Holiday
WG’s Summer Cruise, June 2026 – Part Four
Saturday 20th June – At sea, heading for Gibraltar Today is my birthday and I am sure you all know the saying, “You are only as old as you feel.” Well, today I feel old [more…]
Summer 2026
Conservatives
Burnham’s Bee Bus Bollocks
A Multi-Million Pound Illusion Funded by Tories and Paid for by You Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham never misses an opportunity to boast about his socialist transport “revolution.” To hear him tell it, the Manchester [more…]
Animals
A View From (Just Outside) The Greenhouse; Birds Of A Feather
I’ve learned to kind of expect the unexpected where the greenhouse is concerned. There’s rarely a day goes by when there aren’t at least one or two (feathered) birds in there, struggling to find its [more…]
18th Century
John Buddle: the man who subdued the monster
He started working life down a pit age six, ran half the coalfield by his thirties, and built an entire harbour to spite his rivals. They called him the King of the Coal Trade, and [more…]
Holiday
WG’s Summer Cruise, June 2026 – Part Three
Sunday 14th June – At sea, off southern Portugal and into the Mediterranean When your intrepid diarist woke, it was still dark, but a tap on my iPad screen revealed it was 06:45. Then I [more…]
Arts
How Good it Was – End of Season Football Trips – The Weekend
Once we were all safely checked into the motel it was time to get ready for the evening’s activities. A digression here on the two main destinations: Port Stephens is about 150 miles north of [more…]
Arts
A Trip to the Summer Exhibition
London is still our capital with a wealth of artistic and architectural gems to explore so I like to visit a few times a year. So.. Mr A and I went to town on the [more…]
Engineering
Daniel Gooch: the Northumbrian who shrank the Atlantic
At 21 he was building the locomotives for Brunel’s Great Western Railway. Then he took Brunel’s Great Eastern and used it to lay the first lasting telegraph cable across the Atlantic. This is the man [more…]
Holiday
WG’s Summer Cruise, June 2026 – Part Two
Wednesday 10th June – Home to Southampton and to sea Very little to do this morning before leaving home. I did have to lug my suitcase downstairs from a spare bedroom where I had been [more…]