So with nothing better to do late on Christmas Eve (we got rid of the telly – I could read a book I suppose) I write this post next to my virtual log fire and a tray containing mince pie crumbs, an end of a carrot and an empty flask of coffee. Coffee? You see we consulted the children [...]

The other day I caught a Today program discussion on the idea of a ‘white Christmas’. Interesting to note the notion of a white Christmas being a 19th century view – Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (& a very 20th century Bing Crosby didn’t help), that this is very much responsible for all the dreadful Christmas sentimentality. [...]

Ian Duncan-Smith recently courted controversy by saying that un-employed people should get on a bus to find work. Perhaps instead they should learn a foreign language… At a party recently I had an enjoyable chat with someone in the very top echelon of management at a higher education establishment. Their advice to me was to not bother [...]

I made such a big thing about the election this year and how Adrian Ramsay was on the brink of becoming the first Green MP or at best coming second. In the event he came 4th and the celebrated first went to Caroline Lucas. How did it go all horribly wrong! Activists seemed to be [...]