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 [...]

I’m not a consistent blogger (you’ll notice my last post was in May this year). I’m on Facebook but can go without logging-in for weeks at a time. & Twitter – well I did and probabaly won’t anymore. I’m coming to the end of an intense period of work and I might find some time [...]

Our eldest was away at Brownie camp on the North Norfolk coast at the weekend. It was her first time away from home by herself apart from friend sleepovers. On our way to collect her we made a family day-out with her younger sisters to Felbrigg Hall  where there’s a cool tree you can crawl into and climb [...]

Well so says the BBC and a host of other websites that have picked up on this ‘news’. And just like the global warming debate, commentators add their own ‘spin’ on the story and it’s become fact full stop, with headlines like ‘Why girls are naturally drawn to dolls as soon as they can crawl’ OK [...]

I have 3 daughters under 11. Until starting school the first one didn’t wear pink. As a baby many people thought she was a boy. But when she got to school it was suddenly pink & pink clothes, Barbies & fairy outfits and more pink. Before the first fairy outfit she was very imaginative with [...]

I mostly listen to Radio 4 – music doesn’t seem to feature much in my life currently. But I do listen to Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on Six Music on Sundays

Last weekend my daughter & I helped her school ‘grow a world record’.