It feels like I live in such strange times – lately I struggle to find words – it seems like the phrases I know won’t quite cover it. Why? Is is because the phrases I know are outdated and haven’t kept up with the times? No, I don’t think so. It’s more like the times […]

It’s a sweetly grey day – warm, dry, a fresh breeze that feels like cool water – and it should be my favourite sort of day, a time for reflection with a gentle edge of melancholy. Instead, the edge feels more like unease. The night before last I ran a small experiment on Twitter to […]

The news shows a pic of a burning carriage, and it’s part of the train I used to travel in – every day for a decade. One of my best reading, writing and people-watching places in CT. Laughed and struggled with commuters all along that line – through stoppages, storms, delays, holidays, Mondays, summer Fridays […]

So, what should we talk about, this page and I? The state of the world? Nah. From top to bottom, from East to West, it’s being run by the worst of us, so there’s nothing much to say there. I do all my talking, fence-mending and warnings before we choose, not after the fact. Besides […]

There’s a scene in one of my favourite films of all time, High Fidelity:  John Cusack’s character says that he can’t stay with the incredibly glamorous woman Charlie because she’s way too much for him – “you have to punch your weight”, he says. Today I think that he’s right. On another day I’d brush that […]

I come to everything late. Not meetings or appointments – no, more to things that most people take for granted. Not sure why that is, but it is, which is why I only stumbled across Anthony Bourdain about a decade ago. It was a second-hand copy of Kitchen Confidential looking up at me from the […]

If you’re invited onto a panel/show or to a debate, only to realise a few minutes in that you’re there as the fall-guy, please do the following:  Calm yourself to an almost comatose level of serenity – you’ll need it for step 2. If you’re constantly being interrupted, the chances are that your half-explained thoughts […]

So, my inner inkwell runs dry and I spend a week pouring every kind of thought onto the scabby surface to loosen something, anything. As usual, the solution presents itself while I’m looking away: a friend is tweeting daily reports on his bike tour around South Africa and he mentions a local chocolate drink favoured […]

Back when I was a moderator on forums and blogs were new territory. Rhymes-n-Reason Tue 27 Jul 2010, 15:57       Life and times of Letterdash Let me begin by saying that I have no stake in the current posts about Letterdash, and I admire the moderators of LD for their patience and dedication. Managing […]

Close your eyes and imagine this: Today is going to hit around 28 degrees, but humidity will make it feel much worse: there’s vital training to be done, so you set the alarm for 3am to catch a small window of cool stillness. By 3.15 you’re heading out into the fresh pre-dawn, and the only […]