANNIVERSARIESFOR SARAH: OCT. 2 1966 - DEC. 23 2013. I have often written on this blog about something which dogs us all like a lurking black wolfhound once we get past the age of 60. It goes...
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SHIVER ME TIMBERS!
The Horror ... Oh, The Horror ...Over the past half century, I’ve been researching one of the most complex of all nautical mysteries, the horrific tale of the SS Ourang Medan. I first heard this story...
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TIME TO STOP THE GRAVY TRAIN
Is Being an MP a ‘proper’ Job? Tune into the BBC's Parliament Channel to take a look at what your well-paid representatives are doing, and as often as not this is the sight you'll see. So where are...
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'He Paints with Light'
THE POETRY SOCIETY: MEMBERSHIP DENIED.There were two great performances by Tony Hancock I always enjoyed. One issignified by this image - 'The Poetry Society' and the other is 'The Publicity...
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MISSING WORDS
Hard Case“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”Chuck Palahniuk, Fight ClubPlace de la Contrescape, Paris. The sun shone through the ornate windows of the Café Delmas...
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BAH! HUMBUG!
'IT'S ONLY ONCE A YEAR. MR. SCROOGE...'Back when Yule WAS cool; Sarah and Martin Xmas Day 1983 It’s never happened before in my seemingly long life. Yuletide has always been a time of joy and...
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In The Midst of Life We Are in Death
Media vita in morte sumusThere was a time when I would have questioned an entry like this by any other correspondent. I mistakenly regarded grief to be a very personal matter, not something one pasted...
View ArticleSilenced Angels
And so another treasured part of our youth has gone. When I first heard the Everly Brothers in 1957, they were a total inspiration. I wanted to be able to strum a guitar like Don and Phil. That was...
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