Arts
RIP Jen the Blue (Wankpuffin of the Year)
As you probably know Mrs JtB contacted me today to let me know her husband had passed away. ‘Jen’ enjoyed winding me up about sending him a mug and succeeded until I realised that was [more…]
Culture
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 17
Ferdinand Marcos having been deposed and his People Power successor Corazon Aquino having failed to control the country, an election was due in May 1992. In which, fortunately, no one from the Aquino clan wanted [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 16
I’m thoroughly enjoying life in Davao City on one of the Southernmost islands of the Philippine archipelago, Mindanao. It is election time and our candidates are (General) Fidel Ramos for president and Rodrigo Duterte for [more…]
20th Century
An Afternoon at the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum
Although we moved from Yorkshire to the South Coast 38 years ago and despite living only two miles from his premises in New Milton, I had only once previously visited Sammy Miller’s wonderful motorcycle museum [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 15
As with America, I went back and forward, back and forward to the Philippine Islands for about five years, but will tell the tale as one continuous story, in situ over there, perhaps including an [more…]
Arts
Project Mower Refurb
It is the Easter holidays. The Missus is at work for the day, so I’m not being dragged around the shops, the kids are revising/ generally avoiding dad. I’ve pottered for a day or so [more…]
Arts
The Encyclopedia of Lost Languages
During my recent foray to visit some elderly relatives in Chemnitz, a place formerly known as Karl-Marx-Stadt (named after that famous German philosopher without whose political theories Herr Hitler would have been an impossibility), and [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 14
“Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we are just commencing our approach into Kai Tak international airport in Hong Kong, the weather is fine, during the approach we’ll have Kowloon City on the [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 13
Over chai in the subcontinent, balut in the tropics or roast swan in an Oxbridge refectory the topic of conversation might turn to ‘given the chance, would you kill baby Hitler?’ In Latin this would [more…]